Emergency Powers Test Run

Accuracy in Academia ^ | November 25, 2009 | Bethany Stotts

[bs9021]

Emergency Powers Test Run

Bethany Stotts, November 25, 2009

Could emergency powers given to state and federal leaders to deal with the H1N1 virus lead to violations of American civil liberties? Conditions at the state level may be a test of how wisely government officials will use their emergency powers.

The Constitution Project and the University of Maryland Center for Health and Homeland Security (CHHS) recently convened a group of scholars to discuss “the civil liberty implications of the government’s response to the H1N1” pandemic.

One panelist, Boston University Professor Wendy Mariner expressed her concern that emergency laws meant to deal with epidemics that step outside the law merely define a new legal norm. “Now, we’ll always face the risk of epidemics just like we always face the risk of terrorist attacks right now, I guess, and if epidemics are assumed to be emergencies, then we will always be governed by emergency laws,” she said. “So it’s especially important to look at what the laws are so that we don’t undermine fundamental human rights.”

She argues that “Emergencies are not really defined by a disease, they’re defined by the lack of capacity to respond, the lack of capacity to mitigate serious illness and death. Emergencies really only arise when something overwhelms our routine capabilities.”

Instead of legislating for emergencies, it would be better to focus on supply-side issues like developing “robust medical systems” and “robust public health systems,” she said, outlining two types of law helpful to medical emergencies:

1) “laws that clarify and streamline cross-jurisdictional relationships” and

2) “laws that actually develop and provide for care [and] services and products.”...

[MCCC]

I think most folks would be hard pressed to equate the swine flu with an emergency at this point. 1. The vaccine isn’t being administered in great numbers and 2. the pan/epi-demic which our ‘crisis please’ Obama gov’t projected, just hasn’t emerged. Seasonal influenza kills more folks than H1N1 has at this point.

[gcraig]

Agreed. H1N1 is a hoax like global warming, just another “emergency” to attempt to limit our freedoms.