What intelligence would be gained from the poorest 10% of the US? I'd imagine it is more useful to marketers than actual intelligence agencies (which is in fact who is doing it).
These seem like imaginings based on too little thought and too much paranoia. But whenever "China" comes up, even if it is just a company located there, we get these exact same popular statements without justification.
The scenarios are obvious and virtually limitless. For example:
This low-income person drives to Langley, VA every night at 11pm. He might be a janitor at the CIA. We already know he's poor because he has this phone. Can we find out more and potentially bribe him to leave this ordinary-looking pen in a conference room?
Seems like a stretch. If you really want to find the CIA's janitor just drive a passive cellular monitor near it and grab everyone's IMEI and cross-check it. Plus if someone has a full time job with security clearance working for the USG they likely aren't getting a free phone anyway.
I'm not a spy or imaginative enough to lay out a scenario, but remember if someone has a security clearance, then someone, who is assumed to be the Chinese government, likely has their entire file (clearance investigation, fingerprints, you name it) due to the Office of Personnel Management having everything stolen. So this could be used in synergy with any other tactics applied to CIA agents who aren't compromised by the OPM or people without clearances.
These seem like imaginings based on too little thought and too much paranoia. But whenever "China" comes up, even if it is just a company located there, we get these exact same popular statements without justification.