CORONAVIRUS

Should We Worry about Civil Liberties During a Pandemic? (Re-Upload)

This is Part 4 in a series of articles on the United States COVID-19 public health response. Click here to see the other parts.

This article can also be found in my “Political Analysis” section.

Photo by Tonik on Unsplash

I think we can agree that people who protest to open the economy so that they can get their hair done are unenlightened halfwits. That’s libertarianism at its dumbest, where people don’t understand the point of the government at all.

Don’t confuse me for one of those people.

We should certainly discuss preserving civil liberties during an emergency. While the government should use all its powers to coordinate an efficient response, that’s no excuse for it to abuse power.

How to prevent curfews and lockdowns

As you may know, the US has implemented lockdowns in every state — people shouldn’t participate in large gatherings. To facilitate that, many businesses have closed down (or at least closed physically). You might think that this is a given in a pandemic — we have to close the economy so that people aren’t gathered together, thus preventing the virus from spreading.

But we can avoid that scenario. For example, South Korea successfully flattened its curve — having had only 30–40 new cases for the past month — and successfully contained the virus — with only 11,776 cases out of a population of 51.64 million (as of June 7th). And yet, they didn’t impose lockdown or close the economy. The closest they got to that course of action was closing schools and imposing curfews in some cities.

South Korea was proactive in its COVID-19 response. The country quickly authorized companies to manufacture tests, and testing began in early February as the government set up lots of drive-through and walk-through testing facilities. South Korea caught the virus early and contained it before it wrecked the economy. Thus, there was no need to impose a lockdown because the situation never became that dire.

That’s where the US was mistaken, as it didn’t ramp up testing until late March, by which point the virus had already spread. The situation in the US became dangerous, forcing America to lockdown.

Total tests per capita of South Korea versus the US. South Korea escalated testing in early February. The US did not begin testing as much until late March, causing them to fall behind and forcing them to test more into April and May, by which point South Korea was able to slow down (Source: ABC).

Responding to a disease outbreak quickly and efficiently is crucial for several reasons. Being proactive helps to catch the virus and contain it. Preventing a disease from spreading helps us avoid a situation in which the country is thrown into chaos. If the country never reaches that point, then the government never has to impose lockdowns. Thus, responding to an outbreak properly will let us avoid a situation in which our liberty is infringed upon.

Should a Lockdown Worry Us?

On the note of lockdowns, some are worried that the government could take advantage of the country’s lockdown. The government could use its heightened authority to crack down on protests and dissent more harshly, causing a slippery slope that causes the country to become an authoritarian police state. As it happens, FOX News anchor Tucker Carlson made this point:

Tucker Carlson interviews the New Jersey governor on the state’s lockdown. He asks him about his decision to split up religious gatherings at churches and synagogues and questions whether that is a violation of the first amendment.

Here, Tucker Carlson expresses concern that it’s unconstitutional for the state to break up a religious gathering, even if it is for public safety. He argues that people have a right to practice any religion they please, and the state can’t prevent people from doing so. Carlson argues that the state breaking up large religious gatherings (to prevent more people from getting sick) is an example of the state infringing upon religious freedom.

Okay, so I do understand where Tucker is coming from here. He’s expressing concern that religious freedom could be abused during this emergency. He’s also alluding to the idea that the government could use the emergency as an excuse to crack down on religious groups that the government doesn’t like.

That’s where he loses me.

If the government wanted to crack down on groups of people it didn’t like, there are much better ways to do that than in a lockdown. Here’s the thing: no one wants to be in lockdown. Obviously, the public doesn’t like it because they’re restricted in what they can normally do. People also can’t go to work oftentimes, which creates financial stress.

Then you have businesses and business owners — they don’t like lockdown because their employees can’t work. They also probably get less business — a lockdown and pandemic cause a recession, meaning that people are spending less, so businesses aren’t getting as much revenue.

Hospitals obviously hate the pandemic situation because it overburdens them.

Since everyone is unhappy during a pandemic lockdown, the government isn’t going to be happy. Politicians want the public to be pleased so that they get votes, and they want businesses to be satisfied so that they can keep collecting campaign funds.

For that reason, I don’t think that the government really wants to keep the country in lockdown, let alone use a lockdown to crack down on groups of people. So no, I’m not exactly worried that the government taking advantage of lockdown to crackdown on civil liberties. At least not in a democratic country like the US, in which politicians require the approval of the public and funds of businesses to survive. Maybe in a country like China — where authoritarian oppression is normal — emergency police authority could be abused in a lockdown. But not in the US.

To be clear, I’m not giving the US government a free pass to trample over our freedoms — we should still maintain our standards for limiting government power. I’m just saying that the notion that Tucker Carlson proposed is not one that makes me lose sleep at night. I’m not “trusting politicians” here — I’m simply considering what motivates a politician. I’m of the opinion that abusing police authority is not in the interest of politicians — not normally, anyway.

When should we be worried about civil liberties?

Here’s what does make me bite my nails. It’s actually not something that the US is doing, but it’s a possibility.

In South Korea and Taiwan, the government collected information — like cellphone data, credit information, etc. — to track people’s movements. In South Korea, this was used to determine where sick people were going and thus to alert people (through free phone apps) if they were near disease hotspots. In Taiwan, this information was used to determine if quarantined individuals were staying home and not leaving the house.

While these are well-intentioned efforts to help maintain social distancing, they’re highly troubling, especially if they were to be implemented in the United States. You may be familiar with the 4th amendment in the Bill of Rights, which prevents the government from engaging in “unreasonable search and seizure.” Well, the idea of the government tracking your movement without your permission is essentially spying. You could call that “unreasonable search” as the government doesn’t collect a warrant to spy on you.

Now, to be clear, in South Korea that information is only accessible to epidemic trackers, and people’s personal data is supposed to be purged after the emergency ends.

But can you trust politicians to do that?

Abusing spying powers is different from abusing police authority. If the government tries to crack down on public gatherings (or protests, for that matter) with police through violent methods, then there’s going to be public backlash. When people are physically affected, of course, they’re going to pay attention to that. Not to mention that the image of police breaking up crowds makes for sensational television, so of course, the news media is going to show and spread those images.

A spying program is different. It’s done quietly when no one is looking. For God’s sake, the US government’s National Security Agency does spy on people through the Patriot Act (a reaction to 9/11). Completely unconstitutional, but no one talks about it. Why? Well, the media doesn’t discuss this because the technical details of how the government collects cellphone metadata don’t make for good television.

Furthermore, the idea of the government collecting data isn’t something that necessarily clicks with people as authoritarian. What I mean is: when people see police breaking up a crowd through forceful methods, they automatically think “wow, that’s authoritarian.” That image just clicks (maybe not with everyone, but with a lot of people). On the other hand, the idea of the government “collecting data” doesn’t click in people’s heads the same way as an overreach of power.

The result is that the government can build such a program without disruption. Hell, the US is already doing this (except they’re not even using the NSA program to help the COVID-19 effort).

So while the US isn’t using spying powers for an emergency today, it could do this in the future (as South Korea has done). And we should look out for that.

When politicians ask you to trust them, think about that carefully, and remember to Stay Cynical.