Here is where that old sag about ‘those who would trade freedom for security will obtain neither’ proves to be words truly spoken. The stripping of rights is no longer minor and/or incremental.
Yesterday (Friday, 27) Rhode Island began stopping all vehicles with NY plates. Today, they’ve called out the National Guard to go door to door looking for NY natives to take into quarantine.
This shit will not end well.
Here is the story from the AP:
Rhode Island State Police on Friday began pulling over drivers with New York plates so that National Guard officials can collect contact information and inform them of a mandatory, 14-day quarantine.
Gov. Gina Raimondo ratcheted up the measures Friday afternoon, announcing she’ll also order the state National Guard to go door-to-door in coastal communities starting this weekend to find out whether any of the home’s residents have recently arrived from New York and inform them of the quarantine order.
The Democrat had already deployed the guard to bus stations, train stations and the airport to enforce the executive order, which also applies to anyone who has traveled to New York in the last 14 days.
“I know it’s unusual. I know it’s extreme and I know some people disagree with it,” she said Friday, adding that she has consulted with state lawyers.
“If you want to seek refuge in Rhode Island, you must be quarantined.”
Raimondo maintains she’s within her emergency powers to impose the measures, but the American Civil Liberties Union has called it an “ill-advised and unconstitutional plan.”
Governors have the authority to suspend some state laws and regulations in a state of emergency, but they can’t just suspend the Constitution, argued Steven Brown, head of the ACLU’s Rhode Island chapter.
“Under the Fourth Amendment, having a New York state license plate simply does not, and cannot, constitute ‘probable cause’ to allow police to stop a car and interrogate the driver, no matter how laudable the goal of the stop may be,” he said.