What’s happening to America’s civil liberties in the wake of COVID-19?

Can a nation in crisis strike a reasonable balance between protecting public health and defending individual freedoms? It’s a question we’re mulling as governments across the United States consider whether and how to ease various lockdown measures in the wake of COVID-19.

Last week, U.S. Attorney General William Barr issued a memo to the nation’s 93 federal attorneys, directing them to “be on the lookout for state and local directives that could be violating the constitutional rights and civil liberties of individual citizens.”

“Many policies that would be unthinkable in regular times have become commonplace in recent weeks, and we do not want to unduly interfere with the important efforts of state and local officials to protect the public,” he wrote. “But the Constitution is not suspended in times of crisis.”

Current Federal and State law:

• You do not have to stay home,

• You do not have to close your business,

• You are not restricted in your travels,

• You are not banned from religious assembly,

• These are not laws, as a law must be passed by your state legislature. And, of course, this has not happened in any of our 50 states.

These following orders are UNLAWFUL “orders”:

• Stay at home,

• Close your business,

• Do not go to church,

• Practice social distancing,

• Wear a mask,

• No interstate travel etc.

These are not laws that can carry any kind of criminal penalty for violation. They are at best only guidelines for “suggestion.” These “orders” carry no legitimate force of law with which to back them up.

No governor nor mayor may craft a law and assign a punishment for its non-compliance. They can’t. And, even if one of these tyrants tries to do so, such orders or actions would then be profoundly unconstitutional and a solid basis for compensation to “anyone affected” by them.

The free exercise clause of the 1st Amendment firmly establishes freedom of religion as a fundamental liberty, and the due process clause of the 5th Amendment firmly establishes your right to purchase a lawful product in interstate commerce from a willing seller as “fundamental.”

Fundamental liberties are in the highest category of liberty, akin to freedom of conscience and speech and press and privacy and travel.

Right to congregate/assemble:

Per the 1st Amendment to the United States Constitution: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Right to travel:

Despite actions of police and local courts, higher courts have ruled that American citizens have a right to travel.

Per our 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution (abridged): “The right of a citizen to travel upon the public highways and to transport his property thereon in the ordinary course of life and business is a common right which he has under his right to enjoy life and liberty, to acquire and possess property, and to pursue happiness and safety. It includes the right in so doing to use the ordinary and usual conveyances of the day.”

Stopping a tyrannical overthrow of the United States and the world, the stripping of our liberties and freedoms begins with you. Do your part and stand up for yourself before you no longer have a self to stand up for.

These are the facts. Stop letting tyrants lie to you. Call them what they really are – TYRANTS.