New Ruling Allows for Indefinite Detention of Unvaccinated at Governor’s Whim | CLIP | Facts Matter

Because of a new court ruling, which just came down last week, the state of New York, and particularly the governor of New York, has just gotten one step closer to attaining the ultimate pandemic power, being able to designate certain classes of individuals as a health threat, forcibly relocating those individuals to specially designated housing facilities and keeping them there for as long as the government wants. And also, they'd have the power to control what these people can and cannot do. However, if these new government powers sound like the very definition of a quarantine camp, well, according to this AP fact check right here, you would be wrong, although their reasoning is perhaps even more ridiculous than you can probably imagine. And so, let's go through it all together. To start with, back in December of 2021, at the height of the COVID pandemic, you had a bill that was working its way through the New York State Legislature. This bill would allow the government to take people that they deem to be threats to the general public health and put those people into essentially indefinite detention. This bill, just for your reference, was called Assembly Bill 416. And when I personally read this bill back in December, it was frankly the most aggressive piece of legislation I've come across in the past decade. Let's go through the bill together and you can tell me what you think of it. You can leave your thoughts down in the comments section below. Here's how the bill reads. 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 health commissioner, may pose an imminent and significant threat to the public health, resulting in severe morbidity or high mortality. Just to pause here for a super quick moment. What this bill is laying out here is that based on the opinion of the governor, if you as an individual, or if you as a member of a class of individuals, if the governor determines that you are contagious for some disease, or if someone you have contact with is contagious for some disease, at least based on the suspicion of the governor, you're all now subject to what comes next. Quote, the governor or his or her delegate, 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 group of such persons by issuing a single order identifying such persons either by name or by a reasonably specific description of the individuals or group being detained. Now, to pause here again for another quick moment, let's recap. Based on the opinion of the governor, what they can do, he or she, whoever the governor might be at the time, they can say, hey, John Doe over there, or let's say a group of people, let's say unvaccinated individuals as a whole, they can be isolated and detained and then sent off. And this is where it says they can be sent off to. Quote, such person or group of persons shall be detained in a medical facility or other appropriate facility or premises designated by the governor or his or her delegate and complying with subdivision five of the section. And so essentially what this here is saying is that if in the opinion of the governor or of some political appointee of the governor, if you are someone who poses a health threat to the community or to the state, they can lock you away. And what's interesting here is that the provisions in this bill were so purposefully vague that they could mean many different things based on interpretations. They said that the person can be put away in a medical facility or other appropriate facility or premise. Now, what does that exactly mean? It's not clear. And it gives tremendous latitude to both the governor as well as to the New York Department of Health. In fact, when I first read this bill, it gave me very Executive Order 9066 vibes. If you know, Executive Order 9066 was what President Roosevelt used to set up internment camps for the Japanese during World War II. And in that Executive Order, if you actually read it, it says something along the lines of if you are a person who is deemed to be a threat to national security, you're going to be moved to an inland relocation center. And so you see how the language there was opaque as well. It's very vague. It doesn't say exactly what it is. It doesn't necessarily outline exactly who it is. And it definitely doesn't say anything about internment camps. They're called relocation centers. And so likewise, with this bill out in New York, that's the same kind of language that they were using. And it's exactly this opaque language which would allow the governor to, just as an example, designate unvaccinated individuals as a group, place those people into one of these medical facilities, and then, this is what the bill goes on to say could be done to these people once they are actually in these medical facilities. The government would be able to require an individual who has been exposed to or infected by a contagious disease to complete an appropriate prescribed course of treatment, preventative medication or vaccination, including directly observed therapy to treat the disease and follow infection control provisions for the disease. The provisions of this section shall not be construed to permit or require the forcible administration of any medication without a prior court order. Meaning that if you ever find yourself in this situation, you better hope that the judge overseeing the court is on your side. Now, there is something worth noting here, which is that if you read the actual text of Assembly Bill 416, it does go on to say that no one shall be held for more than a period of 60 days. But there's also a caveat, which says that it allows the court to issue an order to waive the maximum detention time. And so after the initial 60 days, the court is allowed an additional 90 days to consider the detention of that individual, which is a cycle that, at least in theory, can go on indefinitely at the sole discretion of the Department of Health. Furthermore, according to the actual text of the bill, it doesn't make any mention of COVID. And so in theory, it can apply to any contagious diseases altogether, such as HIV, AIDS, hepatitis, or whatever else might come next. However, as wild as this story already is, it actually gets wilder. Because you see, the way that it's all played out is that this particular bill received such heavy blowback, it wasn't even able to find a co-sponsor, and therefore, it was removed from the legislative calendar, meaning that the bill essentially died on arrival. But that was absolutely not the end of the story. Because Governor Kathy Hochul, she essentially went around the state legislature, and she implemented this new law in the form of a state regulation. This is because, like many other states across America, the state of New York has a fairly large book compiling the rules and regulations of the state. It's called the NYCRR, the New York Codes, Rules, and Regulations. And essentially, it's a large compilation that's maintained by the executive branch of government, the State Department specifically, and it contains within it all the different codes, rules, and regulations which are in force within the state. It's a large compilation covering everything from banking, to transportation, to social services, and also, relevant to our discussion today, to health. And back in April of last year, in April of 2022, which for your reference was just four months after Assembly Bill 416 died, the New York Department of State, under the leadership of Governor Kathy Hochul, they made a significant change to New York regulations. Specifically, they added another section called Section 2.13, Isolation and Quarantine Procedures. And the powers that this new regulation gave to the governor, as well as to her political appointees, well, it mirrors exactly what was in that earlier bill that died on arrival. For instance, under the subsection titled, Duty to Issue Isolation and Quarantine Orders, here's what it says, quote, Whenever appropriate to control the spread of a highly contagious communicable disease, the State Commissioner of Health may issue and or may direct the local health authority to issue isolation and or quarantine orders consistent with due process of law to all such persons as the State Commissioner of Health shall determine appropriate. The new rule then goes on to explain how these quarantined individuals, once they're removed from their homes, can be placed into, quote, temporary housing locations that the public health authority issuing the order determines appropriate. And then afterwards, there are several more subsections outlining the specifics of how these quarantined individuals can be treated once they are placed into these temporary housing locations, including things like this, quote, If the location of isolation or quarantine is a detached structure, then the person may go outside while remaining on the premise, but shall not leave the premise or come within six feet of any person who does not reside at the premise or such other distance as may be appropriate for the specific disease. And so just to summarize, after Assembly Bill 416 was dead on arrival, there was no way it was going through the state legislature, these new regulations were placed onto the books by the executive branch, giving the unelected bureaucrats over in the Department of Health the power to pick and choose who they want to detain if they believe, if they believe there's even a possibility that this particular individual or group of individuals has a communicable disease. They also, by the way, don't have to prove that they're actually sick. Furthermore, once this person is determined to be a threat, they can be detained either in their home or they can be taken from their home and placed into a facility. And the length of the stay in the facility, well, that's purely at the government's discretion. If all this sounds familiar to you, well, that might be because you've been following the developments over in communist China over the last several years.