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posted by martyb on Sunday September 11 2016, @02:28PM   Printer-friendly
from the ounce-of-prevention... dept.

I read an apocalyptic novel a few months ago. It was placed in the USA, and the core assumption of the novel was that practically every agency in the federal government had armed troops. After sufficient build-up of these forces, one day the President took advantage of some crisis or other to declare martial law. Maybe this was inspired by the fact that lots of unlikely federal agencies do, in fact, have their own armed forces. Some of the stranger ones are: Dept. of Education, Food and Drug Administration, Internal Revenue Service and Post Office.

It was just a story, of course. Though one does wonder just why the Dept. of Education needs guns.

So now comes the CDC, proposing a new regulation. For those of you who are Americans, the CDC is accepting comments until October 14th. Here are some interesting excerpts:

The CDC "may promulgate regulations that provide for the apprehension and examination of any individual reasonably believed to be infected with a quarantinable communicable disease in a qualifying stage."

Understandable, quarantine people who are infectious. By force, if necessary. Only, it continues:

"a 'qualifying stage' means that the communicable disease is in 'a precommunicable stage, if the disease would be likely to cause a public health emergency if transmitted to other individuals' or "a communicable stage."

So, non-infectious people, but still infected? Well, not exactly...

"CDC defines precommunicable stage to mean the stage beginning upon an individual's earliest opportunity for exposure to an infectious agent"

[Continues...]

So you don't have to actually be infected. An "opportunity for exposure" is sufficient. They want the authority to forcefully quarantine anyone who may have been exposed to a disease. Considering the Zika virus, this would presently include a large portion of the population of Florida, as well as anyone who has been there recently.

Should they apprehend someone, what happens then? Well...

"...quarantine, isolation, conditional release, medical examination, hospitalization, vaccination, and treatment ... the individual's consent shall not be considered as a prerequisite to any exercise of any authority under this part."

If you disagree with an action they take, you can appeal, of course. Your appeal must be in writing, and sent to the CDC. The CDC will review their own action and "issue a written response to an appeal, which shall constitute final agency action.".

I do understand that unusual circumstances may require unusual actions. However, the CDC has somehow existed a long time without this regulation, a regulation that would explicitly authorize them to apprehend, detain and treat anyone, anytime, anywhere within the US, without that person's consent. So...why do they need this?

Since consent is not required, it is implicit that they will have to create an internal force to make apprehensions and enforce quarantines. So yet another federal department will have its own, private armed force. Maybe that apocalyptic novel wasn't so far fetched after all...


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by bradley13 on Sunday September 11 2016, @05:49PM

    by bradley13 (3053) on Sunday September 11 2016, @05:49PM (#400333) Homepage Journal

    What I don't understand about all of these different "enforcement arms" is this: The police exist. At the federal level, they're called the "FBI". Why does every stinking agency have it's own enforcement arm? If the IRS needs to prosecute someone, they can just "call the police". What kind of due process can you expect, when an agency is not only the aggrieved party, but also the police, and even the courts? The IRS run's its own enforcement, and if you dispute anything, you do so in front of an IRS court.

    Now the CDC. Y'all say I'm wearing a tin foil hat, but it is exactly the same setup: the CDC decides who they want to apprehend. They do the apprehending. And if you think they got it wrong, you can appeal the action - to the CDC.

    Sure, maybe they are all knights in shining armor. I mean, no federal bureaucrat anywhere has ever overstepped their power, or just made a boneheaded mistake. And their agencies never close ranks with them, in order to avoid admitting fault. Never happens. /sarc

    tl;dr: You need a conspiracy theory, in order to find agencies doing their own enforcement dangerous.

    --
    Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 11 2016, @08:50PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 11 2016, @08:50PM (#400386)

    I agree, many of these federal agencies do a whole lot to erode the separation of powers.

    They write laws.

    They enforce laws.

    They interpret laws.

    I guess you can eventually appeal something to a federal appellate court but in many instances only after you have exhausted your efforts to appeal it to the agency itself. By the time you get through the appellate process through the agency it might not even be worth it.

    I guess the alleged justification for allowing these agencies to assume more than one power is that usually more than one branch of government is responsible for giving these agencies their powers.