The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued new regulations this month that give it broad authority to quarantine Americans. The rules outline for the first time how the federal government can restrict interstate travel during a health crisis, and they establish in-house oversight of whether someone should be detained, without providing a clear and direct path to challenge a quarantine order in federal court.

State and local authorities had previously been the ones to usually deal with issues like this during epidemics. Now the administration of Donald J. Trump has even more authority to detain people than the Obama administration had during the Ebola crisis. It’s imperative that whenever the next outbreak hits, emergency health measures are grounded in scientific evidence and guided by clear, fair rules to protect people from wrongful deprivation of their liberties.

Consider what happened to Kaci Hickox three years ago, when she landed at Newark Liberty International Airport after volunteering as a nurse for Ebola patients in Sierra Leone. Upon her arrival, federal health officers flagged her for an additional health screening. Ms. Hickox had no symptoms and had always worn heavy protective gear as she worked, so she had no known exposure to Ebola. So she should have been allowed to monitor herself at home, according to the guidelines that the C.D.C. had in place at the time. That’s what happened to dozens of other volunteers. Instead, Gov. Chris Christie ordered her quarantined in a tent at a Newark hospital. She eventually won her freedom, but only after being held for three days.

That incident wasn’t an anomaly. During a bubonic plague outbreak in 1900, for example, government officials quarantined the entire Chinatown neighborhood of San Francisco. The quarantine applied only to Chinese residents, and lacked any scientific basis. It was fueled by little more than naked fear and racism. Given this history, we want to ensure that federal officials applying the new regulations will act on the basis of science and evidence and not on politics and public fear.