The bureaucrats at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention bought data from tracking companies to monitor Americans' locations in real-time during the reign of COVID, according to contracts obtained by the Epoch Times.

The CDC paid $420,000 to one company and $208,000 to another, gaining access to location data from a minimum of 55 million cellphone users, the purchase orders show.

The shocking and unsettling contracts were approved under emergency rules granted because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The CDC's purpose for purchasing the location data of American citizens was as follows:

This Contract will provide CDC with the necessary data to continue critical emergency response functions related to evaluating the impact of visits to key points of interest, stay at home orders, closures, re-openings and other public health communications related to social distancing, mask mandates, and other emerging research areas (social inequalities) on community transmission of SARS-CoV-2.

Mobility data are derived from the location of cell phones at various points in time and aggregated over time or geography or both to create various metrics that have been or will be used by CDC.

Specifically, CDC intends to use Contractor's Mobility Insights Data and services acquired through this Contract to 1) assess spatiotemporal trends of population mobility in the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic to evaluate the impacts of social distancing behaviors on COVID-19; 2) assess adherence during period of shelter-in-place by exploring the percentage of mobile devices at home during a specific period of time; 3) integrate with other data to provide a comprehensive picture of movement/travel of persons during the COVID-19 pandemic to better understand mandatory stay-at-home orders, business closures, school re-openings, and other non-pharmaceutical interventions in states and cities; and 4) monitor travel to vaccine distribution points of interest such as pharmacies.

CDC also plans to use Mobility Insights Data and services acquired through this Contract to support non-COVID-19 programmatic areas and public health priorities across the agency, including but not limited to travel to parks and greenspaces, physical activity and mode of travel, and population migration before, during, and after natural disasters. The Mobility Insights Data obtained under this Contract will be available for CDC agency-wide use and will support numerous CDC priorities.

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