Coronavirus / COVID-19

[ReluctantSamurai]

I have been at odds with several others here concerning the right of governments to limit their citizens civil liberties in order to limit the spread of SARS-CoV-2. I support the need for containment methods even as far as a short-term lock-down, in order to break the chains of contagion.

During the course of these conversations I have been asked where my limit was; just how far was too far. Well, some of these methods are going too far:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/ar...-power/608560/

On Friday, the Hungarian government sent a bill to Parliament that will give dictatorial powers to the prime minister, Viktor Orbán, in the name of the “emergency.” For an indefinite period of time, he will be able to ignore whichever laws he wishes, without consulting legislators; elections and referenda are to be suspended. Breaking of quarantine will become a crime, punishable by a prison sentence. The spread of false information or other information that causes “disturbance” or “unrest” will also be a crime, also punishable by a prison sentence. It is unclear who will define false: The language is vague enough that it could include almost any criticism of the government’s public-health policy.

A similarly abrupt transition is taking place in Israel, where Benjamin Netanyahu—still prime minister despite having lost a recent election—has enacted an emergency decree that allows him to postpone the start of his own criminal trial and that prevents the newly elected Israeli Parliament, in which the opposition has a majority, from convening. He has also given himself huge new powers of surveillance without any oversight. Institutions and tactics normally used to track terrorists will now be used to monitor quarantine compliance, follow average citizens’ activity and movement, and keep track of their temperatures and health status.

The Department of Justice [here in the US], Politico has reported, has already asked Congress for powers to detain Americans without trial, even though such powers are not remotely necessary. Those lawmakers who resist these and similar measures to come should prepare to be accused of endangering their constituents’ lives.

Too far. Fortunately for Americans, such a request to suspend "habeus corpus" will never make its' way past Congress, but in other countries with more authoritarian governments, such new sweeping requests are likely to see little resistance.

So for me, this is too far.