Legislation which would have essentially allowed New York officials to establish internment camps for individuals considered a threat to public health has been withdrawn.
The state Senate and Assembly will not take up the bill (A416) during the next legislative session, which begins in Albany on Jan. 5, after it's sponsor, state Assemblyman Nick Perry, begrudgingly said he would remove it from the calendar.
— N Nick Perry (@NNickPerry) December 20, 2021
Critics said the proposed legislation was so vague that it would have given New York officials the power to hold anyone with any contagion for an indefinite time period and also would have granted the state the power to forcibly vaccinate detainees.
The bill presented “a serious risk to the basic liberties of all Americans in the state of New York, including their right to choose whether or not to receive medical treatment and vaccinations related to thus far undetermined contagious diseases,” Kay Smythe noted in a Dec. 18 analysis for The National Pulse.
While A416 has been pulled, New York legislators are still floating several more authoritarian measures related to the Covid pandemic, critics say.
Democrat Assemblyman Patrick Burke is proposing legislation that would give health insurance companies the option to deny coverage to unvaccinated individuals for any Covid-related treatments.
"I know we're all tired of this pandemic and it's largely being perpetuated by variants of COVID that keep sprouting up and they're mostly sprouting up in unvaccinated populations," Burke falsely claimed. The CDC itself said as Omicron was emerging that most cases reported were in vaccinated individuals.
Critics say that other authoritarian legislation being proposed when the Jan. 5 session gets underway includes:
• Assembly Bill A8378 would mandate the Covid vaccine to attend school.
• Bill A7829/S6495 would mandate the Covid vaccine to attend college.
• Bill A279a/S75a forces all adult vaccine records into a state database.
• Assembly Bill A8398 eliminates religious exemptions for work and college.
• Bill A3091/S3041 eliminates parents' consent to vaccinations when a child reaches 14 years of age.
Free Press International
