In an era when the government is using cell phone data to track our movements, drones to enforce compliance of lockdown orders, thermal imaging to monitor social distancing, pastors are getting arrested for hosting church, and ankle bracelets to ensure people stay quarantined, a Federal Reserve official proposed today yet another surveillance plan; daily coronavirus testing for every citizen, and we publicly display badges showing if we tested negative or positive.
James Bullard, CEO of the St. Louis branch of the Federal Reserve, was recently on CBS’s Face The Nation with Margaret Brennan to talk about the state of the economy and what could be done to stem the outbreak of the virus. Toward the end of the interview, Bullard says,
“You know, I have good news for you, MARGARET, because we have a- there is a solution using available technology today to fix the economic part of this problem. The solution is universal testing. What you want is every single person to get tested every day. And then they would wear a badge like they would at a- after they voted or something like that to show that they’ve been tested. This would immediately sort out who’s been infected and who hasn’t been infected. That would help the health care sector. But it would also help the economy because we could interact with each other with a lot of confidence.”
Here he is on video saying it, with Brennan’s question leading in around the 5:30 mark (apparently the video production technicians at CBS couldn’t figure out how to get the volume right, so you’ll have to turn it up a bit):
Dantheman
Wearing identifying badges or insignia ought to work, it worked from 1938-1944 in Germany.