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The world is a different place than it was a few months ago. We have entered uncharted territory with the levels of societal lockdown and medical effort required to beat the coronavirus pandemic. The crisis we are facing today will in large part define the 21st century.

Different countries are taking different approaches, but one thing many have in common is the fast-tracking of legislation and state powers that temporarily remove civil liberties and enhance surveillance in order to enact the degree of lockdown required.

In many ways, the actions taken are necessary to bring us back from the cliff of COVID-19 catastrophe. The kind of near-total compliance with voluntary lockdown procedures required to halt the spread of the virus has proven difficult to bring large numbers of people on board with. However, we need to be vigilant and remain critical of the long-term motivations behind the responses we are seeing from governments around the world. The responses to the pandemic being put in place today could in future be used to crackdown on legitimate protest; track political dissidents; control our movements and ability to freely associate; and censor speech online.

It’s important to state that I’m fully supportive of lockdown procedures and the closure of retail, entertainment, sporting venues etc. in order to overcome the serious threat that is a global pandemic. Without an adequate response, millions of people around the world will die. What we need to be careful about, though, is that with emotions running high and a widespread sense of fear we do not just fall into the comforting arms of authoritarianism.

We have already seen how emotional crisis situations can be used to take away rights and freedoms. The 9/11 attacks lead to the fast-tracking of the PATRIOT Act, a shockingly powerful and ambiguous set of surveillance, arrest and imprisonment powers that are still being renewed almost twenty years later. With the COVID-19 pandemic, we are seeing the same kinds of fast-tracked legislation being pushed through. While this will help to ensure that the pandemic is kept at bay, it will also set up a wide range of additional criminal justice powers while removing certain universal rights to freedoms that we take for granted.

If we take a look at what has already happened, we can see a worrying trend emerge almost immediately. Just a few months into a global pandemic that is forecast to last upwards of 18 months, we have seen legislation put in place to criminalise unauthorised movement in public; surveillance drones used to follow citizens outdoors; new criminal justice powers to fine and imprison those who break the rapidly changing rules; and even the use of terrorism legislation to clamp down on people coughing maliciously or conducting stupid ‘pranks’.

Some examples are justified when there’s a public health need to ensure social distancing. In the case of those who intentionally tried to spread the disease, assault charges should be seen as a proportionate response. However, when we start charging people with terrorism laws then we have significantly heightened the degree to which the criminal justice system can be used to condemn individual citizens. We’ve also seen property confiscated by federal officers in order to redistribute medical equipment that was purchased by individuals hoping to commercially exploit the situation. The US government has even extended this to nefarious practices regarding international shipments to nation states, potentially breaking trade law in the process.

We need to make sure that we are responding effectively, but what are we losing in the process and will we be able to get it back once this is over?

To begin with, we should always be suspicious when you see bills made up of hundreds of (or even 1,400+) pages emerge quickly. Legislation of this size and complexity wasn’t drafted and vetted by constitutional lawyers in a week, but rather is a modified conglomeration of desired results prepared well in advance. Moments of crisis allow these kinds of Frankenstein’s Monster bills to be pushed through quickly and without adequate oversight, using panic and fear to silence dissenting voices. When you see these kinds of circumstances emerge, you can be assured that there’s something included that will have long-lasting repercussions beyond the needs of the crisis itself.

If we take the US and UK as leading examples, then we can see some of the legislative overreach that is currently taking place. The explanatory notes to the Coronavirus Bill in the UK are eye-opening. It expands law enforcement powers to detain and control; provides the ability to postpone elections; lowers the requirements for mental health detainments; allows coroners to decide that jury inquests are not required for deaths; and allows a wide range of positions of authority to ‘enforce sensible public health restrictions’ without defining the scope of such restrictions.

Importantly, it also grants the power to extend the timeframe of the Bill, as well as the power to change any other related legislation so that it fits the content of the Bill being fast-tracked through parliament. As we saw with the PATRIOT Act in the United States, these kinds of provisions allow for legislation to be extended indefinitely. Surveillance powers were extended once again in November 2019, in force now for almost 19 years, and even though the provisions recently ‘expired’ as they ran into the timing of the huge stimulus bill just passed it’s safe to presume that they will be passed when the House returns from break with little impact on active surveillance in the meantime.

Speaking of the USA, the $2.2tn stimulus bill goes even further than the extensions of power put forward in the UK. The stimulus package provides $500 billion of bailout funds to corporations, ripe for insider trading and other corruption, while leaving individual citizens and workers with relatively little support in what is a clear display of where government loyalties truly lie. Interestingly, the nationalisation powers of the Defense Production Act (which has itself been extended every five years since the 1950s) are also being called upon in order to quickly force the production of needed equipment.

Of course, the question of government overreach isn’t just an issue of Western countries. Indeed, there are numerous examples around the world that show how governments will readily harm their citizens during a crisis.

The harsh crackdowns and initial coverup of the Chinese government show how a totalitarian government responds, with people literally barricaded inside apartment buildings. Police in India, Mauritius, Israel and Kenya have been documented using excessive force against citizens to enforce lockdown. The far-right leadership of Hungary are being widely criticised for rapidly moving towards a fully authoritarian state. What this means for the ability of the European Union to curb the overreach of its member states is a question that hasn’t yet been resolved and highlights the political complexity of the pandemic.

This will extend well past the current, necessary lockdown periods being observed around the world. The concept of ‘Immunity Passports’ that are beginning to emerge show how controlled public spaces and international travel will be in the months (and potentially years) to come. The invasive bureaucracy and medical surveillance required to issue these free movement documents should be deeply concerning to anybody worried about authoritarian government.

Such a system is directly analogous to the social scoring and colour-coded QR systems currently in place in China that are harshly limiting people’s freedom. When you require government documents just to be outside, travel to work or go on holiday, perhaps there are much larger issues at play than the coronavirus. If these so-called ‘immunity passports’ become universal, what’s to stop a country from declaring that anybody who is HIV-positive (or any other medical distinction) is not allowed to enter their borders?

We sometimes forget just how powerful our governments are when they want to be. The COVID-19 pandemic serves as a stark reminder that there need to be strong and effective limits on government power to ensure that balance is maintained. What we are currently seeing is a move away from limitations and towards a free reign approach that allows ‘proportionate’ responses to anything deemed ‘relevant’ to the current crisis. This kind of ambiguity creates the environment for totalitarian oppression to take hold before we are able to properly reject it.

Many people feel that these kinds of forceful measures are an appropriate response to existential threat (often as they report on their own neighbours), but that is exactly what should be concerning. The coronavirus pandemic has made clear the extent to which governments will immediately and forcefully clamp down on citizen populations in moments of crisis, as well as push through large corporate stimulus packages and legislative programmes that enhance government control.

How far this goes and whether or not different countries will be able to roll-back authoritarian powers once granted, is a question that we won’t know the full answer to for many years to come.

Header image by GoToVan, Creative Commons