Freedom activists in New York are nervously awaiting the New York Supreme Court’s decision on the State’s chilling and unchecked powers to throw New York citizens into health “quarantine camps,” without due process or legal protection.
The New York Supreme Court ruled in July 2022, that the draconian State regulations were “unconstitutional,” lacked “due process” and that the “involuntary detention was a severe deprivation of individual liberties.”
However, the leftist radicals in Albany never met a gulag law they didn’t support. New York Governor Kathryn “Comrade” Hochul and New York State Attorney General Letitia “Lefty” James appealed the Supreme Court ruling.
As a result, on September 13, a panel of five judges heard arguments on the quarantine issue in the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in Rochester, NY; however, it most likely will be months before the court comes to a decision.
Some have compared the regulation to “health department concentration camps,” which gives New York State unlimited power to detain citizens, without proof of illness and with no legal way to get out. Once detained in these quarantine centers, the detained citizen would not be able to leave.
During the September 13 hearing, firebrand freedom lawyer Bobbie Anne Cox spoke on behalf of the plaintiffs who had sued the State over the regulations, including Senator George Borrello, Assemblyman Chris Tague, Congressman Mike Lawler, and a citizens’ group called Uniting NYS.
During her argument, Cox said that the regulation in question “severely conflicts” with the current public health law – a point that the NY Supreme Court agreed on in 2022. She said that the State’s new regulations “gives the commissioner of health the unbridled power to pick and choose which New Yorkers she wanted to lock up. She didn’t have to prove you were sick, she didn’t prove exposed to communicable disease or that you were a health threat. She could issue an isolation or quarantine order at whim – and she could have you removed from your home by the police, which is clearly delineated in 2.13 (new regulation).”
Cox pointed out the the new draconian regulation also gives the State the authority to fine individuals who do not comply with the quarantine orders – up to $2000 a day.
Following the September 13 hearing, Cox said that she was confident that the plaintiffs were in the right legally. However, she noted that the NY Attorney General’s office had large budgets and personnel to work on the case. She added that the five judges hearing the case were all political appointees and she hoped that this would not affect their ability to judge the case impartially.
With the COVID pandemic over, Cox said that many freedom advocates are worried that the new health regulation could be weaponized against the State’s political opponents.
“This regulation is not COVID specific,” Cox said. “It is a general regulation that could apply to a whole laundry it’s of diseases. This is not about COVID, this is more about control – they want control no matter what the health crisis is.”
The State Attorney General’s office never responded to requests for a comment on this story.
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