Religion

Eugene

(62,658 posts) Sun Jul 21, 2019, 11:26 AM Jul 2019

Catholics in Iowa went to church. Steve Bannon tracked their phones.

Source: ThinkProgress

Catholics in Iowa went to church. Steve Bannon tracked their phones.

Campaigns have been using cell-phone location data for years. Did Bannon take it too far?

JOSHUA EATON
JUL 19, 2019, 8:00 AM

Steve Bannon and the conservative group CatholicVote used cell-phone location data for people who had been inside Roman Catholic churches in Dubuque, Iowa, in 2018 to target them with get-out-the-vote ads, ThinkProgress has learned.

Bannon, a former senior White House aide, made the claim in a deleted scene from the new documentary about him, The Brink. This scene has not been previously published.

“If your phone’s ever been in a Catholic church, it’s amazing, they got this data,” Bannon told director Alison Klayman as they sat in his Washington, D.C., home on the eve of the 2018 midterm elections.

“Literally, they can tell who’s been in a Catholic church and how frequently,” Bannon added. “And they got it triaged.”

Bannon did not respond to multiple phone calls and text messages seeking comment.

-snip-

4 replies

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Highlight:

Catholics in Iowa went to church. Steve Bannon tracked their phones. (Original Post) Eugene Jul 2019 OP

Is this a situation in which to use Backseat Driver Jul 2019 #1

With geofencing, they can approximate your phone's location when it contacts the tower. Eugene Jul 2019 #2

They may have repeaters inside the church as well. AtheistCrusader Jul 2019 #3

Catholic Churches long made an art of spying on themselves Bretton Garcia Jul 2019 #4

Backseat Driver

(4,635 posts)

1. Is this a situation in which to use

Reply to Eugene (Original post)

Sun Jul 21, 2019, 11:54 AM

Jul 2019

a VPN or other anti-tracking app on one's phone???

Eugene

(62,658 posts)

2. With geofencing, they can approximate your phone's location when it contacts the tower.

Reply to Backseat Driver (Reply #1)

Sun Jul 21, 2019, 12:12 PM

Jul 2019

Cell tower data is sold to advertisers. Turning on your phone's location setting with GPS only makes it easier. Also, Google's Android tracking privacy guarantees are practically worthless.

AtheistCrusader

(33,982 posts)

3. They may have repeaters inside the church as well.

Reply to Eugene (Reply #2)

Mon Jul 22, 2019, 09:42 AM

Jul 2019

'They' being the church, probably just trying to ensure better signal quality inside brick/masonry buildings, but the tighter the correlation of your phone to it's 'tower' (repeater or otherwise), the more valuable the location data in the hands of the phone company.

Bretton Garcia

(970 posts)

4. Catholic Churches long made an art of spying on themselves

Reply to Eugene (Original post)

Tue Jul 23, 2019, 03:54 AM

Jul 2019

Ordering each other to regularly go to Confession, to tell priests any bad things someone might have done.

But now cell phone tracking adds a new layer.

I think leaving your WiFi seeker on may also register with nearby businesses too. I regularly visit a store next to a blood donor center; and now I'm getting ads for blood donors.

The better or stronger phones, apps, will also monitor your conversations, and feed you ads for things you talked about.

And of course, Trump's growing police/"security" state loves it.

The NSA by the way, publicly said it can piggyback off such commercial programs. Some also say most robo calls serve an advertiser ...and as a subcontractor, or additional client, the NSA.

And Bannon, a good Catholic (?) with his MA in National Security, was on it.

But don't overlook Jared Kushner, and Brad Parscale (Sp?); Trump's internet computer snoops.

Religion often serves the State, whether it acknowledges that or not, says Sociology. The word "Islam" means "submission." In a region where Church and State were often one and the same.

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