Consider what happened to Elizabeth and Isaiah Linscott.
Elizabeth took a precautionary diagnostic COVID-19 test before traveling to visit her parents and grandparents in Michigan. It came back positive: Elizabeth was asymptomatic for the novel coronavirus but had no symptoms. Her husband and infant daughter tested negative for the virus.
Now in a country where freedom actually means something, the Linscotts would have the right to determine for themselves how to proceed responsibly, but in the American Police State, we’ve only got as much freedom as the government allows.
That’s not saying much.
Indeed, it’s a dangerous time for anyone who still clings to the idea that freedom means the right to think for yourself and act responsibly according to your best judgment.
In that regard, the Linscotts are a little old-school in their thinking. When Elizabeth was asked to sign a self-quarantine order agreeing to check in daily with the health department and not to travel anywhere without prior approval, she refused.
“I shouldn’t have to ask for consent because I’m an adult who can make that decision. And as a citizen of the United States of America, that is my right to make that decision without having to disclose that to somebody else,” said Elizabeth. “So, no, I wouldn’t wear a mask. I would do everything that I could to make sure that I wouldn’t come in contact with other people because of the fear that’s spreading with this. But no, I would have just stayed home, take care of my child.”
A few days after being informed that Elizabeth’s case was being escalated and referred to law enforcement, the Linscotts reportedly found their home surrounded by multiple government vehicles, government personnel and the county sheriff armed with a court order and ankle monitors.
“We didn’t rob a store,” Linscott said. “We didn’t steal something. We didn’t hit and run. We didn’t do anything wrong.”
That’s the point, of course.
In an age of overcriminalization—when the law is wielded like a hammer to force compliance to the government’s dictates whatever they might be—you don’t have to do anything wrong to be fined, arrested or subjected to raids and seizures and surveillance.
Watch and see: just as it did in China, this pandemic is about to afford the government the perfect excuse for expanding its surveillance and data collection powers at our expense.
On a daily basis, Americans are already relinquishing (in many cases, voluntarily) the most intimate details of who we are—their biological makeup, our genetic blueprints, and our biometrics (facial characteristics and structure, fingerprints, iris scans, etc.)—in order to navigate an increasingly technologically-enabled world.
COVID-19, however, takes the surveillance state to the next level.
There’s already been talk of mass testing for COVID-19 antibodies, screening checkpoints, contact tracing, immunity passports to allow those who have recovered from the virus to move around more freely, and snitch tip lines for reporting “rule breakers” to the authorities.
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