Front Burner - Government overreach during the pandemic crisis

Episode Date: March 30, 2020

Governments around the world are making extraordinary moves to get COVID-19 under control -- including the curtailing of individual freedoms. In most countries, people are willing to go along with these measures, as long as they’re temporary. But what about when leaders use the coronavirus to grab more power? Today, we’re joined by Anne Applebaum, a historian and staff writer at The Atlantic, who has concerns about the potential lasting consequences of some governments’ pandemic responses.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hello, I'm Jamie Poisson. As countries around the world make these extraordinary moves to slow the spread of COVID-19, many of these moves limit our individual freedoms. In some authoritarian countries like Hungary,

it's taking the form of an emergency bill that would give its prime minister sweeping powers to rule by decree. We know that managing the coronavirus situation will be a long and hard process. Everyone will be forced to adapt. Life in the coming months will not be what it used to be. In more liberal democracies, temporary complete lockdowns are being enforced by criminal penalties. People are being monitored via their cell phone data. In South Korea, they're using things like credit card transactions, CCTV footage and mobile data to map out the movement of people. All of this has experts like Anne Applebaum worried about the potential lasting consequences on civil liberties.

worried about the potential lasting consequences on civil liberties. Anne is a staff writer at The Atlantic, and she's also a historian who's written three books about the Soviet Union. She joins me today from her home in Poland. This is From Berner. Hi, Anne. Thank you so much for making the time today. Sure, I'm delighted. So I know that you've made the point that there's a strong historical precedent for governments grabbing more power during a pandemic. And what are some of those historical examples? Well, they go back to some of the very oldest examples that we know about. famously when the bubonic plague broke out in Europe in the 14th century,

the Venetian government banned ships that were from plague-infested places from the port, but also forced travelers to quarantine, first for 30 days and then for 40 days. And actually, our word quarantine comes from that moment. It descends from the Italian word. That's really interesting later on didn't know that yeah yeah it's a quarantine from from the word for 40 in in italian um and then later on in the 17th century when the plague came to britain there's some very famous examples queen elizabeth the first sort of chief minister robert cecil passed a law saying that people with the plague had to be boarded inside their houses for six weeks. And later there was even a law passed that said people were forbidden to criticize the government over its policies towards the

plague. And this was later taken apart. But one of the interesting things that these early examples show us is that when people are afraid, when they're panicked, they will give up freedom and they will give over power to the government that in ordinary times they wouldn't do. And we're already seeing some of that happening all around the world today. The measures this week caused a debate in Israel over privacy and potential lack of oversight. As long as it is within the law and the data is being protected, I think overall it's a good thing that's being done. If they're using it for the right purpose and not afterwards taking it further away,

and it's only for Corona, I think it's a wise thing to do. Tell me more about that. Why do you think it is that people are more accepting of what we're seeing today? So in liberal democracies around the world, we're seeing extraordinary measures, closing of borders in Spain, Italy, France, New Zealand. Police and military are patrolling the streets. Here in Canada, people from abroad are required to spend 14 days in quarantine. We are implementing the Quarantine Act to keep all Canadians safe.

If you do not comply with these instructions, you could face serious fines and even prison time. And why is it that people are supportive of these limits to their individual freedoms right now? I mean, these are the kinds of consensual measures that are being taken in lots of places. And people are accepting of them right now because they're afraid of dying and they're afraid that they're assuming that the government knows advice or if they begin to see that the government is not in control of the situation then you might find different kinds of reactions but at the moment i mean there's some extraordinarily consensual restrictions of freedom happening as you say in italy france britain um all countries that pride themselves on their you know their their devotion to freedom and liberty um in in france there are policemen on the streets who are fining people who are out of their houses without good reason.

People here are required to carry a signed declaration justifying why they're out. Or else, face a fine of up to 135 euros or more than 200 Canadian dollars. The French government is deploying more than 100,000 police officers nationwide to enforce the restrictions. In Britain, they aren't finding people yet, but the police are patrolling parks and other public places and telling people to go home. You can't stay on the green. Can you all go home?

Can you all go home, please? It's not a holiday. It's a lockdown. Which means you don't just come in sunbathe. Can you please just leave? So you've seen a kind of consensus acceptance for a short period of time of these kinds of emergency measures. How long do you think a consensus like this will last? Well, this will last as long as people are convinced that it's needed and necessary and that there's a medical and scientific reason for it.

You know, one of the differences we might eventually see between Europe and the United States, for example, or maybe even Canada and the United States, is that it is not clear to me that everybody in America understands the medical necessity for quarantine or the medical necessity for these shelter in place or stay at home orders that people are being given. quarantine or the medical necessity for these shelter in place or stay at home orders that people are being given. And at the moment when they cease to understand that, you may have reactions against the police or reactions against local governments. We're not quite at that stage yet, but I wouldn't be surprised if it were to happen later. I know that across the world, there are certainly some more egregious examples that you're seeing. And what are the more egregious examples of like essentially power grabs? So we're seeing a couple of them. They're taking different forms in different places. One of them is taking place in Hungary, where the Hungarian government has proposed a bill to become law.

I think it's due to pass probably next week. And that law will give the Hungarian prime minister effective dictatorial powers. In other words, he can ignore any existing laws. He doesn't have to hold an election or consult the parliament. And although there's some debate about how to interpret it, it looks like this is a law that can last indefinitely. So it can't be stopped. In other words, he's just made himself, you know, as an emergency power, given himself a kind of dictatorial position that is unchallengeable. And that's obvious, very obvious ways to abuse that. Part of the law also says that anybody who is accused of promoting false rumors connected

to the pandemic risks arrest and five years prison. And it's already seems from some of the commentary of the official media in Hungary, there's quite a lot of government supported media, which it follows the kind of government party line, that this law may well be used against people who criticize the government's actions. So the government's, you know, when people begin to criticize, whether it's pandemic preparedness, or whether it's the availability of masks and respirators, if there is criticism of that in the media, it may mean that you can be arrested. And we didn't know that yet. But that's what journalists in Hungary are speculating. And part of the opposition has already protested against it. And the government response to that

protest has been, you are pro-virus. So they are clearly attempting to use this circumstance to grab political power. And also in Israel right now, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, critics there, including the historian Yuval Noah Harari, are accusing him of essentially using the coronavirus to stage a coup d'etat. Netanyahu's Likud is proposing a six-month emergency unity government with Netanyahu in charge, or a four-year rotational deal in which he serves for the first two. Yes, I mean, it's a very, very complicated what's happening in Israel and very internecine and hard

to describe. But a few elements of it, yes, Netanyahu, who had, you know, they've had a series of kind of inconclusive elections in Israel. And in the most recent one, his coalition did not win. So he does not have a majority. Now, Benny Gantz is being given the chance to form a government on the eve of Benjamin Netanyahu's trial. The mere idea that an Israeli prime minister will remain in office after being indicted is ridiculous. And he seems to have tried to stay in power anyway. That was his initial instinct.

It's an emergency now, we can't have a change of government, I'm going to stay in power anyway. That was his initial instinct was, you know, it's an emergency now, we can't have a change of government, I'm going to stay in power. And his colleagues in the parliament were trying to enable that. The Israeli Supreme Court has stepped in to try and block that. Maybe even more significantly for him, he's also suspended courts, including the court which was supposed to begin his trial for corruption. So he's essentially, you know, given himself a get out of jail free card. The other thing that's happened in Israel is there's been a decision that measures that are normally used to track terrorism inside the country, using the country's secret and political police, will now be applied to the virus. So they're going to try and track cases.

will now be applied to the virus. So they're going to try and track cases. The public understands and the public realizes that it is for their own national health services and for their own safety. If an individual is walking around in Jerusalem and he's fled the isolation, we have to find him as quick as possible. At a moment when parliament is suspended,

who's going to be ensuring that those measures don't get out of hand? Right, who's going to be, you know, ensuring that those measures don't get out of hand? Right. Who's watching here? Who's watching? Who's making sure that these are these all these measures stay within democratic accountability and within the political consensus? I know one of the methods that they're using in Israel is the tracking of cell phone data. We will authorize the use of digital tools for a limited period of time of 30 days. Israel is a democracy,

and we must maintain the balance between civil rights and the public's needs. Which is something that we've seen in other places like Hong Kong and Taiwan, for example. Hong Kong wristbands on people that hook to a smartphone and alert authorities if you move outside your quarantine space. So the tracking of cell phone data and using other kinds of data and AI to track this thing strikes me as something that's inevitable. And, you know, we should expect it to happen more and more.

Again, we don't know yet how this virus is going to play out. And perhaps there'll be a, you know, a vaccine or a cure much sooner than I think. But if it's with us for a long time, then people are going to want to use every means they can to keep track of it. And the goal for democracies is going to have to be to find some way of ensuring that the data is used only for public health purposes, that it's anonymized and that it's not abused. And I think we're going to have to rethink all kinds of accountability measures. You know, we're going to have to find ways for parliaments to watch the state. We're going to have to find ways for maybe independent groups to watch the state. We're going to have to build all kinds of careful measures into these new technologies.

Again, I think it's inevitable they will be used and they probably should be used. Again, this is in Venice in the 14th century. We should have some more sophisticated means of dealing with it other than putting everybody in 40 days quarantine. But the conversation about how to do this in a way that doesn't breach people's privacy in the long run, or give the state or others or maybe private companies extraordinary means of surveilling citizens. You know, we haven't really begun that conversation yet. And so I'm hoping that we can talk about that. You know, do you think that this is a conversation that really needs to start happening now? You know, even in Canada, I'm thinking,

well, I take your point that there's a lot of consensus right now for many of these measures. Our own prime minister is saying that cell phone tracking isn't off the table. We recognize that in an emergency situation, we need to take certain steps that wouldn't be taken in non-emergency situations. But as far as I know, that is not a situation we're looking at right now. And we had a controversy here last week where our ruling government put in its stimulus package like a bill that would have given them sweeping powers to spend money and raise taxes without the approval of Parliament. Many opposition members say they can't support this overreach. Why would you bring politics into a pandemic?

We recognize that this pandemic is moving extremely quickly, and it is an exceptional situation that requires extreme flexibility and rapidity of response. They had to walk that back. But, you know, certainly you can see these concerns starting to bubble to the surface. No, and rightly so. I mean, concerns starting to bubble to the surface. No, and rightly so. I mean, there, you know, there's, it's one thing to give government, okay, we all understand that for, you know, some limited period of time, we all need to stay off the street. And we can agree that the police should be allowed to do that. But that's not an excuse for the government to take powers that it doesn't need. I mean, so another thing that happened is the Trump administration has suggested that it have the power to arrest people without warrants as if this were a war or a kind of terrorist incident. There's simply no need for that either.

I mean, there's no there's no reason why this pandemic should require them to have those kinds of powers. And so, yes, I think it's very important for the media and for citizens and other politicians to watch and make sure that powers are not taken unnecessarily right now. Right. I know that you were mentioning before in Hungary, a law where people who spread misinformation could be charged. This was also something that the government of Newark and New Jersey was floating in the United States as well, I believe. Lots of experts raised concerns about this, that it would violate the First Amendment. So these conversations are happening all over the world, including in liberal democracies. Yes. I mean, the disinformation conversation is a deeper and longer one that, you know, we've started sort of having in the last few years relating to other kinds of disinformation.

But I think you're right. I think over the next weeks and months, there will be there will need to be a lot deeper discussions of it. Because yes, of course, disinformation about this epidemic could be very dangerous. I mean, it's, it's not just a question of politics, it's a question of people's lives. And there should be the people who are distributing information should be conscious of what it is that they're doing. But at the same time, there need to be citizen and democratic controls and accountability for people making decisions like that. But that's, of course, a deeper conversation. That's not just to do with this pandemic. It goes back now several years. Absolutely.

Larger questions about how it's affected our democracies or the discourse in our democracies. A simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. As we continue with this pandemic, what questions do you think we should be asking our own governments moving forward? Well, I mean, I think what we mostly want from our governments right now is competence. You know, we want, you know, we want them to be dealing

calmly and competently with the problem. We want them to be dealing with the problem of, of, you know, equipment. We want them to be providing resources to expand hospital capacity. And, you know, and you can see that happening in most democracies and indeed non-democracies all over the world. I think we also need to require from our governments, you know, clear ways of transmitting information. You know, we want to hear from medical experts. information. You know, we want to hear from medical experts. You know, we want people who can offer scenarios based on data and science. And we want political decisions to be based on those kinds of criteria. You know, again, we see in the United States the problem of President Trump, for example, promoting cures that aren't proven. A drug called chloroquine, and some people would add to it

hydroxy, hydroxychloroquine. Now, this is a common malaria drug. Or offering, you know, deadlines that we don't know if they can be met or not, you know, okay, this is all going to be over by Easter. So I think Easter Sunday, and you'll have packed churches all over our country. I think it would be a beautiful time. And it's just about the timeline that I think is right. Well, you know, says who? Nothing would be worse than declaring victory before the victory is won. We will be extending our guidelines to April 30th to slow the spread.

to April 30th to slow the spread. And this is, you know, citizens should be very, very aware of politicians manipulating both emotions and also manipulating information at this very crazy and, you know, difficult time. And I hope that democracies will, you know, voters and democracies will have the sense to punish people who do that. And in terms of, you know, ensuring that we come out of this with the civil liberties that we had before, you know, what do you think is really important for us to watch out for? So a really, I think a really important thing, you know, it has not happened yet, but I'm hoping it will happen over the next weeks and months would be for democracies to begin coordinating their actions together in more clever and intelligent ways. I'm told that scientists from around the world actually are now speaking on the phone quite frequently, virologists and

others who study these things. But I don't have the impression that governments are working together at all. And, you know, democracies, you know, are in a great position to learn from one another. I mean, there's a lot that we can learn from the Asian democracies who have been better at dealing with this than we have, partly because they had the experience of SARS, partly for other reasons. Learning from one another, making sure that, you know, Canada and Italy and France and the United States and South Korea are all on one page and cooperating together. I mean, I think, you know, my nightmare is that we come out of this with much higher borders, you know, with much weaker societies, with weakened trade. And we want to avoid that

at all costs. You know, we want to come out of this with better international institutions. It may be that the ones we have now are insufficient. We want to come out of this with strength and liberties, with a sense of that we own our own data, but that we are willing to give it up for particular reasons and at particular moments. We want to have a lot more knowledge and understanding of how surveillance is working and is going to work. You know, all of those things are possible and it'll be more probable that we have a good outcome if the democracies continue to talk to one another. Okay, Anne Appelbaum, thank you so much. Thank you very much. All right, so before we go today, what we'll be keeping a very close watch on throughout this week.

Canada's Chief Public Health Officer Theresa Tam said at her daily press conference on Sunday that this week is going to be a really crucial one for Canada. As you all know, governments across the country began implementing strict social distancing measures two weeks ago. And because the virus can incubate for up to two weeks, we should start to see the impact of these measures this week. I'm certainly watching very closely what's happening in Quebec and Ontario in particular, but also Alberta, of course. what's happening in Quebec and Ontario in particular, but also Alberta, of course.

All of these areas have had reports of community transmission. There has already been some hope in British Columbia. The government there released a report Friday that found measures had half the growth of cases, so from 24% a day to 12% a day. There is a complicating factor here, though. All the Canadians who have recently returned from abroad, including vacationers and snowbirds from Florida. Stay tuned for our coverage. That is all for today, though. Thank you so much for listening to FrontBurner and talk to you tomorrow. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.