To moderate our panel on Civil Liberties on covid19, we have kristin you of the Hudson Institute and the president of aei, with key Public Policy issues and leading intellectuals. Thank you, welcome one and all. The Civil Liberties issues raised by Government Actions with the coronavirus pandemic. We will hear from more legal scholars in this order, former law time chairman of the Civil Liberties union. Eugene but one of the ucla law school, host of the autonomous website, Julia Mahoney of the university who specializes in property, Public Finance and constitutional law and Mila Versteeg specializes in constitutional law, further information about each is available at the conference website. The run to 90 minutes concluding not later than 5 15 eastern time in the United States, we will have individual presentations and a general panel discussion, questions from attendees. When question time arrives i ask those with questions to click raise hand on your zoom screen for star 9 on your phone. First to set the stage briefly, has been mass suppression of every day Civil Liberties in American History, as much can be said of most of the other free democracies beginning in march, 43 states and the district of columbia and puerto rico issued lockdown orders, the vast majority of americans isolate at home and limit to a few specified purposes. Public and private gatherings were limited to small numbers in virtually all schools and businesses were shuttered. Toward the contemporary, extended from weeks to months and just beginning to be relaxed. Closure of schools and large indoor gatherings may extend to the fall. The orders were exertions of state police power undertaken by governors, mayors, agencies, sometimes for explicit authority stats set forth, sometimes without it. We learned a lot about the virus and its patterns of transmission since march, there are serious debates whether the lockdowns were sensible and effective compared to or targeted measures outside hotspots like new york city and San Francisco but the orders were met with widespread Public Acceptance and high levels of compliance. Even before the orders were issued some individuals in residential communities had begun to shelter in some shops and businesses begun to close down and many large assemblies have been canceled. What i described as suppression of Civil Liberties could just as well be described as voluntary elements, temporary surrender of liberties and Popular Mobilization but clearly deadly contagion. Civil liberties are largely counter, they do not depend on popular assent at the moment they are exercise, and they run afoul of Efficient Government policies. The initial lockdown orders distinguished probably among different sorts of activities and some of the distinctions had no evidence of relationships either to collective defense against the spread of covid19 or individual self protection against contracting the disease. Some of these were probably mistakes made in haste such as banning outdoor gardening services. Others seemed more deliberate such as categorizing potshots as essential but Church Services as intersectional. Now lockdowns are being replaced by opening up policies that involve narrower and many more numerous kinds of distinctions, regulation of public conduct like distancing being applied to much larger numbers of citizens and new policies being introduced for rent at testing, public surveillance, restrictions on interstate travel in Public Opinion has splintered and reluctant to be out and about in setting up shop releasing months of pent up energy. The famous american spirit of feisty individualism and permissionless freedoms reawakening. Our panelists will analyze of liberty issues that have arisen in the course of this problem, some of them perhaps touching on federal as well as state policy. These include issues under the bill of rights and the broader question whether Civil Liberties are best protected in circumstances such as these by specific rights or government structure. Also examine how these controversies play out under the constitutional regimes of other nations and consider incidents of extreme emergency or may have lasting consequences for law and policy. We begin with professor nadine strossen, the podium is yours. Thank you for that terrific introduction to a huge topic. I am happy and honored to share with my distinguished panelists. I thought the best use for it would be to set out general principles that are applicable to government restrictions on Civil Liberties or human rights in the interest of protecting Public Health and time permitting i would like to discuss one or more specific steps in terms of how we apply those standards including the right to life and those who are in government, the right to vote and the right lets respect general principles, odd consensus about across the ideological spectrum, the first same and i heard, United StatesGovernment Official early on, attorney general william barr who said these words that were music to my ears as a civil libertarian. There was no pandemic exception to the constitution and the bill of rights. He did go on to point out when we had a genuine emergency the constitution and the bill of rights, consistent with restrictions that are necessary and temporary for deal with a genuine emergency. The United States constitution is distinct for human rights treaties insofar as we do not have expressly written to the constitution a general exception for emergencies, it provides only one exception in specific types of emergencies and that is the suspension clause. I dont think the most ardent civil libertarian would disagree, they can be subject to restriction, subject to the socalled strict standards and although it is mirrored in International Human rights law and human rights treaty. Is the measure necessary and it is the least restrictive to promote the in arguably compelling goal promoting Public Health, and the substantive standard is procedural for process accountability. Ipods to say with respect to that necessity and less restrictive alternative criteria, government restriction on Civil Liberties cannot satisfy that standard, is not even effective in countering the Public Health danger and sadly, it would not surprise me because this is so new, a number of liberty restricting measures dont even meet the expected standard let alone the least restrictive alternative. This is a requires a very fact specific assessment of each restriction and with apologies, it is impossible to keep abreast of the restrictions let alone the developing factual nuances, concentrating on general standards. I think especially when something is so fact specific, an important legal issue is who bears the burden of proof and with what level of deference. Under strict the burden of proof under International Human rights laws as well and yet, john roberts stressed the perspective, stressed courts should be highly deferential, Government Officials in that setting, assessing the constitutionality of pandemics and specifically talking on worship services, the precise question of when restrictions on particular social activities are listed during the pandemic is a dynamic fact subject to agreement. The constitution principally interests the safety and health of the people to the politically accountable officials of state when they act in areas fought with uncertainties, best be especially broad. Must be subject to second guessing by an unelected federal judiciary, to assess Public Health. This is a familiar refrain for the chief justice, judicial restraint, indifference to the majority which indicated opening remarks, individual rights, guaranteed by the constitution and it would be something that would separate these debates. In terms of the multiple steps of issues, i work at the aclu as a bellwether because we have offices all over the country and counsel, 150 different lawsuits in addition to the legislatures in the executive branch. A couple days ago, only thing federal courts are hearing our video sentences and american Civil Liberties union cases. And fairness a lot of the issues are trying to end by Government Officials as well of all ideological sites. A lot of these issues are being resolved by distance without the necessary for litigation. I will illustrate that, the first specific basket of issues has to do with what has been called the most basic human right, to protect myself from great danger when one is held in government custody, in jail or in prison or in detention the Supreme Court has heard many decades now recognize the government has an obligation under the eighth amendment and to process laws to protect inmates in terms of their health and medical conditions. The standard is quite deferential to successfully challenge Government Action as violating plaintiffs have to show a deliberate indifference to a substantial risk of serious harm. That is a standard that is not satisfied by detention facilities around the country given the inability to comply with minimal social distancing hygiene roles provide by Health Experts. That provide support across the ideological spectrum in the government and the prison system itself to very aggressively concentrating on the inmates in greatest Health Dangers themselves and the least danger of recidivism. This starts with donald trump and his attorney general in midmarch, ice announced it will arrest in place in detention only undocumented immigrants who have serious criminal conviction, thousands of inmates were released, the cares act, to various alternative including home confinement subject to ankle monitors and transfers to other facilities that were not as overcrowded. The cares act turning the attorney general authority, the priority for the attorney general issued two to the federal bureau of prisons to immediately maximize appropriate transfers in all appropriate inmates. And released from federal prison, more than twice the usual case and this is consistent with bipartisan support we have seen for the last decade for reducing mass incarceration in the United States. To jean and julia in our prepanel discussion, treating the issue of the extent to which pandemics treasured measures will last, with measures that reduce validity use but something that is the opposite and the fascinating counterexample, pandemic triggered d carson ration policies consistent with civil liberty advocacy, across the ideological spectrum and the pandemic more to those ideologically the first advocates are hoping this will be a Tipping Point in addition to Health Pressures that are also economic pressures ramping up the number of people incarcerated in the United States. In the past couple of weeks all the protests against police abuse and the momentum to implement reforms. Is that my time . I want to go to the other panelists and we will come back to you soon. Next up is professor eugene volokh. Someone needs to talk briefly about these two groups, very interesting. Freedom of assembly and movement, freedom of gathering if you prefer. That includes the assembly clause, restrictions on political gatherings, gatherings to listen to lectures on all the things that are gathering in private universities, all the things that are projected and there have been restrictions on religious gatherings, not religious worship altogether to the extent you feel is adequate for your purpose is to gather online, youre free to do that but for many people it is important to gather together physically and of course restrictions on freedom of movement, driving from one home to a summer home, lets say. And those are things that generally speaking our constitutional rights. Courts have upheld and correctly generally speaking, i think that is important because freedom of assembly and movement are probably accepted in large part because by and large they by themselves are not particularly if you assemble with others in order to try to foment crime and leave that is something that is dangerous but not punishable and listed reaches a level that we protect this kind of communication. Most assembly, most travel nothing terribly the unfortunate thing is it makes this ordinary innocent behavior deadly to the people engaging in it and deadly to other people. One way of thinking about it is the assembly clause, people peaceably to assemble. Once you gather and start acting violent, no longer protected but from an intense perspective when people might or might not be infected with a dangerous disease gather their pizza bowl in their heart, they are not trying to do that but you might think of it as an example, with danger of physical harm. Courts have rightly realized the standard underlined with freedom of assembly and travel dont apply, there has an apple president in the time of American History before modern medicine, such epidemics were much more common. That is one class of things. This is people gathering in large numbers or traveling that way. Ut the second class. Its actually very interesting. Many states have barred elective medical procedures. Put it all until the disease of the epidemic, its magnitude and such. Abortion, unless its necessary to preserve life and health, is one example. It clear the broad restrictions were not imposed just as an excuse to try to lift abortions. That way too many, many of the things to be simply an excuse. At the same time that had to be a judgment, and unsurprisingly some states it was. Something very similar happened with regard to gun safety. A lot of nonessential businesses that sell goods have been closed down and that all states that some states have said well, gun shops are not the central businesses so they are close down, too. Again not just an excuse to closedend gun shops, closed and many, many other things as a no but they decide which side is false. There have been challenges to both and these have sometime succeeded both on the abortion side, but sometimes also on the gunsight. There was a recent connecticut decision accepting a gun rights claim, rejecting some decisions going both ways as well. The difference is that abortions and gun sales are performed usually with one person receiving and one for a couple providing. The risk of contagion, of course anytime to people is that theres a risk that its a lot less and a lot more manageable, a lot easier to maintain social distancing. Thats why, one reason why courts have been more open to striking down strict restrictions or at least striking that in the sense of lets say with an abortion, if a woman is at a point interpregnancy where in a couple of weeks she no longer would be legally allowed to have an abortion because thats the point of viability, that delay is effectively denial and that is unconstitutional. Interesting, im a big believer think about howow different rigs are similar, ifay you treat one right one wayin and treat anothr another way but there are differences. In the academy we discussed log splitters. They try to draw analogy. Some people are splitters. They try to draw a distinction. Of course the joke is almost should be one or another. Let me close with two things. Onens is all of these restrictis are generally permissible, to the extent they are neutral, o the extent they really treat things equal. So, for example, its quite clear if they say we will shut down mosques and synagogues because were afraid there will be spread of covid but not churches. 30 unconstitutional. One consequence is that now many states have basically declined to enforce any of the black lives matter protest, it becomes harder to do other protest vessel. They cant sit black lives matter protest, thats really Important Message so that trumps a the Public Health interests, but for other messages they are not. That would be clearly unconstitutional. I i suppose that might argue blk lives matter i participants were so big and so hard to do anything to stop them that we decided its a matter of Enforcement Discretion not to stop them. I dont think that is going to go very far in the future. This is a smaller protest. That seems to suggest the more popular the idea come the more people who believe in it, [inaudible] thats an important point. One question, to what extent can one broaden and say why is it Church Services are treated worse than medical marijuana sales . Im pretty hesitant about those kind of arguments. Sometimes lines need to be drawn. There are distinctions. In the Church Service a lot of people gathering and the Marijuana Dispensary not so much. In many states there treated as equally as pharmacies. Rightly or wrongly. The results are treated kind of like pharmacies. Thats the reason why they have remained open. Ive hesitant about someso of these equality arguments but 31 comes to one right, freedom of assembly, let the closest one thing. People often worry that even if sensible on its l own restrictin will last too long or is going to be adopted more often than it ought to be. So, for example, concerned about surveillance. You about surveillance against terrorism but is going to sprint and lots of areas. Allow a wartime restriction, if the work can go on for a very longin time, it can go on forev. One thing about these restrictions especially ones that are relatively egalitarian that treats people equally is they are politically selfless, tremendously expensive, expensive in terms of lost enjoyment of life. Politically expensive for politicians. Financial expensive for politicians and that politicians want to spend money on their favorite programs and all of these restrictions have such economic problems that the consequent is much less tax revenue and much less tax low. Theres lots of incentives. Its that when those things my god, people say you start up with this war will have a perpetual state of war. This is one area where i worry so much less of a restrictions leading to broader restrictions and restrictions lasting way too long. There will be some mistakes. Thank you very much. We now turn to professor Julia Mahoney. Y. Julia. Thank you. Thanks to the Federalist Society for organizing this eventst for having me. Im free much looking for to our exchanges. In the the few minutes i have for my opening remarks am going to make three points. The first relates to the medium and the longterm impact of government responses to covid19 on Civil Liberties. And in particular i will explain why i think its possible eugene is being just a bit too optimistic when it comes to the medium and longterm but we can discuss. The second is constitutional structure and how in times of great upheaval, constitutional structure often functions as the most potent check on government, at least but i would argue in the short term. And the third concerns property and economic rights and television of Civil Liberties that encompasses these rights which are sometimes something then neglected stepchild, has the potential or so i would argue to strengthen the u. S. Constitutional system. Let me take these one at a time. First, the medium and longterm consequences for Civil Liberties resulting from government responses to the covid19er crisis. I understand why eugene and many others have suggested that many or even most are the very restrictions put in place are new rules are not likely to be longlasting. And at first glance this makes a lot of sense. We look at colonial in u. S. History and what do we see . We see lots of ad epidemics, yellow fever, smallpox, malaria, and we see a lot of pretty significant the government restrictions, quarantine, closures of sporting events, closing of businesses, more rarely closing of school. And then i think it is true that in general in u. S. And colonial history, once the danger has abated things have at least on the surface gone back pretty much to normal, or at least thats been the standard story. So why do i think that covid19 could will mark a turning point and thatit it has potential, not certainty, but the potential to be a catalyst for lasting societal change . So for starters in recent u. S. History, never let a crisis go to waste has been the watchword, least inrs the 21st century among many, not all but many members of the political class. Covid19 is the third crisis in less than 20 years in which we have seen a lot of public officials, not all i stress, but many, tried to harness the public emergency in the service of what i would describe as preexisting partisan and policy objectives. Eugene is completely right that many of the restrictions put in place are very costly politically. Those are the ones again we should worry about least but plenty of Government Actions are kind of opaque, and those put in place will not necessarily much of a price. In addition, widening the lens beyond america and the United States, there is history in general, there is a rich and commit least fascinatinge literature on the aftereffects of epidemics, which not surprisingly has generated a lot of debate on whether and if so how, there is epidemic trends have shifted political power, maybe from land owners to laborers come thinking about the debates of effective lack death in england the mid14th Century Black death in england. We also have widely debates on the anthem played in the second century in rome. And again, it may well be that responses have fact that brought about significant changes in society. This could i believe happen in the United States. Now i stress getting back to one of the points nadine was making, its not clear which direction this is going to go in. I certainly did not have any sort of crystal ball. There could be blasting effects but is not clear if there be lasting effects in the direction of greater control by government. Weve already seen quite a bit of incarceration, accelerating trends towards the incarceration. Weve also seen quite a bit of deregulation, and it is grimly humorous to see many states, including new york, suspend a lot of Health Regulations in order to protect Public Health. That is indeed what we saw. Somebody suspensions i think may well become permanent, especially as a lot of voters see that regulations the Previous Panel have one of the discussion of loosening ofth alcohol regulation, and civilization hasnt ended and we can imagine that those changes are going toin be ongoing and tn getting back again to what eugenewh said, it certainly is quite pop plausible that the incarceration trend is going to continue. Now, my second counterpoint constitutional structure and now the constitutional structure protects Civil Liberties. That has been on full display during the covid19 crisis. During the covid19 crisis legislatures and courts have been active, just not the executive branch, the executive branch of the federal government and the governors were acting, not at all. And courts have been called upon to hear challenges to restrictions that have been imposed. And comes as no surprise thinking about Justice Roberts opinion that that eugene mention, many judges and justices are very hesitant in the heat of a serious Public Health crisis to secondguess the political branches. After all, they are making decisions under great time pressure, and in incredible uncertainty. We know a lot more about this virus that we did a few months ago, but we still dont know very much about it so we can see by courts and judges will often hang back. But where courts and judges are conscious of course is when they are evaluating process. So what comes as no surprise to me that when we look at accessible challenges to a lot of these government measures put in place, we see that the successful challenges have raised procedural checks, quarrels. Wait, you can do this. Youre not going through the correct channels. We saw this in the Supreme Court of wisconsin. We saw this recently from a michigan Supreme Court in the case involving a barber. One of the justices of the michigan Supreme Court said flat out it is incumbent upon the court to ensure decisions are made according to the rule of law, notma hysteria. So where various measures have not jump to all the hoops, have not been accordance with the constitutional structure, that is when courts i believe feel their most confident and are the most likely to take action. Finally, to my third point about property and economic rights and civi liberties. Since roughly the new deal era, painting with aha very broad a brush, property and economic rights have been again painting with a very broad brush come, something of neglected Rights Police often deemed to be not as important as some of the other rights that we have been discussing. Covid19 n highlights just how important rights to participate in the economy and to have ones Property Value protected in the face of Government Action, just how important these rights are to Human Flourishing and how hard, perhapss impossible, it s to disentangle them from the entire profile that can get more publicity, the rightsu to free rights of speech, travel, abortion, et cetera. The ability to make a living as a part of many of the challenges, and thesech challens interestingly to me are arising against the backdrop where there has been a trend for plaintiffs a childs occupational licensing regimes to win or more likely to win. Cu finally, a word about taking challenges. Theres been a lot of taking claims race and Responsive Government restrictions, and these claims are of course hard to win. I would suggest that the courte a very careful look at these cases because as weve been discussing courts hesitate to enjoin Government Action in time of great emergency, as deviation from procedure, its another matter to order compensation of Business Owners and otherssu who have suffered particularly heavy losses, who havee in effect been asked to bear more of the burden of the covid19 responses. Once things had settled them, once the great emergency is passed, it is easier to order compensation. They are not interfering and i think these considerations of compensating those on whom the burden has fallen quite hard are especially compelling if one is concerned about cronyism and favoritism in anticompetitive Government Action. Those who suffer the greatest losses often lack political power and so compensating them is one of the inequalities that flow from an equal political power and that in turn or so i would argue can make our constitutional structure more robust. With that i will turn it over to the left. Thank you very much. Julius kallick at uva, please proceed. Thank you so much for having me here. As the last speaker of the day im going to take a comparative perspective on these events because the issue that the u. S. Is facing a very summer to the issues that other democracies are facing. I think its probably fair to say, nadine also raised, it never before have we seen such a major drop in Civil Liberties around the world in democracies as during this current pandemic. Some of the measures have been mentioned, weve seen nationwide stayathome orders, suspended religious service, cell phone monitoring, censoring of meals in someer places. Its actual also interesting even though theres variation in response across countries theres also initial response was often quite similar. All countries them out of the exact circumstances primus decided they needed some form of lockdown. Lockdown is what we seen. We also Opinion Poll Research countries different show these measures are widely accepted by public, but everywhere weve seen over some ofur the issues that eugene race and julie raised, what is due for longterm for Civil Liberties in these places. It is a risk for abuse . To receive the constitution constrain executive power and what does it mean for democracy inon the long run . A question that is racism questions. In this brief talk, to Say Something about, i think the extent to which we should be worried about this as longterm phenomenon sort of picking up on what eugene said and what julie said that maybe from a site different angle. Ive been together with a coauthor, working on a project where we have been surveying the Covid Response in every country and so far weve done this for 70 countries. Specifically, to what extent this is meant phenomenon of an executive acting on his or her own, versus to what extent have seen the constitution be invoked . Have seen courts involved . Legislatures involved and also subnational units ofnv states within federal systems, like mayors, governors and someone involved in this response. Because the traditional image, an image that some people are worried about is one of an unconstrained executive. Once we have an emergency we dont let it go to waste. The executive has an enormous amount of power, other branches delegate. The courts defer to the executive. Legislator delegate power and wall goes away. This is well monday on emergency power that basically goes back to carl schmitt but has remained influential until thisnc day. One of the key findings so far as a look at democracies is that that is not been what is happened in most places. So in most places we get seen a lot of involvements by courts, more so than in the u. S. Perhaps have courts in through themselves in questions of scrutinizing the lack of measures on constitutional grounds. We have seenwn legislatures been involved passing brandnew laws and we see subnational units, states within federal systems and not even states, sometimes provinces or cities resist lockdown orders or impose them when the Central Government doesnt. We seen Something Like much more of a a dialogue between differt branches. I wanted and and i actuallyk thats are good thing. In a. World where we dont know what the right responses and nobody windows with the right response to this Current Crisis is, maybe the best we can do is make sure that multiple actors are notca involved. That reduces the risk of making a colossal mistake. So having dialogue between branches, different parts of government is probably useful. Let me Say Something because for the purpose of this audience on this research, the different ways courts around the world have involved themselves in theserlrl questions. We basically look at the cases, some cases in some 30 countries and read them to the extent we could. I think im going to be a lump or and not a splitter, but there is four brought to the ways courts have involved themselves. One is what julie predicted most, which is c ensure that proper procedures are followed of powers,paration separation of power framework in the constitution is upheld. Actually the very first court they got involved in this was the Constitutional Court of kosovo and it struck down the entire lack of order in the country because it was passed by the executive alone aced on regulation and was not based on legislation. Basically said you can do this until you pass a law. Then the law was passed. Some say that only means not executive has to jump through some procedure loop. Others would say thats important. You have legislative involvement. The israeli Supreme Court has said the government can do cell phone monitoring without involving the israeli parliament, without, in contradiction with the basic law. Weve seen whole bunchch of thee sort of procedural cases. Thats not then only type of ce we see. We also see courts in Different Countries actually doing this substantive rights review that julia predict what really happened and hasnt been as common in the u. S. In any case, and that nadine was talking about which is just making sure like are these measures necessary . Are the temporary, narrowly tailored, proportional . Usually the framework many foreign courts use. Constitutional court has said you cant ban gatherings if they take sufficient seen measures into account. You cant ban religious services if they canif appear to social distancing guidelines. South africa last week, a case came out with a high court basically said that the government has failed to explain why you can run on the boulevard but the next to the beach, but once you enter the beach you no longer there because, allowed rhonda because the beaches were close. That doesnt make sense. Short of that, unconstitutional. Even in the s u. S. I guess the sixth Circuit Court of appeals decision that held the kentucky couldnt simply been religious services because you have to explain it to keep open laundromats and liquor stores, with social distancing, you should also be ablend to do the same for religious services. We actually see some of those cases and its interesting because courts are really inserting themselves in the substantive questions. Third, we see cases were courts are demanding action. They are actually asking governments to do stuff and this is kind of uncommon in the trend because you cant violate the constitution if you did nothing but thats not true under International Human rights law or constitutional law of most countries. So when brazil a court imposed a lockout in the city with Healthcare System had collapsed. The government failed to act. The president failed to act and so the court imposed a lockdown. The highest court of brazil has also held that the government is under an obligation to provide adequate information about the virus. So both the narrow can just go around saying this is just a little through and have vigorously was a real come has to provide Accurate Information to theth country. In india, the Supreme Court ruled Public Health insurance should pay foran a test. Theres lots of cases like that often the rights to help which isay a right is recognizing that the constitutions is used to demand governments actually do stuff. Finally theres a a number of cases we found that are about postponing elections. Obviously the question of whether elections should be held or postponed and its very difficult one. There is not clear at the or wrong answer, although not clear courts have the right or wrong answer of what they can do is try to screen out ulterior motives for postponing elections. We have seen some casesth where the tragedy that come interesting case from the polish Supreme Court andni others although does for everything one of the cases we found, the court said the election should go ahead as planned. We havent had a a single one r the court said they should be postponed. So thats some flavor. Okay, i guess im at a time is also this is lets wind up. Okay. This is what weve seen that the courts venting. Weve also seen a lot of legislativesl involvement. In some 60 of the democracies we looked at, brandnew legislation passed. So like in uk a covid19 bill that gives additional power to the Prime Minister but only applies for 21 days. Here are not legislators deferring to the executive but rather they are handing new powers to them. Im sorry, theyre actively legislating in the face of this crisis. And finally we see the subnational resistance, so states resist president s and back and forth between the national and the subnational level. R i will leave it at that. We will come back to you. Id like toll say this is been n extraordinarily rich and set of presentations presentations. Thank you very much, all. I would like to begin by asking each of you if you would like to have, having listened to the others respond others, ask questions, revise and extend your own remarks, change or position. You can persuade it and it is going to ask everybody to do that but it want to start with nadine because i cut her off a little bit and i think she make a few more points. Thank you sok much. There was an infinite revise and extend, take things or ask questions if youre a copanelist. Thank you so much. Thanks to. We were talking about the fact that the United States generally only imposes negative obligations on the government, rather than affirmative. Of course, the one exception is when the government is Holding People in custody. The court has actually acknowledged because of other rationales that if the government is incapacitated, that person from taking care of him or herself, and that is extremely unusual in our form of constitution to impose duties on the government, so that explains all of those cases. Voting issues in this country, the main debate and litigation has been over the extent to which the 16 states that do not already automatically entitle everybody to vote by mail, should be required to do so without any procedural impediments. End of these 16, i believe some have already voluntarily ,mplemented those reforms interestingly states with republican and democratic majorities, and democratic and republican governors. But there are others who are resisting. And this lays out in a national debate. In fact, there was a trendline today ina basicallysa today pitting donald trump against joe biden, because the conventional wisdom seems to be that it would be voting fraud that would disenfranchise republicans. Biden and trump both warn that the other side may steal the election as a result of coping 19. So even though theres reason to contest the underlying assumption, it seems to be that democrats feel they would be be advantaged by more vote by mail. And some republicans disagree with that. And that is being fought out in courts all over the country. Thank you. Eugene, on the question of longterm effects, has julia turned you around . Just talking about different aspects of the same question. Inclined tod im say that the restrictions i have talked about will go a replay on their own. But others may not, other kinds of regulations, other kinds of deregulation. We havent talked much about apps thatacy, and the may require you to have them on your phone. Lets have people voluntarily join these apps because they are in their own interest as well so they can be notified if they are exposed to someone who is infected, but if that does not yield enough uptick on the publics part, and indications are that it wont, what about mandated Contact Tracing and such . Adopted,things, once mary very well spread once adopted, may very well spread, and i think there is a very serious reason to be concerned. But we often talk about tradeoffs between liberty and privacy on one side and safety on the other, and of course, some such tradeoffs have to be made. The fourth amendment, for example, doesnt ban all searches and seizures. That is why there are attempts to balance them. But i want to suggest this is an area where we might see a tradeoff between privacy and liberty. So lets say theres a next wave, as there likely will be, of infections. Get a vaccine, part of the problem is that there is a huge problem happening now in mexico, and with the border being famously porous, there will be no way of stopping reinfection from mexico, even if it is in the u. S. This is the clearest example, unless we totally shut down international trade. Cell it may be that one of the things we will be facing is, do we have more privacy, but the consequence, when we get the second wave, which could be worse in the first, then we have to have less liberty because everything gets shut down . Or do we have less privacy and the government will be able to track you now for the sake of rejecting against reinfection . But then when there is a next wave, first of all, its likely that there will be a serious next wave, and if there is, we will have more effective ways of dealing with it that dont require a shutdown. That could be a difficult problem we are going to be faced with in the coming months. The completely agree with point eugene is making. But if i could make it more complicated always good to make it more complicated. I would not draw a distinction between liberty and privacy. I would say there are Liberty Sites here inth , the of what you explained more government surveillance there is, their study after study that while we are subject to that, the more chilling impact it has on Civil Liberties, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and so forth. I would say theres a difference between restrictions on liberty and privacy. It is more burdensome, for example to people to think that , they cannot speak out about elections that if they do speak , out they will disclose some things about themselves. Both are restrictions on liberty, but theres no doubt that they closely interact. Absolutely. Julia . I will limit myself to one brief question for each of my copanelists. Deincarceration, are you concerned about a possible backlash if this is done under great pressure, if he is done perhaps in a way that is not well thought out . Are you concerned that public support might fall . With eugene speaking about these restrictions, and which ones are politically selflimiting, are you worried . You mentioned surveillance. Up fact we beefed surveillance would be top of my thatin changes of liberty are not going to be politically , and they are not so obvious to the people. Right. I think the clearest example is surveillance. , and i dont know if this is unduly pessimistic or realistic or neither, but i think we are going to see much more surveillance, no matter what in the years and decades to , come. I have long thought this because greater ease of Technology Available to small groups of people, including , and and you are going to have more and more example, terrorists using biological weapons, and not just this is nothing. Very sad to see the people died, but the fatality rate is under 1 for smallpox. And while we have immunization against smallpox, if theres a new strain, this could be devastating. And my guess is one of the things we are going to need to doing order to prevent that in the future apart from , radiological weaponry and other things, is have more and more surveillance. I will give you another example. Obviously policing is , tremendously necessary. When people say to defund the police, they dont really mean that, and to the extent they do, thats a losing proposition. All of us need police protection. At the same time, its not clear to me the right way of enforcing traffic laws, the way that is best for liberty as a whole, is to have people pulled over by police for traffic violations. It seems much simpler to have them have itd of , sent then and have a citation sent to the person. And then the police, rather than stopping the car and then running a license check or some other kind of check, that the police might just have the computer, so you see the license plate the car is owned by this , person, pull up alongside, does it look like this person . So on balance, it may be a greater surveillance mechanism, red light cameras, various other things, properly done, there are all sorts of risks with that, will actually be better and better for Civil Liberties and allow us to have fewer , policecitizen encounters for those things which dont need to risk turning into something very bad, and limit those situations where you really are trying to stop someone in the middle of a property crime and such, but again that will involve more surveillance. So yes, i think the surveillance we are going to set up here, i think that is part of a rolling trend. I do not think its reversible. I will chime in on that. I will also answer julias great question. Julia, you referred to the three crises in the last 20 years, the first 9 11, and the patriot act vastly increased surveillance powers with respect to usmunication, among those of who arent even suspected of any kind of the conduct, let alone terrorism. They were initially enacted with this concept provision, right . And that concept has been extended and extended and extended and those surveillance , provisions, mass surveillance, are still in effect, even after the revelations by Edward Snowden and the seeming impetus to reform. So sadly, i agree with eugene that surveillance is likely to increase, not decrease. With respect to your great question to me, julia the devil , is in the details. And that is why it is really important that a specific criteria in determining who will be eligible for removal, and what kind of removal, it doesnt necessarily mean outright removal, is really, really important. One very worrying turn in the absence of opportunities for reintegration that exists in our current cluster of laws and regulations which makes people who have beenh incarcerated, wo have been convicted, ineligible for a whole host of opportunities and services that would seem to be necessary in order to help them make a Successful Transition back into society. Whatsso not enough just to dump them out. We really need a lot of other reforms, and it may be hard to do that in the time of such great economic difficulties with such high unemployment rates. You are very right to point out that this requires a lot more thinking and planning in further policy steps. Let me ask if you have anything youd like to add or ask . May be two really comments, questions, but on the issue of surveillance, in the sort of European Countries that ive been following this is probably one of the biggest debates as well, that Everybody Wins these lockdowns will in and will return to normal but theres big debates over legislation being passed that allows for this kind of i surveillance. Inov general, there is more of e concern with privacy and privacy of data in europe i would say then that is in this country. There are stricter regulations on this as well and nonetheless are considering this. This is ultimately what produces more liberty probably so we may just have to do this. But its ast difficult and controversial issue. Second thing i want to mention in response to the mail in elections or postal ballots. There was a case before the Supreme Court of poland where the polish Supreme Court said you cannot simply change to a postal election because that affects the constitutional essence of the election. That turns post office into election officers. It marginalizes the role of the Election Commission that weec have. So unless there was major constitutional and or legislativeun reform, we would t obviously a very different setting by do think its interesting because it touched upon the issues. That so fascinating. Was it unanimous . Im notot sure, im not sure. But obviously there was a pretextual situation going on where the ruling government thought by ruling the elections holding the elections are they would be more likely to be reelected so clearly that was going on. I want to emphasize the point that this surveillance and privacy issues are probably going to become more salient in this next phase than they were in the past. If you just everybody has to stay home for a month, we are treating everybody alike, but when you get into a situation especially on Contact Tracing, i know cases in some states where people have been asked to quarantine and outer stater completely asymptomatic has to quarantine for two weeks and the police come to your house a week later to make sure you are still there. In other states theyve actually said this isee the honor system, and theres lots of the virgins there but were going to see in several states divergence. Some active surveillance and some big cases coming up. In listening to the justifications of these various measures that have been taken, theres been a sort of or overlapconfusion as to what the government is trying to accomplish. Sometimes it sounds like it is paternalistic self protection, like a Motorcycle Helmet law that we were doing these thino protect ourselves. Sometimes it sounds like were protecting immediate bystanders, people that are right around us. I would bear like a like a dogw i suppose. And then in other cases the strongest justification is that this is necessary for achieving an important Public Health the goal that requires some substantial g degree of individl compliance. That makes it like a vaccine requirement. Does it make a difference and how we assess the Civil Liberties burdens . What the justification is, and the government sometimes inconsistent. Te its pretty clear these are being done foral general Public Health services, purposes, but then Government Officials make it sound like you better do this or youre going to get sick. So moves that much more to the paternalistic since. Will i have a stronger case for challenging the effectiveness of these rules based upon one purpose or another . I can see that agitated a lot of what do you think about it, chris . I just have not seen a case, theres enormous amount of debate about the effectiveness of the lockdown orders and the effectiveness or many things being done right now. I am not seeing a legal challenge based upon the fact that this had no rational basis to the protection of Public Health. May be there been of these cases where you close a a beach or yu close a a public park and it doesnt seem to be related to anything at all. But i havebl not seen a strong Civil Liberties attack on anys f these things on the ground of ineffectiveness. Am i wrong . But one is, is there a rational basis . The answer is sure. Of course. You can say it is completely irrational and the very fact we dont know whats going to work and whats not makes experimenting with things under an emergency basis more rational. The second question is, how mh does the government haves to prove . Almost uniformly the courts have said, not much. Because this is not something on which we can expect releasors proof because of the difficult, complex systems that the human body and human society, and jacobsen versus massachusetts, 1905 case, the courts continue to treat this as highly instructive at least as well, when were trying to figure the pluses and minuses of vaccination p, stick dangers medicine in the own body, thats something that a court should defer to executive judgment on, especially in the context of the Public Health emergency. That remains the general view and its probably right because i would think the judge would do great job of trying to figure something out and affect Public Health experts, they dont know either. Can i yes. Even more. So jacobsen versus massachusetts president is not about someone having to be vaccinated. Its notot whether someone can e fined. Thats really important that the court says this is fine, its okay but it wasnt if i recall correctly whether or not they had to produce themselves and get jabbed. In terms [inaudible] the question of why theismann challenges yet about the ineffectiveness perhaps of it, i see its just too soon because it seems to me the first day courts are willing to look carefully at what governments are doing, the separatione c of powers, structural arguments and process arguments and so forth, but they really do seem to step back at least initially in the short term from the willing to scrutinize on any group. It seems to me the next stage courts are likely to look carefully at whether what the government is doing is an outlier. At that nexti stage its often becomes little easier to getif a court to look carefully at something and one of the most useful arguments destined to be look what this government is doing, no one else is doing this. It is way more restrictive. And then finally we begin to see more examination of the substance. That examination of the substance is goingng to, in fa, is coming already but anyway i would love to your weather nila thinks i am roughly correct or not. I think its possible although there were some courts that jumped him pretty early on substantive questions like the german Constitutional Court, for example, or of the courts in your that it said explain what you had to stay home, because its not clear if theres any reason for single out young people, for example. But i do want to also i guess maybe what others have said, pushback on this idea that courts, are not suitable decisn makers. Nobody has information. Like epidemiologists ares not running mexican officials. Everybody is weighing the same imperfect information. Its not made courts worse like in the worst position to judge this information that elected officials. Really not clear to me at all. Its important to these Different Actors check each other on these questions. I hope we see more of that going forward. There hasnt been anyis litigationnk about this technoly ideas that were floated, have been as far as i understand, by consensus rejected because the consensus has developed that they wouldnt be effective. Early on their suggestions that we could all use mobile phone location apps or Contact Tracing. A the fact that it was tried somewhere, its not granular enough to show whether we have been in close enough proximity along enough time to possibly e infected. Thank you very much. We have arrived at question time. We havese about 15 minutes to pe questions or a pertinent and pc comments as well. If you wish to introduce a question or comment, you should, if youre on zoom, you should hit the raise and button on your screen. If youre on the phone hit the start nine button. That will put you in a queue on my page. Please wait until i call on you. When i call and you are technical people will unmute you a you should unmute yourself before you speak. We had several people already, whove already raise their hand, and the first three people im going to call on our karen lugo, cameron atkinson, and eric rasmussen. We will startns with karen, please. [inaudible] please unmute yourself, karen. M. O. I. Unmuted now . Im sorry. Yes, please proceed. Theres been a growing demand for constitutional clarity by the public. Some cases are actually apparently being muted by governments as they reached the court and its been an ongoing discussion about this. Im actually part of supporting litigation in florida and would like to use this particular executive order as an example where, although the government has been called up as a positive example of managing the crisis in many ways, one of the executive orders alone talks about quarantine, but yet these standards have to do with states including some coming from and substantial community spread. Orders like this have been in place for months and also entail criminal penalty. They are not updated, not scale to curve flattening so the public s is baffled as to when d where to get the constitutional clarity as to when police power has gone on for too long, gone too far. And so rather than learning from popular examples like we will call it civil disobedience of the hair salonit owner, how do general citizens understand that some of these orders, because of the constitutional infringement liberties, should be challenged . Great question, karen. Panelists . You know, maybe im missing exact nature of the question, but if the question is, if youre a member of the public, how do you know what the rule is . Like when youre about news stories should you be outraged or not . Whats the rule . The answer is theres not a very clear rule, in part because how do rules roles become more clen our system . The role of process of repeated litigation. I can tell you a good deal not about free speech. Oo because the courts decide hundreds of free speech cases including in recent decades so we dont have to look back a century. But thankfully we havent had a lot of cases in recent years having to do with his from u. S. Supreme court, so theres, which is a the law is not completely clear. A few things seem pretty clear that the government does have brought authority but the limitations, its sort of the the lease our common law system, and a use common law broadly as a s system were lot f the decision made by judges rather than courts in some conference of code. Its hard to know. As to the question of what should be challenged, we certainly chose whatever doubt the inclination and a lawyer fees to challenge and people are challenging, and sometimes they try to shift the president. Totally understood. I dont think we can expect great clarity in this area of the law. In large part because first of all, life is public it. My father liked to use the phrase it is vague like life itself. So life is complicated, but also theres been forcibly relatively little occasion for the Supremet Court or even lower courts to chime in on this until the last few months, or many decades now, so the result, why should we expect of a really crisp, clear rulew. Of law especially when te top without the facts on the ground are both changing and understanding of the facts on the ground is changing. I like cleared into law. And a lot of tears we should expect clarity. The law could be a lot clearer than it is. I just dont think this is one of them. This is a matter of state statutory law. Thats true. Ordinances and there may be whole separate body of case law for each state and these jurisdictions that is involved. But that said i think were going w to get a little bit of clarity, in particular the big, big thing that were all waiting for, i think anyway, is some information about asymptomatic transmission. Unlike other epidemics where, if the was asymptomatic transmissions, that was on the radar screen of regulators here and at that point when there are some discerned faqs about a submitted transmission or the lack thereof in court are going to be much more confident in deciding where theyre going to drop the boundary of permissible exercises of the police power. But reallyy it has become clear. Lets say theres no asymptomatic transmission, and like, all the Health Experts say theres no need at this point to have lockdowns. You just t need to have everyboy get temperature, the temperature measured to see the running a fever or something. Its true at that point the courts might be fairly well armed andnd fairly willing to strike things down, but its not terribly likely most Government Officials will say we dont care. Because again they are facing lots of political incentives to open things up as well. Especially since weve seen feedback, a lot of states are already opening up even in the face of thea risk of asymptomac governors and mayors have shown a willingness to change the policies in light of changing evidence. You can imagine some outlier who is crazy orca disorder of politically capsular one side or the other,ne or maybe just way, way, way too cautious, judges are historically tend to be more cautious, that the judges can step in and trump that. I just dont think that is terribly likely. If it does become clear enough that some of these things are no longer by and large it would get shut down in most places by the executive and maybe by the legislature whenhu it gets shut down by judges. What we were probably find is that the asymptomatic transmission but there is presymptomatic transmission which makes this much more complicated. We have seven or ten minutes left. Connecticuts coronavirus restriction, one of the problems were running into courts here, we dont get the necessary arguments, effectiveness arguments, we get stopped dead in our tracks on the standard in connecticut courts and the affected Circuit Courts, and is using jacobsons to develop his own standard of scrutiny and given jacobsons constitutional law is pre incorporation and pre scrutiny. Weve not been economic rights claims. Jacobson, unreasonable and arbitrary and unnecessary scrutiny be reconciled with mode modern jurisprudence . Im going to say hi to cameron, for hosted me at his law school. On jacobsons massachusetts i would push back hard. And i think as suggested, thats a far weaker precedent for government, government power than is generally thought so i suggest you contact me and we can talk off line about this. Very good. Next is eric. Okay. Hi, i think im unmuted now. Yes, we can here you, the restrictions than telling people they have to close down orbusiness, close their church, the funerals, and weddings and so forth. And the seems utterly trivial compared to that. And more about that because when they do talk i hear about trivial things your neighbor sees you coughing and we tell the neighbors youve got covid19 or is that hipaa rights . And do we now worry that everybody is treated equally and tough only when sick people get surveilled, but there, i think under an equality, stalinism with everybody equally and executions and arrests were random after 1930. There were no it was just a matter of terrorizing everybody and i wonder if theyd say thats fine in america. Especially perfectly legal if you say what the court says is legal rather than natural gnaw or ritualism or Something Like that, saying that we dont know what is illegal yet, the courts havent ruled. If you asked me if i can play the tuba, i would say i dont know, ive never tried. So, why arent you worried . Thank you. Well, i think one of the things we have been talking about here, these are tremendous burdens on liberty. Theyre not stalin, most certainly. But theyre tremendous burdens on liberty. Weve been living under them for two to three months and now theyre easing. They will probably be gun gone within two, three months. I dont think that libertarians are saying they are not im not libertarian, i am libertarianish. And many times under the normal circumstances of the nonaggression principles, we can do anything that we want as long as we dont hurt others dont apply because we could be hurting others we dont know were carriers, under certain circumstances, temporary things are legitimate and its been recognized when weve had quarantines and other such things and its serious, but its timeless. Within reason to worry about, location tracing, especially if mandatory. I think that people are right to it, there the danger, this will last indefinitely. The that this is going to be seen as a necessary precaution against future plagues and then it might end up being used and incidentally using Location Tracking to track people who are members of terrorist groups and white supremacist groups and say things on twitter and they believe it shows simply for white supremacy. These are serious risks and things where indeed the restriction is smaller, but it lasts a much longer time. Here, we have something thats a big restriction and one that were confident will last for a short time and i think thats why people are rightly not as troubled by it as they would be if it was similar, but aimed at Something Else and potentially lasting longer. Thank you. And socalled smaller restrictions might not be justified at all if theyre shown to be ineffective and i think the point that he would be happy to see the a. C. L. U. , from the beginning has talked about Civil Liberties being on both sides of the equation here and if we can have minor restrictions that are effective in getting us safely into a free realm, that that is definitely worth the cost. And some of the proposals have been the worst of both worlds. They do restrict our freedom and they, in fact, dont make us safer in a health perspective. I agree with nadine, completely and i would add one more thing to that. You can put me in the category of the very concerned because i think were at risk of what i call tyranny by model. All models are wrong, but some are useful, but the models are not very good and but, yet, they can be invoked as justification for extraordinary restrictions by the government. So, it adds another layer of difficulty to figuring out as a society when we trust experts and to what extent and so forth so i am not relaxed about this. Thanks. Thank you. The next question is from wesley p. All i know is the first letter of your last name. Wesley p. Please proceed. Thank you for all, especially the professor, youre a gem at the law schools are so, the question, will this pandemic allow for the question of abuses of executive edicts. Were seeing it in the higher courts, state courts and even lower District Courts are not up to speed or technology . Or maybe its going to be the reverse and theyre going to show more deference to executives during this time seeing that making such decisions is too swift. We should wait and let the executives do their jobs for policy. Policy. And the other thing we didnt mention was employees labeled as essential workers in badge states where people who are not nurses and administrative staff are required to go to the office, go to work, required to put their safety at risk, essentially under an edict that probably should be questioned, but its difficult. Thank you. Thanks, wesley, thank you very much. Let me interject that we have weve arrived at the end of our time. If the panelists are willing, id like to run over for just five minutes until 5 20. So let me ask if there are points that people would like to make in response to wesley and then ill move on to others. In that case im going to ask eric to i hope i get this right, eric. Please. Please. I want to say hi to wesley and everyone at the law school. If i could quickly talking about wesleys point, go ahead. If i could get to something that wesley mentioned. You know, one question that arises with all of these things who is essential and who is not. Some people are upset at being called essential, theyre afraid it exposes them to health risks and others who say theyre not essential affects their livelihood. There are waivers for the bureaucracy and the claims, that there are not adequate procedures to make sure the thing is, its a very serious issue, its often an issue of state Administrative Law and at the same time we have to recognize that inevitably any situation, whenever youre trying to draw the line between one thing and another thing, Tax Exemptions and regulated things, nonregulated things. Youre going to have to draw that linement you cant do it in the abstract. You can come up with a general principle, but then you have to have them, and when theres a claim, we have to look at why its supposedly unfair. You can look at some, and quite a few where you need to know a lot more. Just for a minor point. It might make sense to ponder whether it would be useful to designate essential and nonessential in advance. At least to have a little bit more planning in order to appropriate for the next emergency of this sort. It might not be, right . It might be that the backs are so specific that said we wouldnt get very far with that, but certainly something that as voters, i think so we should contemplate. Good. Eric. Thank you. You get an a for the panelists, the framers of the constitution didnt create the judiciary or even the bill of rights to be the ultimate arbiter. They created a system of checks and balances to do so. Unfortunately, over time the legislative check on executive access at all levels of government have been largely subordinated to an individual legislators partisan affiliation, not their institutional affiliation, what do we do about this when the executive is unchecked due to partisan affiliation or is the judiciary then the ultimate arbiter and are we doomed as a result . Thank you. No, were not doomed. I would say i dont think were doomed at all. I would say checks and balances, and maybe not as robust as before as you would like, or as i would like, but whats occurred in the last few months, and particularly until the state Supreme Court i was mentioning where the state Supreme Courts do take vigorous action fairly quickly, has convinced me that our constitutional structure is in a reasonably good shape. Not that it cant be improved, but its been functioning, i would say, fairly well. I would just add that at least at the national level, which is where i followed these issues, part of the reason for congresss failure to advertise a robust checking function is because of on right, they dont want to have to take responsibility and this is especially salient in the law making powers, right . And its on many other issues to deny accountability, deniability by clearly one way or the other. With apologies to the others who are lining up at that microphone in the sky, im going to cut things off with one final question and that will be richard bush. Bridgette, please. Can you hear me . Yes. Thank you to the entire panel. Its been a wonderful conference. Court proceedings, wondering to what extent can you regulate court proceeds to fit the unique challenges of the covid crisis and the remote proceedings for Due Process Rights . Thank you. Thank you. One of the most interesting developments for Supreme Court watchers is having the court make its oral arguments readily accessible than has been true in the past. I havent been following the extent to which the speak has made clear that its not going to continue to do this after we go back to normal, pre pandemic normal. And it seems to me with uns that bridge has been crossed, it might be hard to turn back to the old days of just making us wait to hear those oral arguments. Yeah, i think thats absolutely right if i can elaborate in two way, i think a lot more appellate arguments are going to be done by Video Conference. The 9th circuit has shifted to that, i think with great success, some courts only to audio, such as the Supreme Court, but also some lower courts for some reasons i dont fully grasp. But a video, i think, its not perfect. Its not quite as good, quite as effective in some ways, so much easier and cheaper for everybody, a lot less travel costs. Imagine in the 9th circuit, people have to come from guam to San Francisco. Ive been told by the 9th circuit in the past theyve had Video Conferences for guam, but i think we are going to see a lot of that at the trial level. Instead of court call as we have. And i think we have more video and i think a lot of judges are going to say i like this better. The lawyers like this better. Its cheaper for everybody, lets do it. Right pardon . Environmentalists should like it, too. A lot less traffic on the road and air. And the second question that judges are facing throughout the country, how do you do jury trial . Which is a chief thing that has to be done in person, still. How do you do jury trials with social distancing. And an interesting document, a report outline, but it has all of these drawings, like, a ticket style drawings like blueprints which show here is the drawing of our courtroom and youd have four jurors sitting in the jury box and then youd have eight jurors sitting in where the audience sits and then were going to have Video Conference feed to some other courtroom in the courthouse and provide for public access, which is a constitutional mandate. So i think whats going to happen is that the legal system will adapt to this and well actually learn some things going forward, such as to do more by Video Conference. The time has come to conclude and i would like to note that the most important innovation in the Legal Proceedings that we have seen in the past couple of months is that the Federalist Society is now holding such intense and interesting proceedings on zoom. So i would like to thank eugene meyer and all of his colleagues there for inviting us to this meeting and for this new innovation. Id like to invite id like to thank the many attendees who have joined us and many interesting questions that have been raised. Most of all id like to thank our distinguished panelist, nadine, eugene, Julia Mahoney and mila. Thank you and good evening. Oh, wait a minute, wait a minute our supervisor has another word to say. A lot of what i wanted to say youve said in terms of thanking our participants and panelist, id like to thank the panelists over the last six for all six panels. All of those panels are available online, on our website, and really appreciate all of your involvement. Ill make one other comment which is dont underplay the value of interpersonal, direct interpersonal relations. Zoom is wonderful, but it cant do everything. A wisecrack and thank you, thank you all very much. Weve had some can you feel wonderful discussions, i really appreciate it. The Senate Judiciary committee convenes a hearing today to examine the use of force rules. Watch it online on cspan. Org or listen live on the free