the divided and the conquered
In The Dark Knight, Bruce Wayne in his dogged determination to find the Joker creates a device that uses SONAR to turn all cell phones in Gotham into tracking devices that can map and pinpoint the location of anyone within Gotham City. Lucius Fox, the canary in the mine, tenders his resignation in protest of the existence of said machine.
When Singapore made TraceTogether compulsory on May 17th, I immediately thought about that machine in The Dark Knight. But I wanted to give the government as much charity as possible, so I decided to look at the facts and see if I was overreacting. On a re-examination, I thought it would not be so bad after all. First, the data in the tokens were self contained, and they couldn't be used unless the government got ahold of the tokens themselves; second, the tokens used Bluetooth and cannot transmit the data via the internet; and finally third, and most importantly, the government had promised that the data from TraceTogether would only be used for contact tracing.
But it turned out they had lied about that. In January this year, the government was forced to admit they had used TraceTogether data in a criminal investigation, and amended the privacy policy on the TraceTogether website, almost a full year after people had started using it. In February the government introduced a bill in parliament to restrict the use of TraceTogether data to serious offences. Singaporeans grumble, but once again cede their civil rights in aid of the "greater good". Fighting crime is an important endeavour was it not? The usual refrains are heard again. "If you do nothing wrong you have nothing to hide." Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. And so we inched ever closer to the device in the Dark Knight.
But Batman had his canary in the mine, Lucius Fox, to warn him when he was going too far. What does the Singapore government have? Minister Balakrishnan stated he had not contemplated section 20 of the Criminal Procedure Act (CPC) when he made his promise last year in June. So either he was lying about that, or he was incompetent at his job. Which was it? Either way it is a bad look. But even with the charity of merely calling him incompetent, how long was the government planning to hide that TraceTogether data was being used in a criminal investigation? Were they not going to reveal it the moment they realised the data was being used? And why not just exempt the data from section 20 of the CPC once they discovered this alleged oversight? If fighting the pandemic is as important as they claim, if TraceTogether is as necessary as they claim, if public participation in the program was as essential as they claim, then it begs the question of why not just exempt it from the act. That would assuage any doubts the public has about TraceTogether. It really begs the question, how sincere is the government at fighting this pandemic?
That was the first broken promise. The second broken promise came on the 17th of May, when the government effectively makes TraceTogether mandatory, despite saying that they would try their best efforts not to do so. Note that TraceTogether is not de jure mandatory, there is no law requiring you to carry the token or download the application, but it is de facto mandatory, by removing Safe Entry as the alternative you have to carry around the token or download the application to access most if not all public spaces. Minister Balakrishnan being a politician, if you listen to him carefully he does not actually promise not to make TraceTogether mandatory, but he says he would try his best not to make it mandatory. Before that he of course goes on a whole spiel about what is done in law and not in law, before making his point, and it is now very clear why he did that. I will not accuse the government of planning to make TraceTogether mandatory from the beginning, but I will say this: if you break a promise once it looks like a mistake, but break a few more it starts to look like a habit.
So I ask again, where is the canary in the coal mine for the government? There have to be limiting principles to every new policy implemented, especially policies which infringe so heavily on our civil liberties. But ask Singaporeans on the street about these, the common response will be "Singapore where got civil liberties?" This is not an uncommon refrain. The idea that we trade away some freedoms to have an orderly society is a popular notion in Singapore. But there has to be a limit to how much of our freedoms are we willing to cede to the government.
On the 2nd August, the government issued a further clarification about the powers of safe-distancing enforcement officers (SDEOs), and their powers to search premises without warrants. As usual, there was the uproar online about the news, but then barely a peep from Singaporeans otherwise. Predictably, Singaporeans did not take to the streets like Hong Kongers. What is the limiting principle to this? When will the government declare that the pandemic is over? Will they ever declare the pandemic is over? There is a saying in politics: never let a good crisis go to waste. Words which our current government seem to hold much store by.
There is now a further push to segregate the population by the vaccinated and unvaccinated. Only the vaccinated shall be given privileges, the full extent is yet unknown, but span from dining out to air travel. Once again the government flexes its powers, and the people of Singapore cheer on the further erosion of civil liberties. There is a move by the Building and Construction Authority in Singapore to mandate that the unvaccinated wear a visual identifier on construction sites after the 18th of August. The government will have you believe that it is the unvaccinated that is holding everyone back from reopening, and not the government themselves. They need a common enemy to rally against, and the unvaccinated provide an easy target. Sun Tze would be proud, divide and conquer at its finest. When the people are too busy investigating one another, or too busy blaming one another for their troubles, they will overlook every incompetence and every misstep of our government.
You might say: the unvaccinated have a choice to get vaccinated, it really is on them that they are holding up the entire reopening. But that would be an incredibly one dimensional understanding of the situation as it stands. Let me first say I understand why people would want to get vaccinated. From all available data, the vaccines are a miracle: they work incredibly well against the virus, and statistically speaking (or as far as we know from the available data) death or fatal injury is an incredibly small risk. But there are reasons against getting the vaccine as well. Part of modern discourse is to throw labels on people in attempts to discredit or ridicule their arguments, without giving any charity or nuance to the opposing views. "Anti-vaxxer" is a convenient label because of the anti-scientific connotation it brings, in this day it is the equivalent of calling someone a Nazi. There's not much you can say to a Nazi, you punch them in the face and get on with your day. Calling someone an anti-vaxxer similarly shuts down all possible discourse.
But consider the following arguments:
There have yet to be any longitudinal studies for the vaccine. This is of course understandable, the vaccines were pushed out at great speed and it would be impossible for there to have been any long term testing to see if there are any side effects from the vaccine. If one is cautious about taking the vaccine, this might be the top reason why. People are quick to point out that the same reasoning could equally be applied to COVID 19, and you have no idea if there are any long lasting effects from contracting the virus. Given the two unknowns, the only remaining factor in informing one's decision is one's risk appetite: would you risk the unknown long term side effects (if any, and however unlikely) of the vaccine, which is a certainty if you take the vaccine, or risk the long term side effects of COVID 19 (as yet unknown) which will only apply if you contract the virus?
Which brings me to the second point, the situations in Singapore is vastly different from the situations in many other parts of the world. If you live in a major city in the USA or UK, it is worlds different from if you live in Singapore. People like to act as if the pandemic is equally serious everywhere in the world, but that is simply not true. To claim otherwise would to be presenting an argument completely divorced from reality. If you are living in a country or area in which it is highly likely you contract COVID 19, your risk assessment of the situation would be highly different from if you were living in Singapore. It is so much less likely for you to contract COVID 19 in Singapore than any of those other countries. Given the different risk profiles of individuals, it is understandable that people will be more hesitant in taking a vaccine with unknown long term side effects, and take their chances with a virus with potential long term side effects.
There is an argument to be made about negative externalities. Anyone who refuses to take the vaccine would be generating a negative externality, because they are far more likely to carry and pass on the virus. There is a societal cost to having unvaccinated people: first, the cost of healthcare, and the bed space that unvaccinated people might take if they contract COVID 19; second, the increased possibility of spreading COVID 19 given that they are unvaccinated. The solution to the first cost is for the government to stop paying for COVID 19 treatments for people who do not get the vaccines. This also provides financial incentive for people to get vaccinated, which would factor into their risk calculation above. As for bed space, the free market will take care of that. This will be yet another factor for the unvaccinated to consider in their risk assessment, will there be sufficient bed space if they contract COVID 19? And for the vaccinated, this shouldn't matter too much, why should you care about any of the above? The vaccines by any available data are highly effective against death or serious illness, and reduce the chance to get infected by a significant amount. If anything the unvaccinated should be afraid of you. I have yet to meet an unvaccinated person who is clamouring for more lockdowns, more masking, and more segregation to be better protected in society.
With all these new restrictions, and further segregation and division of the population, the government is further justified in increased surveillance and monitoring of its populace. They can justify having SDEOs conducting warrantless searches to ensure that the rules are complied with. If you refuse to defend the most basic civil liberties of your fellow man just because you think that it is in some way "for the greater good", then you must accept when your own civil liberties are encroached upon. And without any sort of limiting principles, there is no end in sight to these infringements.
Vaccine passports have been rolled out in other parts of the world. In Israel, they were introduced in February, and barely three months later they have now been rendered obsolete. The enforcement of the passports were not strict, and it has quelled the initial protests that these passports would be a perpetual control mechanism introduced by the government. In France, while the people are largely pro-vaccination, they are overwhelmingly anti vaccine passport, very much in line with their vision of protecting the concept of liberté.
If you are comforted by the fact that Israel had proved that temporary measures can indeed be temporary, remember that we are neither in Israel nor in France. The people will not take to the streets like in France to defend their liberties. We don't need to look very far back into our past to see how temporary legislation can easily become permanent. Remember that the Internal Security Act (ISA), which is easily the most invasive legislation to our civil liberties in Singapore, started out as a temporary legislation in 1948 as the Emergency Regulations Ordinance to combat the communists, and its successor was the Preservation of Public Security Ordinance (PPSO) in 1955 which was in response to the Hock Lee bus riots. The ISA was passed in 1963 as the successor to the PPSO, retaining much of the same powers in the PPSO. The debates over the ISA in then Malaysia (which Singapore was a part of) stated the act would be used only against communist insurgents. Know that the act is still in force in Singapore to this day.
It is easier to prevent something from being put in place than to remove it. Politicians know this, it is way easier to remove a tax than to reimpose it. I do not have trust in this government to relinquish power at the end of the pandemic and remove all emergency provisions that they had put in place. The canary has long since died. It is time to get out of the mine, if it isn't too late.