Nov. 28, 2023 - Epoch Times
17:26
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| 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. | |
| Quote, Now 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. | |
| 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 too. | |
| 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. But 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 it could be done to these people once they are actually in these medical facilities. | |
| 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 in 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 this 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. | |
| That's 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 free 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. | |
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| And now, let's head on back to the studio. | |
| 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. | |
| 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 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 there's even a possibility that this particular individual or group of 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. | |
| Regardless, once this regulation was put into place, a lawsuit was filed against it, arguing that it was, for one, a violation of people's constitutional rights, as well as, secondly, a power grab on the part of the executive branch, since essentially they created a new law out of thin air, something that only the legislative branch could do. | |
| For reference, in that lawsuit, you had multiple different plaintiffs, including State Senator George Borrello, as well as New York Assemblyman Chris Tague and Mike Lawler. | |
| Mike Lawler, by the way, he went on to become a congressman, but at the time that this lawsuit was filed, which was last year, He was, in fact, a state assemblyman. | |
| And this case, it bounced around the legal system for a while, until in July of last year, in July of 2022, a New York State Supreme Court judge, he went ahead and he ruled against Governor Hochul. | |
| And while the judge struck down this forced quarantine regulation on the grounds that it violated the separation of powers, he also wrote this in his official decision. | |
| Quote... | |
| Involuntary detention is a severe deprivation of individual liberty, far more egregious than other health safety measures, such as requiring mask wearing at certain venues. | |
| Involuntary quarantine may have far-reaching consequences, such as loss of income or employment and isolation from family. | |
| However, the New York government did not take this loss lying down. | |
| That's because after this ruling at the trial court level, Governor Kathy Hochul, as well as Attorney General Letitia James, they went ahead and they appealed the decision. | |
| And wouldn't you know it, about a year and a half after the initial ruling, the appeals corps went ahead, and they ruled in favor of Governor Kathy Hochul. | |
| And their reasoning was not what you'd expect. | |
| Instead of going through the actual merits of the case, the panel of five judges decided that the plaintiffs in the case actually lacked standing to bring the case forward at all. | |
| Meaning that these judges determine that a state senator, as well as two members of the state assembly, they somehow did not have standing to bring forth a lawsuit against the governor when she essentially usurps legislative authority from the state assembly. | |
| Although it does raise the question, if the state representatives themselves don't have standing to sue in this particular situation, who would? | |
| Regardless, the lawyer who's pushing this case forward, Ms. | |
| Bobbi Ann Cox, was, as you could imagine, not too pleased with this ruling. | |
| Here's how she described the situation over during an interview on NTD News. | |
| So now this appellate court, which, you know, of course, the governor and the attorney general appealed to this court for They tried to overturn our decision. | |
| And yeah, the court came down and said, well, you know what? | |
| We're not even going to talk about the merits here, whether or not this regulation was unconstitutional or not. | |
| We're just going to say, hey, you know what? | |
| We don't think you had the right to bring the lawsuit in the first place last year. | |
| And what's your assessment of that decision? | |
| What's your assessment of the reasoning here? | |
| Yeah, it's pretty surprising, I have to say. | |
| You know, the trial court judge last year didn't even discuss standing. | |
| You know, it was an argument that was brought up by the Attorney General last year at the trial court, but it's so obvious that we have standing that the trial court judge didn't even discuss it in his decision. | |
| So it was very surprising, and I don't agree. | |
| My plaintiffs and I do not agree with this ruling. | |
| We do not believe that sitting New York State legislators and the people of New York State, you know, in a citizens group, Don't have standing. | |
| It doesn't make sense. | |
| So we definitely disagree with this ruling. | |
| The other problem is that this is really bad case law. | |
| You know, an appellate court is saying that these legislators don't have the right to bring a lawsuit against the executive branch of government when they feel that the executive branch of government has usurped their power, has taken their power to make law. | |
| It's very clear, three branches of government, each branch has its own job, its own authority, and here it was clear that the executive branch overstepped and reached into the legislative branch's powers. | |
| You have to be able to challenge that in court. | |
| Now, moving forward, Ms. | |
| Bobby Ancox, as well as the plaintiffs, they can still appeal this ruling to the Albany-based New York State Court of Appeals. | |
| However, until that court decides whether or not they're even going to take up the appeal, the reality is that here in the state of New York, Governor Kathy Hochul can go ahead and she can reinstate Section 2.13, putting the nearly 20 million people who live in the state of New York at risk of getting quarantined if the state determines it's necessary. | |
| However, if all this sounds to you like the government is giving itself the authority to set up quarantine camps, well, you should absolutely stop worrying. | |
| Because the Associated Press put out a fact check saying that this is not the case. | |
| In this quote-unquote fact check of theirs, their argument is since New York officials repeatedly denied having any intention of building quarantine camps, then obviously it's false. | |
| Here's in fact what that Associated Press fact check says. | |
| Quote, Nothing in the rule mentions camps, nor suggests that the state has plans to erect them. | |
| And that is technically true. | |
| Nowhere in Section 2.13 does it mention the word camps. | |
| Instead, it mentions temporary housing locations that you won't be able to leave without the government's permission. | |
| If you see any resemblance to that in the word camps, that's really just on you. | |
| Jokes aside, though, it's exactly this type of quote-unquote fact check which completely shatters people's trust in the media. | |
| The Associated Press, they go to the officials within the New York government, and they ask them, hey, are you planning to set up quarantine camps? | |
| They say, no, we're not. | |
| And that's it. | |
| Fact check false. | |
| Despite the obvious fact that even if they're not planning to do so now, this rule, once it's actually enacted, will give them the legal authority to do so in the future. | |
| And that's really the crux of the issue here, because COVID has obviously passed. | |
| But let's say a year from now, two years from now, or ten years from now, when the next COVID-like pandemic comes around, whoever's living in the state of New York will suddenly discover that, hey, the government here has a lot more power than I initially thought. | |
| All because of some obscure section in an obscure rulebook that the New York state courts allowed to stand. | |
| If you'd like to dig deeper into section 213, I'll throw all my research notes down into the description box below this video for you to peruse, including I'll also throw the entire video of the oral arguments that were presented in the court, including both the government side as well as the side that was fighting against the rule. | |
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