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Covid Red Flag laws are visibly on the horizon in the United States. Specifically, New York has AB A416 sitting in committee right now. It’s a piece of legislation that reeks of dictatorship.
Let’s start with this:
“2. UPON DETERMINING BY CLEAR AND CONVINCING EVIDENCE THAT THE HEALTH
OF OTHERS IS OR MAY BE ENDANGERED BY A CASE, CONTACT OR CARRIER, OR
SUSPECTED CASE,CONTACT OR CARRIER OF A CONTAGIOUS DISEASE THAT, IN THE
OPINION OF THE GOVERNOR, AFTER CONSULTATION WITH THE COMMISSIONER, MAY
POSE AN IMMINENT AND SIGNIFICANT THREAT TO THE PUBLIC HEALTH RESULTING
IN SEVERE MORBIDITY OR HIGH MORTALITY, THE GOVERNOR OR HIS OR HER DELE-
GEE, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE COMMISSIONER OR THE HEADS OF
LOCAL HEALTH DEPARTMENTS, MAY ORDER THE REMOVAL AND/OR DETENTION OF SUCH
A PERSON OR OF A GROUP OF SUCH PERSONS BY ISSUING A SINGLE ORDER, IDEN-
TIFYING SUCH PERSONS EITHER BY NAME OR BY A REASONABLY SPECIFIC
DESCRIPTION OF THE INDIVIDUALS OR GROUP BEING DETAINED. SUCH PERSON OR
GROUP OF PERSONS SHALL BE DETAINED IN A MEDICAL FACILITY OR OTHER APPRO-
PRIATE FACILITY OR PREMISES DESIGNATED BY THE GOVERNOR OR HIS OR HER
DELEGEE AND COMPLYING WITH SUBDIVISION FIVE OF THIS SECTION.”
Now isn’t that just something?? This is a Red Flag law if I ever saw one. First of all, as we’d pointed out with the Red Flag laws pertaining to our Second Amendment rights, this is a potential law that makes it legal to snitch without providing any evidence whatsoever. Secondly this crappy piece of legislation allows for people to snitch if they barely suspect someone might have COVID. A sneeze could send a Karen running for the tip line! Think I’m wrong? How many Karens have we seen all over social media these last nine months??
This proposed Covid Red Flag bill completely allows for the snitch to provide a description of the malingerer and not one damned thing in said legislation allows for authorities to investigate whether the allegations have merit BEFORE detention.
Here are some additional “highlights” of this atrocious legislation.
In other words, detention with zero due process and Miranda without any of the Miranda Rights.
Does this enrage you and send chills up and down your spine? If it isn’t, it damned well should!
New York Senate proposed bill
— President-Elect NottaLemming (@NottaLemming) December 30, 2020
To round people up who are suspected of being a health risk to others and putting them in facilities designated by the governor. Mere Suspicion & a “reasonable description” of a person is all that is required.https://t.co/DNs1UZ4Kqb
There are major MAJOR Constitutional concerns embedded in this legislation. This Wuhan lung flu rot has brought attention to how states do and DON’T protect our Constitutional rights.
Michigan, Kentucky, California, Ohio, Minnesota, Illinois, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, AND New York are prime examples of how the arbitrary lockdown mandates (NOT LAWS) have stripped us of our Constitutional rights.
The Wall Street Journal insists that our Constitution will be able to survive COVID.
“Universal, open-ended stay-at-home mandates and general economic shutdowns are unprecedented in America. The former amount to the imposition of house arrest on vast numbers of people without due process or any provision for basic needs. They raise important constitutional issues involving freedom of assembly, due process and equal protection.
Mandating how many individuals can meet in one’s home, as some states did in time for Thanksgiving, is particularly difficult to justify. If the government can regulate your dinner guests, what can’t it do? Although the government has imposed location-specific curfews in times of war and civil disorder to address specific public-safety concerns, protracted populationwide curfews directed at more-nebulous threats will be difficult to justify.”
But justify those mandates has been the go-to for every state with mandates, whether they make sense or not! Need groceries – head to the store! Shut down small businesses just because! Want to dine out?? Sure! As long as it’s take-out, or in a bubble tent of some sort while sitting on a side walk in a blizzard, or by delivery. Oh but WAIT. If your customer gets a to-go order and has the audacity to sit outside your place on a city bench to eat – it’s ticket time!
A restaurant owner in CA blockades health inspector's car in protest after receiving citation for OUTDOOR dining.
— Young Americans for Liberty (@YALiberty) December 28, 2020
"This is what happens when people get desperate. I'm desperate." pic.twitter.com/syWNZXzLeN
Justice Alito spoke of these very issues just last month.
“The pandemic has resulted in previously unimaginable restrictions on individual Liberty.
~Snip
We have never before seen restrictions as severe, extensive and prolonged as those experienced for most of 2020.
~Snip
The COVID crisis has served as a sort of constitutional stress test and in doing so, it has highlighted disturbing trends that were already present before the virus struck.
~Snip
One of these is the dominance of lawmaking by executive fiat, rather than legislation.”
Read IT ALL. Given this proposed legislation from New York, it is clear that our Republic is in trouble and our Constitution is being stomped on with steel toed boots.
People can loot and riot for over six months and no one says a word about the virus. Far too many politicians and celebrities have been running a ‘do as I demand, not as I do’ in regards to all the covid mandates.
The ACLU has been glaringly silent regarding how the mandates are stripping us of our civil liberties.
Goons can terrorize people in their vehicles in New York City, but won’t be detained.
Typical day in New York City!#NewYorkCity #Manhattan @NYPDnews @NYCMayor pic.twitter.com/ILvzsbtS56
— NY Actions (@NY_ACTIONS) December 30, 2020
Covid on the other hand… one phone call is all it will take and someone will be detained whether they actually have the virus or not.
Remember when we were told that rumors of virus camps was ridiculous?
Given this proposed legislation in the state of New York, should it pass there will be a Covid Red Flag law in place and some type of virus camp in the state.
So, in answer to the Wall Street Journal’s assertion. If this legislation is passed, our Constitution and our Republic will be shaken…UNLESS our Supreme Court stands firm and knocks it down.
Welcome Instapundit Readers!
Feature Photo Credit: Closed padlock with US Flag on face mask by Ivan Marc, Royalty-free stock photo ID: 1707159697 via Shutterstock, cropped and modified
kilgore trout says: They are just testing this type of legislation. The goal is to create similar legislation as it pertains to climate change. Liberals want to be able to snatch us off the street if we don’t recycle, use gasoline, sell gasoline, deny climate change exists.
Robin H says: There will always be contagious diseases, so once Covid is over there will be another one that they will use to control us. This needs to be nipped in the bud and fast or we will never be free again.
Jews of New York City – take note. The Second Holocaust approaches. What will you do THIS time that your older relatives did not?
werewife says: Oh, for the Love of Life Orchestra, you are right, and I’m appalled. And too many of my fellow Modern Orthodox are content to ignore the targeting of the more visible, less polished Haredim … just like Europe in the last century. Nobody listens to us Jeremiahs, and it’ll be almost two years before my planned departure for a freer, saner state….
[…] Police Force, also, Marine Corps Starts Fielding 30,000 Suppressors To Combat Units Victory Girls: COVID Red Flag Laws Coming To A State Near You Volokh Conspiracy: Judge Robert Pratt Shoots Off His Mouth About Trump’s Pardons Weasel […]
Steve in PA says: That this proposed piece of legislation violates the Constitutional prohibition against bills of attainder set forth in Article I, Section 10, Clause 1), (see, e.g., Ex parte Garland) is self-evident. The questions is thus twofold: what kind of historically and legally ignorant legislator came up with it, and second, would the courts, as currently composed, strike it down should it be enacted, or would they find sufficient elasticity in the Constitution to allow its enforcement?
Steve White says: From Wiki, a description of a bill of attainder, just so we’re all on the same page:
— A bill of attainder (also known as an act of attainder or writ of attainder or bill of penalties) is an act of a legislature declaring a person, or a group of persons, guilty of some crime, and punishing them, often without a trial. As with attainder resulting from the normal judicial process, the effect of such a bill is to nullify the targeted person’s civil rights, most notably the right to own property (and thus pass it on to heirs), the right to a title of nobility, and, in at least the original usage, the right to life itself. … The use of these bills … eventually fell into disfavor due to the obvious potential for abuse and the violation of several legal principles, most importantly the right to due process, the precept that a law should address a particular form of behavior rather than a specific individual or group, and the separation of powers.
The question is this: is a confinement order on the basis of a medical illness, or suspected medical illness, a declaration of a guilt of a ‘crime’? The reason I bring this up is that the legislator who wrote this might argue that indeed, there’s no crime here. He/she would point out that people in past days with smallpox, TB, etc., were quarantined until they were disease-free or treated. This is no different. If you have visible signs of pox or bubonic plague, you’re quarantined. If you have visible signs of COVID, you’re quarantined.
You and I know this line of reasoning to be horse-hockey, but neither of us are Supreme Court justices. They might decide that this isn’t a bill of attainder precisely because no one is alleging a crime.
And we all can see how such legislation could be expanded to any ‘illness’ — then, like Soviet psychiatry, dissent would be an ‘illness’ that requires prolonged confinement and treatment. That’s where this is going.
teo toon says: “…or would they find sufficient elasticity in the Constitution to allow its enforcement?”
Yes: it is called “laches,” “standing,” and “moot” in that order.
Ewin says: New York is after all known as the Empire State.
Stoutcat Anonyme says: “…CASE, CONTACT OR CARRIER, OR SUSPECTED CASE, CONTACT OR CARRIER OF A CONTAGIOUS DISEASE THAT…”
You do realize, do you not, that this is just a dry run for gun control. Substitute the words “CONTAGIOUS DISEASE” with “DANGEROUS WEAPON” and Bob’s your uncle. Buckle up, buttercups. This is going to get bumpy.
Wait…isn’t disclosing someone’s Health Information … a violation of HIPPA?
I do believe this law would be in conflict with HIPPA and also grounds for a civil rights suit.
HMCS(FMF) ret says: Forgot to include WA State and Oregon… Inslee has been running the show without calling the legislature back into session since day 1. Brown has been a dictator, moving goalposts for reopening on a whim, while extending the shutdown untill March 2nd (another extension of her powers).
Sgt Stryker says: “I do believe this law would be in conflict with HIPPA and also grounds for a civil rights suit.”
Forget the civil rights suit.
Red Dawn is coming.
Tar, feathers, rails and lead.
Say hello to Mr. Molotov.
It’s now inevitable.
WOLVERINES!!!
Bandit says: I can see that no one would ever accuse someone they didn’t like of this and sic the cops on them.
GWB says: it has highlighted disturbing trends that were already present before the virus struck
No. No, Justice Alito, it has highlighted blatant violations of the Constitution that should be checked by the Supreme Court or more directly by the people themselves.
our Republic is in trouble and our Constitution is being stomped on with steel toed boots
Because the people LET IT HAPPEN. If you want to get your Republic and Constitution back, you’ll have to get enough people to actually understand the Constitution and jealously and zealously guard their freedoms. And take away the power of gov’t.
Goons can terrorize people in their vehicles in New York City, but won’t be detained.
They don’t realize how lucky they are that they didn’t come across a Texan or even a New Yorker with a permit. Or, hell, even a NYer with balls and anger issues. A goodly chunk of America would be applauding if they were left bleeding to death in the street.
(That reminds me, I need to install a PA system on my vehicle so I can give fair warning before applying force.)
F.D.R. in Hell says: Not to worry. All the Japanese-Americas were well-treated in our Relocation Camps even without cable, smartphones, and the Internet.
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