It's part of protecting the borders. The Supreme Court has already determined that anything within 100 miles of the border is the "border zone" and gives the government broad authority to enforce border protection within that zone.

Also, it could reasonably argued that it is part of their "protect life" job.

That is a stretch of the reading of those provisions, the court has generally (and wrongly IMO) allowed Federal Law enforcement to stop people with in the border zones to establish if they crossed the border illegally, once Citizenship is established then normal protections snap back into place

Even at border crossing the government has been allowed to seize Devices and other things but they generally can not prevent a US Citizen from entering, they can stop you from bringing your stuff, but they cant stop you (outside the limited questioning detainment certainly not 14 days) unless they have an arrest warrant or some other cause of action to arrest you

I agree that they were wrong. But that is how things stand now.

And they do have a cause to detain you -- you might be carrying a deadly virus. Until you can prove otherwise, they can detain you.

Pandemic+unknown disease status is proof of danger.

You can argue that isn't a high enough standard, but it's a pretty clear one, and given the exponential spread, it's a real actual danger that can be controlled at the point of entry.

Given that Virus and Biology have no obligation to be compatible with various national and international laws, it is upon human society and governments to work around the virus.

Thus, for e.g., people in South East and Far East Asia learned from the earlier pandemics and voluntarily wear face masks to protect themselves and those around them even when one has "just a cold or a cough".

People also agreed to socially and physically distance when asked. The messages from scientists and doctors have been enough proof of the dangers that the virus poses.

That is fine, my problem is recently we have just be ignoring the constitution when it is deemed to be a problem

The fact remains the federal government has no constitutional authority nor do most state government.

If we need "pandemic response" authority then we need to amend the constition to add the power to the government not just simply declare it so because "The Experts™" have declared that is what is best for us.

if that is the measure of our rights, we have no rights at all. If rights can be stripped with a simple declaration of emergency, on which there is no power to challenge that declaration then we have no rights at all

To believe the government will not use this unprecedented event for which they have usurped a wide range of never used before power in ever increasing ways is naive and ignores all of human history.

It will not be long before the seasonal flu or cold will be enough to warrant draconian measure and limited on personal freedoms, or be used for privacy invading policies like contact tracing all the time (which will then be used for Law Enforcement like in Singapore)

it amazes me out people can not see what is next, or maybe than can but simply believe the promise (false promise) of safety is more important than liberty

> That is a stretch of the reading of those provisions

Any, you know, the government and law enforcement have _never_ been known to do that...

"It's not 'collection' if we permanently record every phonemail/textmessage/email ever sent. It only counts as 'collection' if a human reads/listens to it!"

:sigh:

They wouldn't prevent you from entering. They'd just make you quarantine once you did.

> the court has generally (and wrongly IMO)

Well thank god you are not in charge of Policy in the US.

Borders (and airports) are already a constitutional twilight zone. Just to get into (or sometimes out of) one I have to go through an X-ray scanner or manual groping that on its face would violate the Fourth Amendment. But at the same time, nobody is forcing me to go there.