Image:Flickr
Camp Covid? NY lawmaker calls for ‘disease carriers’ to be removed to detention centers
While the bill does not specifically
state COVID, commentators say it would be obvious that this bill was a reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Image:Flickr
A New York Assemblyman has introduced a bill that would authorize the government to detain people deemed a potential public health risk, amid concerns that the Covid-19 crisis is being allegedly used to usher in a period of authoritarianism.
Bill A416, authored by Democratic member of the New York State Assembly Nick Perry, calls for the “removal and/or detention” of individuals who are identified as a “case, contact or carrier” of a contagious disease.
The sweeping powers envisaged in the bill would be invoked in the event of the state government declaring a “health emergency due to an epidemic of any communicable disease.”
Current legislation
Legislation on the books states that the government must provide “clear and convincing evidence” that the health of others is in danger before ordering a person or group to be detained.
It adds that people being “removed” will have the right to legal representation and are allowed to supply the telephone numbers of friends or family to notify them of the individual’s detention.
Perry’s proposal
Perry’s Bill apparently allows the governor or health official to unilaterally approve such detentions and a court order is required within 60 days of confinement.
A judicial review is required if the individual is still in detention after 90 days.
In other words, a citizen would be confined to a detention center for up to 60 days without any court review, the Jewish voice reported.
Citizens that are placed in detention will only be released once health authorities deem that they are no longer contagious, the proposed law states.
The bill also empowers the governor or relevant health authorities to require people deemed potential health risks to submit to medical examinations as well as undergo a “prescribed course of treatment, preventative medication or vaccination.”
The law does not specifically mention coronavirus. On his website, Perry says A416 “Relates to the removal of cases, contacts, and carriers of communicable diseases who are potentially dangerous to the public health.“
The current iteration of the proposed law will be reviewed by the NY State Assembly’s Health Committee on January 6.
Stir on social media
Although the proposed legislation is still a long way off from being passed, it nevertheless caused considerable consternation on social media.
“I knew Cuomo was a bit of an authoritarian anti-Semite but I never thought the state would go literal Nazi,” Conservative commenter Ian Miles Cheong wrote, referring to New York governor Andrew Cuomo.
Governor Cuomo has previously been accused of imposing draconian crackdowns on New York City’s Jewish community which has resisted many of the Covid-19 restrictions imposed across the state.
This isn’t the first time that New York state lawmakers have been accused of promoting naked authoritarianism, reports RT.
Last month, Manhattan Democrat Linda Rosenthal introduced legislation that makes Covid-19 vaccinations compulsory “in certain situations.”
It was specified later that any such mandate would apply to “all individuals or groups of individuals who, as shown by clinical data, are proven to be safe to receive such vaccine.”
