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Comment by smaccona | Hacker News Reader

I have been somewhat conflicted/despairing about Taiwan’s response (only 77 cases and 1 death as of right now, 2020-Mar-17, despite reslly cloze ties with China and an almost equally early onset) since I read this: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2762689 a couple of weeks ago. Paragraph 2 is especially instructive. I have historically been dead against the type of cross referencing and identification this article discusses, but their capability for pulling multiple disparate sources together to allow tracing, categorization and enforced tracking of all individuals is massively impressive. We really need to either figure out a way to execute on these capabilities without revoking privacy, or else accept that some granting of privacy (whether to Google or another entity) will be inevitable.

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I've been posting that link in various comments on the web over the last week, it's a very interesting article. But Taiwan is not the US; they have shown a very healthy trend away from authoritarianism over the last 33 years since the lifting of Martial Law in 1987 (and the 40 years of 'White Terror' [1] that preceded it).

Also, on the question of authoritarianism, I think there is a case for greater tolerance of it during a defensive war, where a nation is battling for its survival. And I think a pandemic can be characterised as a defensive war against an invisible, completely merciless enemy. Not to say that blanket authoritarianism should be allowed but measures that make sense and help in the battle should be shown greater tolerance for a limited duration. Of course this is the whole idea behind (duration limited) emergency powers legislation. Going back to Taiwan, their 40 years of martial law also shows the risk of abuse, however I would describe the KMT as an invading power, not a native, somewhat trusted authority (as is more the case with their present, democratically elected government).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Terror_(Taiwan)

> however I would describe the KMT as an invading power, not a native, somewhat trusted authority (as is more the case with their present, democratically elected

A Taiwanese friend mentioned that the majority of indigenous peoples of Taiwan support the KMT rather than the DPP (the current party in power).

I suppose for them, all Han Taiwanese are “colonists” but the KMT gave them more benefits.

Even if we gave the feds access to cell phone data and even if we allowed them to cross reference it with border points of entry, it would be useless. Cellphone data doesn’t have a common data entry with info you give at the border, additionally even if that part worked: we don’t have a single EHRS. So getting that info to the people that need it would require some sorta convoluted fax scheme. Basically, there’s nothing we can use from what Taiwan did so don’t feel bad about it. (also at this point it’s no longer being spread by ppl coming from outside, its ppl inside the country giving it to each other.) We need to do two things to be ready for the next pandemic.

1) Come up with a system for tracking it at points of entry.

2) Create a system and process for containment once it’s no longer contained.

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