Coronavirus and the Surveillance State
James B. Rule, Han Cheng · Dissent · 2020
The coronavirus pandemic is challenging our ideas about the fundamental responsibilities of government and the proper limits of government demands on the governed. These issues are particularly pressing when it comes to government surveillance. How far should government agencies and representatives go to monitor the well-being of individual Americans and, more importantly, to reach out with corrective action, when things go wrong? To answer these questions we have to go far beyond policies for health and illness, and grapple anew with tensions between government efforts to protect people (and administer justice) and the perils of oppressive overreach.