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A comment on Hundreds of thousands in L.A. may have been infected with coronavirus: study. Parent comment

Re:Hundreds of thousands in L.A. may have been infected with... by sethammons on Tuesday April 21, 2020 @06:25AM (#22933617)
Not op. I am not a lawyer and I’ve not studied constitutional law. What I recall from high school is that anything not expressly stated as illegal is legal for citizens and any power not expressly given to a state or federal government is unavailable to them.

A law has to exist that gives states and the federal government the ability to do what they are doing and that law needs to not violate special protections built into the Bill of Rights.

With a state of emergency declared, some things can temporarily be enacted that under normal circumstances would not be legal.

I don’t know if all the lock down rules are legal, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that governments have overstepped their bounds.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Hundreds of thousands in L.A. may have been infected with... by hsitz on Tuesday April 21, 2020 @01:42PM (#22937302)
You may be remembering something, but you seem to be remembering it almost exactly backwards. It sounds like you are remembering something about the 10th Amendment, which reserves to the states any power that is not granted to the federal government in the constitution: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenth_Amendment_to_the_United_...
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Re:Hundreds of thousands in L.A. may have been infected with... by sethammons on Tuesday April 21, 2020 @02:26PM (#22937814)
What part is backwards? I'll state what I did in reverse (ie, what I believe to be incorrect)

A) Everything is illegal for a citizen unless granted as legal by a state or federal govt.

B) The fed govt. can do anything it wants. The only things it cannot do are things that are expressly forbidden.

C) A state can do anything it wants unless a law prevents it.

D) A state of emergency does not expand the powers of the the state or fed govt.

Those are the reverse of what I said I remember and none of those sound right.

(for C/D, ignoring the supremacy clause)

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Hundreds of thousands in L.A. may have been infected with... by hsitz on Friday April 24, 2020 @02:00AM (#22965108)
It is C that is pretty close to true. Laws don't give states their powers. It is in fact the states that make their own laws, subject to some restrictions from the U.S. Constitution.
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