Morning Wire - CDC Tracked Americans’ Location Data | 5.5.22

Episode Date: May 5, 2022

The CDC tracked millions of Americans’ cell phone location data, Los Angeles is failing to clean up homeless encampments, and J.D. Vance wins Republican primary for Senate in Ohio. Get the facts first on Morning Wire. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

New documents show the CDC began tracking the location and movement of tens of millions of U.S. citizens during COVID. Who has the CDC been tracking and what information are they looking for? I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief John Bickley. It's Thursday, May 5th, and this is Morning Wire. Plans to clear up Los Angeles homeless encampments appear to be falling apart. What's behind the stalled progress and how are residents reacting? These are public places that have been a... Unfortunately, it's sometimes taken over as homeless camps,

and it creates public safety issues. People don't want to go visit, ride their bikes or jog, and so forth. And J.D. Vance surged ahead of both frontrunners to win the Republican nomination for Senate and Ohio. Ladies and gentlemen, it ain't the death of the America First Agenda. We'll tell you how we did it, and what his victory means for the GOP. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know.

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The CDC spent $420,000 on location data in order to track a number of things, including compliance with curfews and people visiting K-12 schools. Here to discuss the situation is Daily Wire Senior Editor Ash Short. So, Ash, what happened here? Walk us through this new information. Yeah, this is a concerning report. The CDC bought location data, which is sourced from a person's phone and can show where they travel, including where they live and work. Now, the data the CDC has was aggregated, which meant it would only show broad movements and trends. But that data could theoretically be used to track specific individuals, and the CDC had information from at least

20 million people who actively use their cell phones. 20 million people. Wow. What did the CDC do with this data? The documents, which were obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request from vices motherboard, show the agency used the data to hourly monitor activity in COVID-19 curfew zones. They also checked the number of people visiting participating pharmacies and for vaccine monitoring. The CDC also listed a number of, quote, potential use cases for the data, which included tracking the patterns of people who visited K-12 schools and comparing those patterns to 2019 numbers. Another potential use case involved examining the correlation between people's movements and a rise in COVID-19 cases. So was this all focused entirely on COVID-19?

It doesn't look like it was limited to COVID-19, no. The documents indicated that the CDC used research data for, quote, physical activity and chronic disease prevention, such as visits to parks, gyms, or weight management businesses. So the tracking wasn't limited to the pandemic? Doesn't look that way. In addition to tracking physical activity, the CDC said it also planned to use the mobility data for, quote, non-COVID-19 programmatic areas and public health priorities, including the monitoring of people traveling to green spaces, their modes of travel, and quoting here, population migration before, during, and after natural disasters. The information gathered would be available for everyone at the CDC. Motherboards spoke with a cybersecurity expert who said, quote, the CDC seems to have purposefully created an open-ended list of use cases, which included monitoring curfews, neighbor-to-neighbor visits, visits to churches, schools and pharmacies, and also a variety of analysis with this data specifically focused on

violence. Really? So now that the pandemic, particularly the lockdowns and mandates, are mostly over, what will the CDC do with this data? It looks like they plan to continue tracking American phones. The agency said it has a quote, interest in continued access to this mobility data as the country opens back up. The CDC also said the data was used by several teams and groups during the pandemic response, which resulted in deeper insights into the pandemic as it pertains to human behavior. What does this all mean for privacy concerns? It's definitely a concern for those who worry about being tracked.

As I mentioned earlier, the data bought by the CDC doesn't show the location of specific devices, but search results can point to specific locations, which could allow someone with nefarious intent to use the data to unmask individual users. Multiple researchers have been able to show this is possible using this type of data. Well, it's certainly concerning. We'll have to keep an eye on this. Ash, thanks for the reporting. Anytime. That's Daily Wire, Senior Editor, Ash Short.

Coming up, Los Angeles is failing to clean up homeless encampments. This show is sponsored by Tessa Maze. Need a flavor upgrade? Tessa Maze is a flavor-forward food company that makes clean label, organic products with uncompromising quality ingredients. Their commitment to healthy eating and living is at the core of their mission. See all of the amazing products they have to offer today at www.tessamaze.com. Despite voting in measures last year to clear homeless encampments from sidewalks,

Angeles is making little progress, and residents are getting fed up. L.A. residents have long complained to their public officials about the homeless issue, but so far, progress has been disappointing. On Tuesday, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted to create a new government department to coordinate the county's response to homelessness. Daily Wire investigative reporter Morayette Alorty joins us to discuss why the city's efforts have been so futile. So, Marade, why is L.A. having such a difficult time handling the homeless problem? Yeah, so Los Angeles officials did promise last year that the city would start clearing away some of the homeless encampments from L.A.'s public areas.

But it turns out they made the promise without resources to back it up. In early July, the Los Angeles City Council voted to allow a camping ban for certain public properties. This would allow the city to start clearing the homeless encampments, which at this point seem like they've become a permanent fixture of the city. However, the plan had a very slow start, and even in places where the city is supposedly implementing it, the homeless encampments seem to linger. And do we have numbers on the homeless population in L.A.? The latest numbers are from the 2020 count. In 2020, L.A. County's homeless population jumped 12% over the previous year. The city of L.A.'s homeless population jumped by 14% in

2020. The 2022 count concluded in February and results are expected to be released over the summer. At the beginning of 2019, Los Angeles County had nearly 59,000 homeless people. A year later in 2020, there were more than 66,000. The city's homeless population is second only to New York City. Okay, so what happened to the plan to clean up encampments? So the Los Angeles Times started looking into what was wrong with the program after residents got more and more exasperated about the situation. The paper found that outreach workers have struggled to convince homeless people to leave voluntarily. Another issue was not enough outreach workers to begin with.

The city bought and set up more than 100 permanent. metal signs warning homeless people about the deadline to move out of the public areas, but the signs have not been overly helpful. People simply ignore the signs. There also wasn't really anywhere for that many homeless people to go once they left the parks and sidewalks. L.A. doesn't have enough homeless shelters, tiny homes, or hotel rooms for homeless people, and even if they did, there aren't enough outreach workers to help move people into them. All this means that even months after the camping ban went into effect in these public areas, many homeless makeshift shelters remain indefinitely. Now, is law enforcement involved at all in enforcing these rules?

Not really. Police have rarely issued tickets to homeless people for not leaving past the camping ban deadline. In fact, the LAPD reported that it has issued only two citations for camping in a no camping zone. Meanwhile, there isn't enough room in jails to arrest everyone, and arresting everyone would not be in line with the city's promise to find a compassionate solution to the homeless problem. This has been a long-standing issue in L.A., especially since L.A.'s drug addiction and mental health problem goes hand in hand with the city's homeless problem. Many homeless people have addiction and mental health issues and they often refuse to stay in shelters even when they're put there. Now, how much money has been spent on this issue? A lot. In June, Mayor Eric Garcetti

signed the city's 11 billion budget that included nearly one billion for the homeless crisis. Hundreds of millions have been spent on housing and rent support. One housing project is set to cost as much as 837,000 for each housing unit, a city audit revealed. Right. This is becoming a really expensive problem for L.A. and other cities too. Marade, thanks for reporting. Thanks, Georgia. That's Daily Wire investigative reporter, Marade Allardy. Political newcomer J.D. Vance won the Republican primary in Ohio Tuesday.

He is vying to replace retiring Senator Rob Portman. His come from behind when was widely viewed as the first real real estate. test of a Trump endorsement in 2022. Joining us to discuss the Ohio Senate primary is Daily Wires Tim Pierce. Now, Tim, you've been covering the midterm races. Tell us about Ohio. Sure, Georgia. Ohio was the first primary of the election season and was closely watched by the political and pundit class. Former hedge fund businessman and first-time candidate J.D. Vance received a pretty big shot of momentum in the final weeks of his campaign. Former President Donald Trump endorsed him on April

15th, just three weeks shy of the primary. Vance trailed in the polls throughout the primary and looked like he was headed for a second or third place finish. Back in March, he was getting about half the support of either of the two frontrunners, former state treasurer Josh Mandel and businessman Mike Gibbons. Then on Tuesday, Vance won the primary by a healthy eight-point margin. The question presented in this primary was, do we want to have a border that protects our citizens? Do we want to ship our jobs to China or keep them right here in America for American workers and the American people? Do we want a Republican party that stands for the donors who write checks to the club for growth, or do we want a Republican Party for the people right here in Ohio? Ladies and gentlemen, we just answer the question.

Interesting. Now, Vance was also a never-Trumper at one point, so how did he turn that around and get the former president's endorsement? Well, it wasn't easy, but Vance was able to convince the former president that he supported a lot of the populist issues important to Trump. Plus, Vance had the support of several high-profile people, including Tucker Carlson and Donald Trump Jr. Vance also had the financial backing and early support of Peter Thiel, the billionaire co-founder of PayPal and an early Facebook investor. By the end of the primary, Teal had put a record $15 million toward the pro-Vance effort, the largest amount of money ever given by one person to a single Senate candidate. And in addition to his own money, Till helped draw on other big dollar investors to support Vance's campaign, like venture capitalist David Sachs, who dropped a million dollars on Vance's SuperPack. Now, this is Vance's first run for political office, but he was already a national figure before this because of his best-selling memoir, Hillbilly Elegie.

Now, do you feel like that played into the campaign at all? Yeah, Vance first became prominent for his 2016 memoir about growing up in Appalachia in a community torn apart by the opiate crisis. That background helped Vance connect with a lot of rural and Rust Bell voters and informed his populist campaign stances. His book was later turned into a big Hollywood film starring A. Lister Amy Adams and Glenn Close. Now, who will Vance face off with in a general election? And what are his chances of actually winning? Vance will face Democratic Congressman Tim Ryan and the general. Ryan is a moderate Democrat who flamed out pretty early in the 2020 presidential primaries.

While Ryan has represented Ohio in the U.S. House for about a decade, it's hard to see how he beats Vance in the general. As unpopular as President Joe Biden and the Democrats are right now. Now, another really interesting race in Ohio on Tuesday was the Democratic primary for Ohio's 11th district. In that race we saw progressive Nina Turner taking on the moderate incumbent, Chantelle Brown. What did we learn from that race? That race was billed as the battle for the soul of the Democratic Party because it pitted the progressive candidate who was endorsed by Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, against the moderate candidate Chantal Brown, who was endorsed by Hillary Clinton. Brown won the race handily, and that was seen as a blow to the progressive left wing of the party.

So a pretty interesting kickoff to the primary season. Tim, thanks for reporting. My pleasure. That's Daily Wire reporter, Tim. Pierce. Other stories we're tracking this week. Comedian Dave Chappelle was attacked on stage during his show at the Hollywood Bowl on Tuesday night after a man threw himself at the comedian who was forced to the ground. The European Commission has suggested a plan to slowly get rid of Russian oil imports, prohibiting oil imports after six months and refined petroleum items by the

year's end. And the Federal Reserve on Wednesday raised its benchmark interest rate by a half point for the first time in two decades. The move is an effort to take control over record inflation. Thanks for listening to Morning Wire. We created this show to bring more balance to the national conversation. If you love our show and you stand with our mission, please consider subscribing, leaving us a five-star rating, and most importantly, sharing our podcast with a friend. Well, that's all the time we've got this morning. Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back tomorrow with the news you need to know. If you like this podcast, subscribe to our Morning Wire newsletter, exclusively to DailyWire members.

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