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+--- Thread: The Coronavirus Bill would hand government frightening new powers (UK community) (/thread-8282.html)
The Coronavirus Bill would hand government frightening new powers (UK community) - C C - Mar 21, 2020
https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/03/20/our-liberty-must-not-be-a-casualty-of-covid-19/
EXCERPT: ‘Our liberties and human rights need to be changed, curtailed, infringed – use whatever word you want.’ Those were the remarkably frank words of London mayor Sadiq Khan yesterday [...] This comes after concerns that British citizens are failing fully to heed government advice on social distancing ... Here, he joins a chorus of people who are clamouring for the sorts of remarkably authoritarian lockdowns we’ve seen in France, Spain and Italy. ... Sky News’s Beth Rigby did her now daily routine of demanding London be turned into a mini GDR as soon as possible, claiming to speak ‘on behalf of Londoners’.
But those calling for lockdowns should be careful what they wish for. The scenes in various European cities – in which people are only allowed to leave the house for a few essential reasons – are unlike anything we’ve seen in modern times. Plus there is no telling when such restrictions will be lifted once imposed, given infections could then flare up again.
The British government’s policy of asking rather than compelling people to change their behaviour is surely preferable. ... Treating people as citizens to be persuaded rather than children to be instructed would do far more to keep the public engaged and in it for the long haul.
[...] The Coronavirus Bill, published yesterday, would hand the state terrifyingly broad powers. For one thing, notes the guidance, ‘the bill will enable the police and immigration officers to detain a person, for a limited period, who is, or may be, infectious and to take them to a suitable place to enable screening and assessment’ (my emphasis).
It will also empower the government to ‘restrict or prohibit events and gatherings during the pandemic in any place, vehicle, train, vessel or aircraft, any movable structure and any offshore installation and, where necessary, to close premises’. Another provision allows the home secretary to ‘request that port and airport operators temporarily close and suspend operations’.
Then there’s the powers around surveillance. [...] this bill also ‘weakens safeguards on the exercise of mass surveillance powers by quadrupling time review limits for urgent warrants’. ... The bill would also have alarming knock-on effects for the liberties and minimum levels of care provided for ill and elderly people. ... While emergency measures are sometimes needed in times of crisis, the lack of safeguards here are particularly worrying. [...] The bill is expected to be nodded through the Commons on Monday without a formal vote. (MORE - details)