Public policy issues, one of our intellectuals. Thank you. Welcome, one and all. This session will examine the Civil Liberties issues that have been raised by Government Actions to content with the coronavirus pandemic. We will hear from four imminent legal scholars. One from new york law school, chairman of the american Civil Liberties union. Eugene of the ucla law school, host of the eponymous website of conspiracy. Julia of the university of Virginia School of law, who specializes in property, public finance, and constitutional law. And finally mia Love University of Virginia School of law, who specializes in comparative constitutional law and International Law. Further information about each of them is available at the conference website. Our session will run up to 90 minutes, concluding not later than 5 15 eastern in the United States. We will have individual presentations and a general Panel Discussion and questions from attendees. When question time arrives, i will ask those with questions to click raise hand on your screen or star nine on your phone. To set the stage, the centerpiece of u. S. Response to the pandemic has been a massive suppression of everyday Civil Liberties going beyond anything 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 that required the vast majority of americans to isolate at home and to limit their outings to a few specified purposes, public and private gatherings were limited to small numbers, and virtually all schools, churches, and businesses were shuttered. Restrictions were to be temporary, but their duration was extended from weeks to months and are just beginning to be relaxed. The closure of schools and large indoor gatherings may extend through the fall. The orders were exertions of state police power undertaken by governors, mayors, agencies, sometimes with explicit authorities that set forth state legislation, sometimes without it. We have learned a great deal about the virus and its patterns of transmission since march and there are serious debates whether the lockdowns were sensible and effective compared to more targeted measures outside of hotspots, such as new york city and san francisco. The orders were met with widespread Public Acceptance and high levels of compliance. Even before the orders were issued, some individuals and residential communities had begun to shuttered some shops and businesses and many large assemblies had been canceled. What i have described as a suppression of Civil Liberties could just as well be described as voluntary temporary surrender of liberties and of Popular Mobilization against a mysterious but clearly deadly contagion. These issues are largely counter majoritarian. They do not depend upon popular assent at the moment they are exercised and they are often most feared when they run afoul of government policies. The lockdown orders were different between different sort of activities and some have no relationship to 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 pot shops as essential but Church Services as inessential. Now lockdowns are being replaced by opening up policies that involve narrow and numerous kinds of distinctions. Regulation of public conduct such as distancing and masking are being applied to larger numbers of citizens and many new policies are being introduced or mandatory testing, Contact Tracing, public surveillance, restrictions on interstate travel, and Public Opinion has splintered. Many of us are reluctant to be out, but others are busting out, setting up shop, and releasing months of pent up energy. The famous american spirit of individualism and freedom is reawakening. Our panelists will analyze Civil Liberties issues that have arisen in the course of this,. Drama, some of them perhaps touching on federal as well as state policies, these will include issues under the bill of rights and the broader question of whether Civil Liberties are best protected in circumstances such as these by specific rights or by government structure. We will also examine how these controversies played out under the constitutional regimes of other nations it consider whether they are transitory incidents or may have lasting consequences for law and policy. We will begin with professor nadine. The zoom podium is yours. Thank you so much for that terrific introduction. I am happy and honored. I thought the best use of my time would be to set out general principles that are applicable to assessing all 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 sets of issues in terms of how we apply those standards, including the right to life and health itself for those in government custody, the right to vote, the right to privacy. With respect to general principles, broad consensus about these across the ideological spectrum. I think the first statement i heard about this from the nine States Government officials early on was attorney general bill barr, who said these words that were music to my years as a civil libertarian, he said, there is no pandemic exception to the constitution and its bill of rights. That said, he did go on to point out that when we have a genuine emergency, the constitution and bill of rights are consistent with restrictions that are necessary and temporary in order to deal with the genuine emergency. The United States constitution is distinct from constitutions in other countries insofar as we do not have expressly written into the constitution a general exception for emergencies. It is noteworthy that the constitution itself provides for only one exception, only one right in specific types of emergencies, that is the ascension clause regarding habeas corpus. I dont think even the most ardent civil libertarian would disagree that most rights can be subject to restriction, subject to strict standards. Notably, even though this is a standard in american life, it is mirrored in international and human rights law and the laws of other countries and regional human rights treaties, namely, is the measure necessary . It is the least restrictive of Civil Liberties in order to promote the unarguably compelling goal of promoting Public Health . In addition to that standard, there has to be procedural statements including due process, accountability, and transparency. Let me pause to say, with respect to that necessity, less restrictive alternative criterion, a government restriction on Civil Liberties cannot set aside that standard if it is not even effective in countering the Public Health danger. Sadly but not surprisingly, because this is so new and in flux the number of liberty restricting measures dont make the standard, let alone the least restrictive alternative. This requires a factspecific assessment and with apologies in advance, it is impossible to keep abreast of even all of the restrictions, let alone the factual nuances, which is why i wanted to concentrate on this general standard. Especially when something is so factspecific, an important legal issue is burden of proof and with what level of deference . Under strict scrutiny, the government should bear the burden of proof, that is true in International Human rights laws, and yet, in a recent statement in a Supreme Court ruling, john roberts stressed his perspective, he stressed that courts should be highly deferential to government officials in assessing the constitutionality of pandemic restrictions. He happened to be talking about restrictions on Worship Services in california. He said the question of when restrictions on social activities should be lifted during a pandemic is a dynamic matter, subject to disagreement. Our constitution entrusts the safety and health of its people to the politically accountable officials of the state. When those officials acted areas fraught with medical and scientific uncertainty, there latitude must be broad. They must not be subject to secondguessing by an unelected federal judiciary which lacks the expertise to assess Public Health and is not accountable to the public. This is familiar refrain for our chief justice. Judicial restraint, deference to majorities, as indicated in his opening remarks, he is consistent with the notion of individual rights guaranteed by the constitution. That will certainly be a theme that will separate different sides of these debates. In terms of the multiple important steps of issues, i look at the aclu as a bellwether because we have officers all over the country, more than 150 different lawsuits in addition to all the advocacy, legislatures, the executive branch, and so forth. A couple days ago, a column said about the only things federal courts are arguing these days are video sentences and american civil liberty cases. A lot of the issues are joined by government officials as well, of all ideological stripes. A lot the issues are being resolved without the necessity for litigation. I will illustrate that with the first specific basket of issues , and that has to do with what has been called the most basic human right, to protect oneself from grave danger when one is held in government custody involuntarily, in jail or prison. The plaintiffs have to show a deliberate indifference to a substantial risk of serious harm. That said, it is a standard that has been by satisfied in prisons and jails and detention facilities around the country, their inability to comply with the minimal social distancing and hygiene rules that have been prescribed by Health Experts. That said, there has been a lot of support across the ideological spectrum including within the government and prison system itself to very aggressively reduce populations concentrating on the inmates who seem to be in greatest Health Danger of themselves and pose the least risk of resiffdism. And this starts with the president and his attorney general on detention. I. C. E. Announced its going to arrest and place in detention only undocumented immigrants who have serious criminal convictions. Thousands of inmates have been released. The cares act and various alternatives, including home confinement such as ankle monitors and transfers to facilities that are not as crowded. The cares act that Congress Passed gives the attorney general and bureau of Prisons Authority to expand home confinement. And this has been a high priority for the attorney general, who has issued two directives to the federal bureau of prisons to immediately maximize appropriate transfers to home confinement of all appropriate inmates. Since then more than 4,000 inmates have been released from federal prison, which is more than twice the usual case. And this is consistent with growing bipartisan support we have seen in the last decade for reducing mass incarceration in the United States. In our earlier prePanel Discussions, both raised the issue about the extent to which pandemictriggered measures will last beyond the pandemic and focusing on measures that reduce Civil Liberties, but im talking now about something that is the opposite and another example is that pandemictriggered decargs policy are consistent with Civil Liberties have been advocated for a long time for a long time and perhaps the pandemic is forcing those reforms. And advocates are saying they are hoping this will be a Tipping Point in addition to Health Pressures and there are also economic pressures, again ramping up the number of people incarcerated in the United States. In the past couple of weeks, all the protests about police abuse have increased the zeal and the momentum to implement reforms in the criminal legal system. Nadine . Is that my time . I would like to move onto the other panelists and well come back to you soon. Next up is eugene. I want to talk briefly about these rights. Two groups. One might think of freedom of assembly and movement. This includes the Assembly Clause, political gatherings, listening to lectures on art and science and all the gatherings and private universities. Of course urban restrictions on religious gatherings. Not worship altogether, for many people, its important to get together physically. There are restrictions on freedom of movement, driving from one home to a summer home. I think thats in part because freedom of assembly and movement are broadly accepted in large part because they are not particularly. If you assemble with others to try to advocate crime and lead people to commit crimes, that is something that is punishable. Its not punishable unlisted reaches a level. We protect this. For most assembly, it makes this ordinary innocent behavior potentially deadly. Dudley to other people. The Assembly Clause allows people to assemble peaceably. When people who might or might not be infected with a dangerous disease gather, they are peaceable in the hearts. You might think of it as an example of assembly that causes danger or physical harm. I think the courts of rightly realized the standard assumptions underlying assembly and travel dont really apply. There is ample precedent for that for quarantines and other restrictions in the past, especially before modern medicine. Before mass immunizations were much more common. Thats one class. People are traveling, spreading the disease. Lets talk about the second class. Its actually very interesting. Many states have barred elective medical procedures. If theres something that is urgently necessary to protect your life and health, put it off until the disease, the epidemic abates. The broad restrictions were not an excuse to close down gun shops come but they closed down many things but they had to decide which side. So there have been challenges about this. These have sometimes succeeded on the abortion side. And i think the difference is that abortions and gun sales are performed usually with one person receiving and one or a couple providing. So the risk of contagion any time meet, there is a risk of contagion, but it is a lot less. A lot easier to maintain social distancing. That is i think one reason why side. And i think the difference is that abortions and gun sales are performed usually with one person receiving and one or a couple providing. So the risk of contagion any time meet, there is a risk of contagion, but it is a lot less. A lot easier to maintain social distancing. That is i think one reason why courts have been more open to striking down restrictions. At least striking them down in the sense that, for example with abortion, if a woman is at a point in her pregnancy where, in a couple of weeks, she would be no longer legally allowed to have an abortion because it is past the point of viability, that delay is denial and unconstitutional. I am a big believer in thinking about how different right are similar. If you treat one right one way you should treat the other a similar way. In the academy we discussed this lumpers and splitters. Splitters try to draw a distinction. Let me close with two things. One is, all of these restrictions i think are generally permissible to the extent that they are neutral. To the extent they really treat things equal. For example, it is clear that if they say, we shut down mosques and synagogues because we are afraid there will be spread of covid, but not churches, it is wrong. They have basically declined to enforce any rules with regards to black lives matter protests. H harder for them much harder for them to enforce similar rules. It is an Important Message so that trumps of the Public Health interest, that would be unconstitutional. I suppose they might argue, black lives matter protests are so big and it is so hard to stop them. We decided it was a matter of Enforcement Discretion not to stop them. These were smaller protests, we can stop it, so we will. It suggests that it is such a popular idea, the more people believe in it, the more it is protective against the first amendment. Can one broaden that . Why Church Services treated worse than medical marijuana . Im pretty hesitant about those kinds of inequality arguments because sometimes lines need to be drawn. In Church Services, a lot of people gather. In my sense, marijuana dispensaries, not so much. Marijuana dispensaries, in many states, they are treated as the equivalent of pharmacies. Rightly or wrongly, that is how they are treated. As a result, they are treated like pharmacies. That is the reason they have remained open. I am hesitant about some of these equality arguments. Clearly when it comes to one right, freedom of assembly, you cant treat some assemblies differently. People often worry that restrictions, even sensible on its own, will last too long or be adopted more often than it ought to be. For example, concerns about surveillance. You allow it against terrorists, it will spread to lots of other areas. Or allow a wartime restriction, especially since the war can go on for a long time, it can go on forever. One thing about these restrictions, especially ones that treat people equally, they are tremendously expensive in terms of lost enjoyment of life, they are politically expensive for politicians. The financial expense for politicians. The politicians want by and large to spend money on their favorite programs. All of these restrictions cause economic problems that the consequence is much less tax revenue and outflow to provide stimulus and the like. So there are lots of incentives. This is not one of those things where you say, oh my god, you will have a perpetual state of war. You will not have a perpetual state of shutdowns. It is not politically feasible. This is one area i worry less about restrictions leading to broader restrictions and lasting way too long. There will be some mistakes. Rarely way too long. Thank you very much. We now turn to julia. Thank you. Thanks to the Federalist Society for organizing this event and for having me. Im looking forward to our exchange. In the few minutes i have for my opening remarks, i will make three sets of points. The first relates to the medium and longterm impact of government responses to covid19 on Civil Liberties. In particular, i will explain why it is possible eugene is too optimistic when it comes to the medium and longterm. The second involves constitutional structure and how people,of great up constitutional structure often functions as the most potent check on government, or so i would argue in the short term. The third concerns property and economic rights and how a vision of Civil Liberties that encompasses these rights, which are sometimes like the neglected stepchild of constitutional rights, 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 covid19 crisis. I understand why eugene and many others have suggested that many or even all of the restrictions put in place are not likely to be longlasting as they are politically selflimiting. At first glance, this makes a lot of sense. We look at colonial and u. S. History, and we see lots of upper demings. Yellow fever, smallpox, malaria. We see a lot of significant government restrictions. Quarantines, closures of sporting events, businesses, closing of schools. I think it is true that 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 that is the standard story. So why do i think covid19 could well mark a turning point in that it has potential, not the certainty, but the potential to be a catalyst for lasting societal change . For starters, it is recent u. S. History. Never let a crisis go to waste has been the watchword, at least in the 21st century among 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, try to harness the public emergency in the service of what i would describe as preexisting partisan and policy objectives. Eugene is right that many of the restrictions in place are very costly politically. Those are the ones we should worry about least. But plenty of Government Actions are not, they are kind of opaque. Those who put them in place will not certainly pay much of a price. Not if they are terribly skillful about it. In addition, widening the lens somewhat beyond america and the United States, there is history in general. A rich and fascinating literature on the after effects of epidemics, which, not surprisingly, has generated a lot of debate on whether, and if so, how, various epidemics have transformed societies, have shifted political power. Maybe from landowners to laborers. You have the debates about the black death in england. The mid14th Century Black death in england. We also have debates on the antonin plague in the second century in rome. Again, it may well be that the government responses have affected or brought about significant changes in society. It could happen in the u. S. Of the back to one points that was made, it is not clear which direction this will go in. I certainly do not have a crystal ball. There could be lasting effects, but it is not clear if they will be in the direction of greater control by government. We have already seen a bit of the incarceration, accelerating increase in trends towards the incarceration. We have also seen quite a bit of deregulation. 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. Some of these suspensions may well become permanent, especially as a lot of voters see that the regulation power has been suspended. The Previous Panel had a discussion on the loosening of alcohol regulations. Socalled curbside cocktails. Civilization has not ended. We can certainly imagine that those changes are going to be ongoing. Getting back again to what eugene said, it is quite plausible that the incarceration trend will continue. My second set of points about constitutional structure and how the constitutional structure protects Civil Liberties. That, too, has been on full display during the covid19 crisis. During the covid19 crisis, legislatures and courts have been active. It has not just been the executive branch, not just the president , the federal government and the governors acting, not at all. Courts have been called upon to hear challenges to restrictions that have been imposed. It comes as no surprise, thinking about Justice Roberts opinion, no surprise that many judges and justices are very hesitant in the heat of a serious Public Health crisis to secondguess political branches. After all, they are making decisions under grave time pressures and incredible uncertainty. Particularly from covid19. We know a lot more about this virus than we did a few months ago, but we still dont know very much about it. So we can see why courts will hang back. But where courts and judges are confident, of course, is when evaluating the process. So it comes as no surprise to me that when we look at the successful challenges to a lot of these government measures in place, we see that the successful challenges have raised procedural quarrels. Wait, you cant do this. This. Youre not going to the correct channels. We saw this in the Supreme Court of wisconsin in the 43 decision. We saw this from the michigan Supreme Court in the case involving a barber. One of the justices of the michigan Supreme Court said flat out, it is incumbent on the courts to ensure decisions are made according to the rule of law, not hysteria. So where serious measures have not jumped through all the hoops, have not been in accordance with constitutional structure, that is when courts, i believe, feel their most confident and are most likely to take action. Finally, to my third point about property and economic rights and as Civil Liberties. ,ince roughly the new deal era a very broad brush, property and economic rights have been, again, painting with a very large brush, something of neglected rights. Often deemed not as important as some of the other rights that we have been discussing. Covid19, i think, 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, perhaps impossible, it is to disentangle them from these rights that tend to get more publicity such as rights of free exercise, speech, travel, abortion, guns, etc. The ability of living is at the heart of many challenges. These challenges, interestingly to me, are rising against the backdrop there has been a trend for plaintiffs who challenge occupational license regimes and are more likely to win. Finally, a word about taking challenges. There have been claims in response to government restriction. These claims are hard to win. But i would suggest that courts take a very careful look at these challenges, because the courts may hesitate to enjoy Government Action in time of great emergency as to some serious deviation. It is another matter to order compensation of Business Owners and others who have suffered particularly heavy losses who have been asked to bear the asked to bear the burden of the covid19 responses. Once things have settled down, the are forced to order compensation. They are not fearing a response with the crisis, and i think these considerations are complicating on whom the burden has fallen are especially compelling if one is concerned about cronyism and favoritism and anticompetitive Government Action. Those who suffer the greatest losses often lack political them and contemplating could inequality that could often flow from unequal political power. And that, in turn, i would argue could make the constitutional structure more robust. Let that, with that, i will turn it over. Thank you very much. Colleague,julias please proceed. Thank you so much for having me here. As the last speaker of the day, i take it, im going to take a comparative perspective on these events. Because the issues the u. S. Is facing is similar to the issues other democracies are facing. And its probably fair to say, 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 received nationwide stayathome monitoring, and its also interesting that even though there is a variation in the response across countries, the initial response was quite similar. All countries, no matter the circumstances, decided they needed some form of lockdown. The lockdown is what we have seen. Polle also Opinion Research shows these measures are widely accepted by public, but everywhere we have seen debates on some of the issues that eugene raised and julia raised, what will this do longterm for Civil Liberties, is there a risk . Do we see the constitution restrained by executive power . What does it mean for democracy in the long run . Thats been a question thats raised in some countries. So in this brief talk, i want to Say Something about the extent to which we should be worried about this as a longterm phenomenon, sort of picking up on what eugene said and what from aaid, but may be slightly different angle. Ive been working on a project where weve basically been surveying the Covid Response in 70 countries so far, and specifically to what extent there has been the phenomenon of an executive acting on his or her own verses to what extent weve seen the constitution and, courts involved, legislatures involved, and states within federal systems, mayors and governors and so on involved in this response. Involved in the response. Image, the traditional and the image some are worried about, is one of an unconstrained executive. Once we have an emergency, the executive amasses an enormous amounts of power, other branches delegate, courts defer to the executive, legislatures delegate power and law kind of goes away. Emergency power goes back to carl smith but has remained influential to this day. Ours, the key findings of we look at democracys, is that that is what not has happened in most places. Seen a places, we have lot of involvement by courts, more so in the u. S. Perhaps. Courts have inserted themselves into questions scrutinizing the. Lockdown measures on constitutional grounds. We have seen legislatures involved, passing new laws, and states, provinces and cities resist lockdown orders or close downs when the Central Government doesnt. So we need Something Like much more dialogue between different branches. And that is a good thing. In a world where we dont know what the right response is, and nobody knows the right response to this current crisis, maybe the best we can do is make sure multiple actors are involved. That reduces the risk of making a mistake. So having dialogue between different branches of government is probably useful. Let me Say Something for the purpose of this audience on this research, the different way that courts around the world have involved themselves in these questions. We face we basically looked at cases in some 30 countries and read them to the extent that we could. Four different ways that courts have involved themselves, one is what julian predicted to make sure , procedures are followed and the separation of power framework in the constitution is upheld. The very first court that got involved in this was the Constitutional Court of kosovo and it struck down the entire , lockdown because it was passed by the executive alone based on regulation, and it was not based on legislation. And they said, basically, you cant do this until you have passed a law and then the law , was passed. Some would say the executives have to jump through procedural hopes that are important, to the legislative involvement israeli Supreme Court Supreme Court that says the government can use cell phone monitoring without involving the israeli parliament. That is in contradiction with the basic law. So we have seen a whole bunch of these cases. But thats not the only type of case we see. We see courts in Different Countries doing the kind of substantive rights review that julian predicted wouldnt happen, and that hasnt been as common in the u. S. , in any case, and as nadine was talking about, just making sure, are these are theytemporary, necessary, are they proportional . The german Constitutional Court cant ban, you gatherings if they take social distancing measures into account. You cant ban religious services if they can adhere to social distancing guidelines. South africa, last week a case came out where the high court basically said the government has still to explain what you can run on the boulevard next to the beach, but once you enter the beach, you are no longer allowed to run there because the beaches were closed. That just doesnt make sense, right . Explain to us why these rules seem so arbitrary, and short of that, seem unconstitutional. Even in the u. S. , the sixth Circuit Court of appeals decision held that kentucky simply ban religious services. You have to explain, if you keep open laundromats and Liquor Stores with social distancing, you should also be able to do the same for religious services. So we actually see some of these cases. And that is interesting, because the courts are really inserting themselves in substantive questions. And then third, we see cases where courts are demanding action. They are asking governments to do stuff, and this is uncommon in the United States because you cant violate the constitution if you do nothing, but that is not true under International Law or human rights law in many countries. So in brazil, the court actually imposed the lockdown. Failed to act, president bolsonaro has notoriously failed to act, so the court imposed a lockdown. The highest court in brazil also held that the government is under an obligation to provide Accurate Information about the virus. Go aroundro couldnt and say that this is just a little flu, that this isnt real, that he had to provide Accurate Information and india, to the country. And india, the Supreme Court ruled Public Health insurance should pay for tests. There are a lot of cases like that, the right to health, it is not recognized in the u. S. Constitution but it is recognized in other constitutions, that it is right to require that the government actually do stuff. Finally, we have questions about postponing elections. The question about whether an election should be held or postponed is a difficult its one. Not clear if there is a right or wrong answer. It is also not clear if the courts have a right or wrong answer. Of course, what they can do is screen out ulterior motives for postponing elections. We have seen this in the polish Supreme Court. And thus far, every single one of the cases that we have seen said that the courts have said the election should go ahead as planned. Ok, so thats some flavor. I guess im out of time as well. This is what the courts have been doing. Weve also seen a lot of legislative involvement. So in 60 of the democracies we looked at, brandnew legislation was passed. So in the u. K. Theres the covid19 bill that gives additional power to the prime minister, but only applies for 21 days. Here, it is not legislators deferring to the executive, they are actively legislating in the face of the crisis. And then finally, we see subnational resistance, the states resisting president s at and back and forth that at the national and subnational level. I will leave it at that we will come back to you. This has been an extraordinarily rich and substantial set of presentations. Thank you very much, all. I would like to begin by asking each of you if you would like to, having listened to the others, respond to the others, ask questions, revise and extend your own remarks, change your position, and im going to ask everybody to do that. But i want to start with nadine because i cut her off a little bit and i think she wanted to make a few more points. Thank you so much. There was an incident revise and extend, ask questions of your copanelist. Thank you so much. This was absolutely fascinating. Thanks to all of you. 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 real concern is the absence of opportunities for reintegration that exists in our current cluster of laws and regulations which makes people incarcerated,n who have been convicted, ineligible for a whole host of opportunities and services that would seem to be necessary and order to up them make a Successful Transition back into society. So it is not enough just to dump them out, so to speak. We need a lot of other reforms and it may be hard to do that in , a time of such great economic difficulty, with such high unemployment rates. So you are very right to point this requires a lot more thinking and planning and further policy steps. Let me ask if you have anything you would like to add or ask . On the issue of surveillance, in the European Countries i have been following this is one of , the biggest debates, that everybody thinks these lockdowns will end and we will return to normal, but there is these big debates over legislation being passed that allows for this kind of surveillance. And in general, there is more concerned with privacy and privacy data in europe that there is in this country. There are strict regulations on this as well. Nonetheless, they are considering this and for reasons , that eugene points out, this is ultimately what produces more liberty, probably, so we may just have to do this. But it is a difficult and controversial issue. The second thing i want to to nadinesesponse point about malein balance , the supremece , says it yound cannot simply switch to the postal election because it changes the Postal Office into election officers. And post officers arent equipped to be election officers and it marginalizes the role of , our electoral election commission. Unless there is a major constitutional or legislative reform, it would not be constitutional. Obviously, it is a very different setting, but it is interesting, because it touched on the issues it raised. That so fascinating. [indiscernible] im not sure. Im not sure. But obviously there was a , pretextual situation where the ruling government thought that by holding the election sooner they would be more likely to be , reelected. So clearly that was going on. , i want to emphasize the point that surveillance and privacy issues are probably going to become more salient in this next phase than they were in the past. If you just say 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 of cases in some states where people have been asked to quarantine. And an outofstater, completely asymptomatic, as to quarantine for two weeks, and the police come to your house week later to make sure you are still there. In other states, they have actually said, this is the honor system. And there is a lot of divergence there. But we are going to see in several states, some active surveillance and some big cases coming up. In listening to the justifications of these various measures that have been taken, there has been consistent confusion or overlap as to what government is trying to accomplish. Sometimes it seems like its paternalistic self protection, like a Motorcycle Helmet law that we are doing these things , to protect ourselves. Sometimes it sounds like we are protecting immediate bystanders people that are right around us. , like a dog leash law, i suppose, just something in the immediate vicinity. And then in other cases, the strongest justification is that this is necessary for achieving an important Public Health goal that requires some substantial , amount, degree of individual compliance. That makes it like a vaccine requirement. Does it make a difference in how we assess these Civil Liberties burdens . The government is sometimes inconsistent. Its pretty clear these are being done for general public purposes, but government officials make it sound like you , better do this or you are going to get sick. That makes it much more paternalistic. So do i have the stronger case for challenging the effectiveness of these rules, based upon one purpose or another upon one purpose or what do you think about it, chris . I have not seen a case. Theres an enormous amount of debate about the effectiveness of the lockdown orders, and the effectiveness of many things being felt right now. I have not seen a legal challenge based on the fact that this had no rational basis for the protection of Public Health. Maybe there are some of these cases where you close a beach or a public park and it doesnt , seem to be related to anything at all. But i have not seen a strong Civil Liberties attack on any of these things, on the ground of ineffectiveness. Am i wrong . [indiscernible] one is, is there a rational basis . And certainly, under the standard rational basis scrutiny, sure. Of course, of course. You could say is completely rational. And the fact that we do not know what is going to work and what is not makes experimenting with things on emergency basis more rational. The second thing is, how much does the government have to prove . And almost uniformly the courts have said, not much. This is not something we can expect serious proof because of the difficult, complex systems, the human body and human society, and jacobs versus but ihusetts, 81905 case, think the courts continued to treat this as highly instructive, at least, says look, when we are trained to figure out the pluses and minuses of various approaches, when they stick dangerous medicine, essentially in their , own body, that is something the court should defer to on,utive judgment especially in the context of a Public Health emergency. I think that remains the general view, and i think it is probably right. I think a judge is going to do a great job figuring something out. On Public Health experts dont know either. [indiscernible] yes, even more. Massachusetts,s 1905 precedent its not about , being vaccinated. Its about being fined. I think its really important that the court said the fine is ok. It was not about whether or not someone had to [indiscernible] chriss question about why there hasnt been challenges yet about the ineffectiveness of it i think , its just too soon. Because it seems to me the first stage, the courts are willing to look carefully at what the governments are doing, separation of powers and structural arguments and process arguments and so forth, but if but they really do seem to initially in least the short term, from scrutinizing any group. It seems the next stage, they should be able to tell me whether i have this right someone tell me if i have this likely to courts are decide whether what the government is doing is an outlier. That becomes a little easier to have the court look carefully at something. Look what this government is doing. Nobody also is doing this. Its way more restrictive. And finally, we begin to see more examination of the subject. Examination of the substance. And i think that the examination of the site extends examination of the substance is going to come, and it has come already. And it is coming already. I would love to hear if my taxonomy is roughly correct or not. Think thats possible. The german Constitutional Court or the other courts in europe, they have said, explain this, why children up to stay home because its not clear theres any reason for singling out young people, for example. But i do want to also i guess, do what others have said, and push back on this idea of whether courts are not suitable decisionmakers here. Epidemiologists are not running the country. Government officials everybody , is weighing the same imperfect information. Its not obvious to me that the courts are in a worse position to judge this information than elected officials. Its not clear to me at all. I think it is important to check these questions, and i think i will see more of that going forward. There hasnt been any litigation about this technology, ideas that were floated, as far as i understand, the consensus was rejected because the consensus developed early on. There were suggestions that we could argue this mobile phone for Contact Tracing, but thats wrong, and in fact, it was tried somewhere, and the concern was that it was not granular enough relation to show whether weve been in close enough proximity for a long enough time to possibly be infected. Thank you very much. Weve arrived at question time. We have about 15 minutes to pose questions for pertinent and pithy comments as well. If you wish to introduce a question or a comment, if youre on zoom, you should hit the raise hand button on your screen. If youre on the phone, hit the star 9 button. That will put you in a cue on my page. Please wait until i call on you. When i call on you, our technical people will unmute you, but you should unmute yourself before we speak. We have several people who are already who have already raised their hand and the first three people im going to call on are karen lugo, cameron atkinson, and aircraft mustnt and eric rasmussen. Well start with karen. Please unmute yourself, karen. Am i unmuted now . Im sorry, i didnt know. Yes, please proceed. There has been a growing demand for constitutional clarity by the public. In some cases, they are apparently been muted by government as they reach the courts. And there has been an ongoing discussion about this on bullock conspiracy. Im part of supporting litigation in florida and would , like to use this particular executive order as an example where, although this governor has been called out as a positive example of managing the crisis in many ways, one of the executive orders alone talks about quarantine, but these standards have to do with four states, including anyone coming from an area of substantial community spread. Orders like this have been in place for months, and they also entail criminal penalties. They are not updated, not scaled to curve flattening, so the public is baffled as to when and where to get the constitutional rarity as to when police power has gone on for too long, gone too far, so rather than learning from popularized examples like, well call it civil disobedience of the dallas hair salon owner, how do general citizens understand that some of these orders, because of their constitutional infringement on Civil Liberties, should be challenged . Great question, karen. Panelists . Maybe im missing the exact nature of the question. But if the question is, youre a member of the public. How do you know what the rule is . Like when you hear about news , stories, should you be outraged or not . Whats the rule . The answer is, there is not a very clear rule, in part because , how do rules become more clear in our system . Through a process of repeat litigation. I can tell you a good deal now about free speech. Why . Because the court decided cases,s of free speech 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 this from the u. S. Supreme court. So we have to say the law is not completely clear a few things seem clear. The government does have Broad Authority here, its sort of the nature of at least our commonlaw system, a system where a lot of the decisions are made by judges rather than purport to be set forth in some comprehensive code, and maybe [inaudible] as to the question of what should be challenged, you can certainly challenge what you have the inclination and lawyer fees to challenge, and people are challenging and sometimes [inaudible] totally understood. I dont think we expect great clarity in this area of the law, in large part because first of all, life is complicated. My father likes to tell you, they like life itself. So life is complicated, but also, there has been fortunately relatively little occasion for the Supreme Court or even lower courts to chime in on this until the last few months, or many decades now. So as a result why , should we expect to have a really crisp, clear rule of law in this situation . Especially when on top of that, the facts on the ground are both changing facts on the ground are changing, and our understanding of the facts on the ground are changing. I like clarity in the law. I think in a lot of areas we should expect later. In a lot of areas 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 also true. Ordinances, and there may be whole separate bodies of case law for each state and each jurisdiction thats involved. With that said, i think were going 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 there was asymptomatic transmission, that wasnt on the radar screen of regulators. And at that point, when there are some historic facts about asymptomatic transmission or the lack thereof, then courts are picking then, picking up on what neil said, courts are going to be much more confident in deciding where they are going to draw the boundary of permissible exercise of police power. It really does become clear. Lets say there is no asymptomatic transmission, and like all the Health Experts say, there is no need at this point to have lockdowns. You just need to have everybody get there temperature measured to see if they are running a fever or something. Imagine that that is so. Its true that at that point the courts might be fairly well armed and fairly willing to strike things down, but its not clear they arent going to have anything struck down at that because its point, not terribly likely the government officials will say i dont care. , they are facing a lot of political incentives. Especially since weve seen, in fact, a lot of states are already opening up even in the facebook asymptomatic infection governors and , mayors have shown a willingness to change the policies in light of changing evidence. You can imagine some outlier who is crazy or politically captured by one side or the other, or maybe just way, way too cautious. Except judges are historically the branch that tend to be more cautious. The judges can step in and trump that. But i dont think thats terribly likely. I think if it becomes clear enough that some of these things are no longer actions by , and large they are going to get shut down in most maces by the executive and maybe by the legislature before they get shut down by justices. What were probably going to find is there is no asymptomatic transmission but there is presymptomatic transmission, which makes it much more complicated again. We have seven or 10 minutes left. I have seven questions. I would like to get through as many of them as i can, so lets be brief and to the point. The next question is from cameron atkinson. Thank you. My question is for everyone. Ive been involved in two cases in the drafting process for challenges to connecticuts coronavirus restrictions, and one of the problems were running into in court here is we dont get to the necessary argument that effectiveness arguments. Tracksstopped did in our connecticut courts are using jacobson to develop its own standard of scrutiny and given jacobsons ,place in american constitutional law its , preincorporation and prescrutiny, restricts scrutiny they have not been very , receptive even on the , enumerated rights claim. Can jacobsons unreasonable, arbitrary and unnecessary standard of scrutiny be reconciled with modern constitutional jurisprudence . Im just going to say hi to cameron. Nice to hear from you. Finally hosted me, prepandemic, at his law school. Its good to hear from you. Jacobson versus massachusetts, i would push back hard i think that thats a far weaker president for untrammeled government power than is generally thought. I suggest you contact me and we can talk offline about this. Very good. Next is eric. Eric . Okay. Hi, i think im unmuted now. We can hear you. Im wondering how any Civil Liberties restriction can be worse than telling people they have to close down their business, close their church, and Location Tracking seems utterly completely trivial , compared to that. So why are we talking about it . And why are some people complaining more about that . Because when they do talk, i hear trivial things like, if your neighbors sees you coughing can we tell the , neighbor that you got covid19 , or is that an infringement on your hiba rights . We arent worried because everybody is treated equally and its going to get tough only when sick people get surveilled, but i think under our e quality fetish, our equality stalinism is what we bought. Stalin even as executions and , arrests were mostly random after 1930, it was just a matter of terrorizing everybody, and i wonder if they would say thats find in america, especially since everything you did is perfectly legal if what you do is what the courts say is legal rather than using natural law or Something Like that, we dont even know what is illegal yet, if the courts havent ruled. Its like if you asked me if i can play the tuba, i dont know, i havent tried. Why arent you more worried . One of the things we have been talking about here, these are tremendous burdens of liberty burdens on liberty. We have been living under them for two or three months. Now they are already easing it will probably largely be gone in two or three weeks. But they are tremendously serious, but i think many libertarians are many people think they are not serious. Im not a libertarian, im libertarianish. A libertarian sympathizer. I think many recognize that in extraordinary times when the normal circumstances of the nonaggression principle, where we can go out there and do anything we want as long as we dont hurts dont apply because we might be hurting others by our very physical presence without even knowing that were carriers, that under those circumstances, certain things on a temporary basis are legitimate. Thats been recognized throughout American History when we have had quarantines and various other such things. And its serious but its timely. One reason to worry about location tracing and such, especially if it is mandatory, not that im tremendously worried about it but i think its right to be worried about it, the danger that this is going to last indefinitely, that this is going to be seen as a necessary precaution against future plagues, then it might end up being used, oh, incidentally, why dont we use Location Tracking to track people who are members of terrorist groups, white supremacist groups, that people Say Something on twitter that some people believe saros some people believe shows sympathy four things like white supremacy. These are serious risks and those are things wherein deed the restriction is smaller but it will last for a much longer time where as here we have something thats a very big restriction but one we have every confidence will last for a short time. I think thats one reason why people are rightly not as troubled by it as they would be had the restriction been aimed at Something Else and potentially lasting longer. Thank you. The socalled smaller restrictions might not be justified at all if they are shown to be ineffective. I think eric makes a good point, that he would be happy to see the aclu fight, which from the beginning has talked about Civil Liberties being on both sides of the equation. And if we could have minor restrictions that are effective in getting us safely into a free realm, that thats definitely worth the cost. But unfortunately, some of the proposals have been worst of both worlds. They do restrict our freedom and they, in fact, dont make us safer from a Health Perspective. I agree with nadine completely. I would add one more thing to and that. Put me in the category of the very concerned. I think we are at risk of what is called tyranny by model. Are not wrong, but some are useful, but these models that are not very good, yet they can be invoked as justification for extraordinary restrictions by the government. So this is just another layer to the difficulty of figuring out as a society when we trump experts, and to what extent and so forth. So i am not relaxed about it. Very fine. Thank you. The next question is from wesley p. All i know is the first letter of your last name. Please proceed. Hello, everybody, i want to say hi. Thank you to all the panelists. I want to say youre a gem. Also, the question, will this pandemic allow for the courts to to be questions for allow the courts to be questioned abuses, there will be no technology in the courts because we see it in the higher level courts, but in the state courts, even lower District Courts and other areas are not up to speed on technology . Or, maybe it will be the reverse , and they are going to show more difference to executives saying making such decisions is too swift. We should wait and let the executives do their job for policy. Another thing we didnt mention was employees labeled as essential workers in bad faith. Were a people who are not nurses and administrators that are required to go into work, required to put their safety at risk, essentially under an edict that probably should be questioned but its difficult. ,thank you. Thank you very much. Let me interject that we have arrived at the end of our time. If the panelists are willing i willing, i would like to run over for five minutes until so let me 5 20. 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 right, i hope i get this eric. I want to say hi to everybody from law school. If i could just very quickly the second part of wesleys point. If i could Say Something that wesley mentioned. One question that arises with all of these things is the type of job, who is essential and who is not. Some people are very upset at being called essential because they are afraid this exposes them to health risk. Others are upset being called nonessential because that damages their livelihoods. There was a Pennsylvania State court case where a claim was brought, among other things, procedural due process claims because there were waivers that could be issued by the bureaucracy, that the court had some sympathy for there was not really adequate procedures for making sure that its done fairly. That means this is a very serious issue. Its often an issue of stated administrative law. And at the same time, we also have to recognize that inevitably, any situation, whenever youre trying to draw the line between one thing and another thing, tax exempting end not tax exempting, regulated things and not regulated things, youre going to have to draw that line. And you cant really do it in the abstract. You have to come up with a general principle, but then you have to have people making these decisions, and then when there is a claim its unfair we need , to know a lot more facts about why its unfair. So you can imagine some decisions about essentialnonessential that are clearly right, wrong, and quite a few where you need to know a lot more facts. 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 prepare for the next emergency of this sort. It may not be, right . It may be that the facts are so specific that we wouldnt get very far with that. But its certainly something as voters, i think, we should contemplate. Good. Eric . Thank you. And youre very, very close. You get an a, not an a plus. For the panelists, the framers of the United States constitution didnt create the judiciary or even the bill of rights to be the ultimate arbiter of safeguarding liberty. 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 has been largely subordinated to an individual legislators partisan affiliation, not their constitutional 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 think checks and balances exist. Asbe not in as robust a form you would like. Maybe not as robust a form as i would like. But whats occurred in the last particularly the state Supreme Court cases you were mentioning where the state , Supreme Courts do take action fairly quickly has convinced me that , our constitutional structure is in reasonably good shape. Not that it cant be improved but its been functioning, i would say, fairly well under enormous stress. I would just add at the national level, which is where i follow these issues, part of the reason for congresss failure to exercise a robust checking function is because of committee timidity. Cause of they dont want to have to take responsibility, in the exercise of lawmaking powers, right . To deny accountability, deniability. With apologies to the others who are lined up at that microphone in the sky, im going to cut things off with one final question. And that will be bridget bush. Please. Hello, can you hear me . Yes. Thank you to the entire panel. This has been a wonderful conference. My question regards court proceedings, and i was just wondering what your thoughts are, to what extent can you change or regulate Court Procedures to set the unique challenges of the covid crisis . And what long term effects might such Remote Court Proceedings have on litigants constitutional and Due Process Rights . Thank you. First of all, its an Interesting Development for Supreme Court watchers, is having the court make its oral arguments more readily accessible than in the past. But i havent been following it to the extent to which the Supreme Court has made clear that its not going to continue to do this after we go back to normal normal,k to prepandemic normal, but it seems to me once 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. I think thats absolutely right. If i could just elaborate in two quick ways. One is, there are a lot more appellate arguments are going to be done by Video Conference. The ninth circuit has shifted to that with great success. Some courts only to audio, such as the Supreme Court, but also some lower courts for reasons i dont fully grasp. Only to audio. Thats not a great way of doing those. But video, i think, its not perfect, its not quite as good, quite as effective in some ways, but so much easier, not just from a Health Perspective but so much easier and cheaper, a lot less travel costs. Imagine in the ninth circuit, for example, people have to come from guam to san francisco. And ive been told by the ninth circuit, in the past the fact , that they actually had videoconferences for oral arguments, especially from guam. I think well see a court call, as we already have. I think well have more video and i think a lot of judges will say i like this better. The lawyers like this better. Its cheaper for everybody. Lets do it. Environmentalists would like it, too. Absolutely. A lot less traffic on the roads. A lot less admissions from the airplanes a lot less emissions from the airplanes such and , such. The second question is, how do you do jury trials which is a , thing that has to be done in person . How do you do video trials with social distance . There is a very interesting document, its a report outlining, having all of these drawings, architectstyle drawings like blueprints, which shout heres a drawing of our ,courtroom, and you would you have four jurors sitting in the jury box, and then you would have eight jurors in the audience and then were going to , have Video Conference feed to some other courtroom in the courthouse to 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 that forward such as , to do more by video. The time has come to conclude , and i would like to note that the most important innovation in the Legal Proceedings that weve 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. I would like to thank all of the many attendees who have joined us, cant for the many interesting questions that have been raised. Most of all, i would like to thank our distinguished nadine, chris, mila and eugene. And julia. Wait a minute. Our supervisor has another word to say. A lot of what i wanted to say you said in terms of thinking people, and i would like to thank all the panelists for all six panels. All those panels are Available Online on our website. Fedsoc. Org. We appreciate all the panels. One other comment, dont underplay the value of interpersonal relations. Zoom is wonderful, but it cant do everything. Thats just a wise crack, and thank you all very much as weve on monday the households a hearing on the coronavirus in subsaharan africa. Next, a hearing on efforts to assist renters impacted by the coronavirus pandemic. We will hear testimony from advocates and policy specialists. Come to order. Without objection, the chair is authorized to call a