Big Brother Tech: Swallow your medicine, it tracks you.
In a video from the Davos World Economic Forum, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla talks about a pill containing a chip that sends a wireless signal to the “relevant authority.”
“Imagine the compliance,” he says. Whenever someone says “compliance” like this it gives me the chills.
I don’t know the details of this technology, but I tend to look at these new developments through the lens of what an authoritarian government could do with them. I helped the U.S. government spy on people in other countries for 12 years. That is a function of government, to gather intelligence on external threats, accepted and justified. But it is NOT the function of the U.S. government to spy on its own citizens
With recent revelations about the FBI, CIA and DHS collecting data on American citizens and intending to control information to the American public, contrary to the rules of engagement that I understood during my tenure and contrary to the Fourth Amendment of our Constitution, we should be nervous about this. We should question every new technology that comes along.
Even with the intended application of the technology, we are on that slippery slope. Americans are free to take their medication or not take it. What happens in the case of “noncompliance”? When will we be in a state where taking our medicine is subject to “compliance” and what enforcement actions will be forthcoming? Will Covid vaccines be subject to “compliance”? Flu shots? Happy pills?
I suppose one could argue that this would be good for people who are senile, or to monitor to see whether someone has taken the wrong medicine. But these are problems easily solved externally. Do we want a more intrusive process just because we are too lazy to make less intrusive processes work properly.
The worst part of writing an article like this is that there is no substantial political support for the right to privacy. Neither political party seems to think it is important and all are perfectly willing to violate the privacy of the average citizen when convenient to meet a political goal that might get more votes in the short term. There is no balance on this issue, as we were promised in our two-party system. Congressmen who will stand up for this are few and far between, and no part of the executive branch has been designed to protect privacy for American citizens.
I experience the same feeling of chagrin when I wrote the article Disinformation Board is “Paused” – But Where Is the Rage? Do Americans see the danger of a government body attempting to control infromation?
Americans take their freedoms too much for granted.
We may come to regret that.
I don’t trust much new technology. And yes, the government does spy on us. And it’s proven that government people actually record tag numbers from people’s vehicles when they attend a gun show. I’ve actually seen this. I once took a picture of my plates and emailed it to the fbi and told them what gun show I was attending. Really happened. They emailed me back and thanked me. The best way is to confront them but don’t say anything that would cause you trouble. I’m just sorry that it’s became them against us. I refuse to live in fear and intimidation
I agree with your comments. I can remember when I read 1984 for the first time. I remember saying to myself, after I was through reading, ” Wow! I wish I had some of what Orwell was smokin’ when he wrote this! The plausibility of such a thing actually becoming reality was, to me, incomprehensible, but, yet, here we are. Orwell’s view is becoming more of a reality every day.
Nothing surprises me anymore. The options are only limited by government’s imagination and the extent of it’s paranoia.
There is another thing that troubles me, specifically the fact that the vast majority of the electronics we have come to rely on (tablets, lap tops, cell phones, etc) are manufactured in countries such as China with associated components in a number of other countries. I am not a programmer, but, I know enough to know that things can be embedded into programs to do other things than what the program is intended to do and each electronic device basically has a machine program which allows the device to function and a functional program which allows the device to serve a specific purpose, so who knows what is being tracked by whom when we use our cell phones for example. Just a thought.
Well, as a paranoid delusional tin foil hatted tighty whitey knicker knotted scaredy cat, you would be top priority for the pill.
This fucking stupid story has been going around since before the covid vaccines came out. It formed one of the foundations of the “government is tracking you via the vaccines” Trumplicant myth from the founders of The Big Lie and other fabrications.
You are a very bad journalist not to background check your own fucking story which you must have dragged out of the Joe-slow-news day-compost heap. The tape has nothing to do with what you are saying is happening.
He made that tape a number of years ago. It is really old news and has been fact-checked by everyone. Except those, like you, that don’t operate on facts to make their money. It is also talking about a schizophrenia pill, not some sort of Orwellian control pill that jack-booted thugs force down your throat like Neo got in The Matrix. There is no mention of the government buying or using this technology. “Compliance” in this case does not even come close to the bullshit you are suggesting. Compliance, in this case, simply means proof that you took the pill will help people comply with the pill regimen. Even that is marketing bullshit since there is no proof yet that it works. Lastly, and this is a big one Joe, that of course you totally missed apparently because you were busy keeping your head firmly up your ass looking for gps trackers that you think you consumed with your morning crackheadberry cereal. The pill noted in the tape was FDA approved in 2017 for gaining a better readout on compliance for pill taking by sending a signal after the pill was digested. The signal says the pill is digested…. The signal is extremely weak and is transmitted to a patch that actually transmits to the satellite. I am pretty sure the user knows they are bugged, it requires a freaking patch.
So besides being totally misinformed how the technology works, misunderstanding what was being said, being 5-years late to the table but without any new information over that printed in 2017, your missing the definition of compliance in this case, and your stupid regurgitating of age-old conspiracy theories that have been with us since 2017, I think you were spot on for one of the most ill-informed pieces of yellow journalism ever. Can be used a the disinformation poster child by the refluxed Disinformation Police. Thanks for giving them new purpose, you propagandist.
One could call this story a journalistic abortion. Still born thank God. In this case, you have been tossing this factual fetus around the Trumplicant blogosphere, known as the Dim Web, for 5 years which I guess makes your piece incestual at best. Rape of the truth for sure. I really thought you guys were against that.
Joe, this one is really bad. Really poor research and sourcing. Should be penalized it’s so misleading. Do you really need the money that bad you have to piss upwind like this just to attract the loonies?
Funny though, ever since you posted this, pbp website has been up and down. Interesting….
Eric, you sure have a mouth on you. Why should someone take what you have to say seriously if you can’t communicate like a gentleman? Whether this particular story is true or not doesn’t matter to me. Our government has demonstrated many times that they have little regard for the Bill of Rights, and I believe that is something to be concerned about, don’t you?
Yes Richard, I do. And yes, I speak to what I know to be true. I observed this at a gun show in Tennessee. And others say the same things. But I only testified to what I know. I also realize that many conspiracy theories are bullshit. But there’s a movement on to kill the bill of rights and put Americans under dictatorship. And yes, I strongly believe that democrats are on board with the plan.
A gentleman is a guy who works as a gynecologist without getting a hard on.
Wait, Dick Long is talking about being a gentleman? The guy’s a Dick, get over it
;:<)
I then he says, who cares if the fuckin story is fake news;,our govt. is….. Right, he didn’t even need the story so what the fuck does he care about the language?
Oh my
What the fuck and you babbling about?
Ben likes dicks long
Eric replies to himself for self abuse. He!s a master debater. He has very short paragraphs and is envious of the long ones.
Frank, talk about paranoid delusional, you are the liberal who has become the pet troll of a conservative site.
And maybe you don’t understand the word “wireless”
And perhaps you don’t understand that there are versions of this that are not as intrusive, do your own research.
Ben I know that you like the long ones
John, I bet you do know a lot about how other men feel about dicks.
*Cell phones
Now that’s a slam done right!!!
Feel the burn.
Poned!
+10 for that one.
It’s been proven but why waste time on dumb and dumber? I’ve seen it.