War On You: Breaking Alternative News

Source: Police Chief Magazine

Should the United States, or any por­tion of it, have to resort to large-scale quarantines to contain the spread of dis­ease, it seems certain that state and local police will be deeply involved in any such effort. The military is accomplished at lo­gistical undertakings and may be best suited for such things as the delivery of food, water, medical supplies and related items. Although the military and other federal entities such as FEMA will pre­sumably play a major part in any broad quarantine program, state and local law enforcement agencies will play a critical role as well, particularly in the early stages of the emergency while other resources are being mobilized and brought on line. This role will present a monumental challenge to state and local law enforcement agencies, for they will face daunting personnel and logistical problems as they strive to fulfill the duties and responsibilities placed upon them by federal, state, and local law.

Indeed, quarantines of any signifi­cance are outside the experience of law enforcement agencies in the United States. The last large scale quarantine in the United States was imposed almost 90 years ago during the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic. Internationally, the SARS epidemic, or severe acute respiratory syn­drome, was confronted by quarantines in China, Hong Kong, and Singapore. There, “police surrounded and cordoned off buildings, set up checkpoints on roads into and out of areas where the disease had been discovered, installed Web cameras in people’s homes, blocked off whole villages, and even threatened to execute anyone who broke quarantine.”¹ The less draconian response in Canada, in which people were asked to voluntarily quarantine themselves in their homes while being supplied with essential supplies, was generally effective and would be more in line with any quar­antine that may be imposed in the United States. Nonetheless, President George Bush’s suggestion in early October 2005 that the military may be used to enforce a quarantine opens the door to speculation about the tactics and operational protocols that may be under consideration at the federal level.

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