A new investigation from Motherboard published earlier today reveals the Centers for Disease Control paid roughly $420,000 to a controversial, Peter Thiel-backed, data broker for a 12-month data subscription that helped monitor Americans’ movements during quarantine. Although it’s completely conceivable that this kind of anonymized personal information is extremely useful to track vaccine distribution, response efforts, and overall community adherence to public health guidance, it’s still a terrible look for the CDC after months’ of bad faith attacks courtesy of rightwing media pundits, antivaxxers, and QAnon cultists.
There’s really no great way to spin this one, unfortunately. If anything, it will only push skeptics and those susceptible to misinformation further down the rabbit hole. We’re not saying this kind of data is vital to combatting the (still ongoing) pandemic, but there’s got to be a less shady way to go about it all, right?
