Don't. The Bay Areas infection numbers, despite their early exposure, are excellent. Early and aggressive shelter in place orders are to thank.

Everything else is noise.

> what rights are being violated?

"Right of the people peaceably to assemble" - US Constitution - the highest law of the land.

It may be stupid to assemble now (which is why i am staying at home), but that in no way makes actually forbidding it constitutional.

That's why the right to peaceably assemble doesn't mean you can, e.g., freely blockade hospital entrances. Public health quarantines have been recognized as a legitimate state power by the US Supreme Court consistently, in cases running back to 1824 (Gibbons v. Ogden.)

It's not even remotely productive to start from the "I have absolute rights due to the constitution" arguments.

And for the sake of us all, i hope that if the case were to be brought in front of SCOTUS, they'd correctly write that "yes pandemics suck and compliance is important, but constitution is more so. Local gvmnts are free to find other ways to do this, but a virus is no excuse for constitutional transgressions"

The first amendment has no limitations, except those outlined in it itself or in caselaw. None that applies to this situation, so for now, luckily, you are wrong.

> It's not even remotely productive to start from the "I have absolute rights due to the constitution" arguments.

WHAT? It saddens me to see views like these. Mostly I see them in people who never fought for their rights, and never lived in places lacking them. You may amend the constitution if you disagree with it, via a proper process, but discarding it as "not productive" is insulting

And you would be wrong, as this is the quintessential "shouting fire in a crowded theater" analogy. Free Speech is conditional, since at least 1969 when it last went to the SCOTUS. The reason it's unproductive to start from that space, is because today, the Constitution does not grant you unconditional rights. You don't have an unconditional right to own a gun either.

There was a few clear SCOTUS decisions on what limits there exist on 1st amendment, and movement limits weren't in there

Another area that speech has been restricted has been around espionage and wartime; it's clear that during wartime, our ability to speak becomes much more restricted, at least partially for security reasons. Again, the practical reason for this is that war can be an existential risk for a country, and generally, people are more than willing to give up their rights temporarily to avoid the risk of their entire nation being wiped out.

So, while I agree (to my limited knowledge; I'm just a speculating engineer) that there is no direct case law that bears on this, I do feel that my predictions on which side the SC would fall (unless the court was packed with Scalias) are reasonable.

There is little more for me to add so I think I will terminate my participation in this subthread.

This is what you stated, and now you are agreeing that there are conditions. If you now agree that there are conditions that these rights can be applied, I believe an actual pandemic would be reasonable as a condition to the first amendment.

The reason that talking with you doesn't look productive is that you're behaving like a fundamentalist here. You've got a very basic understanding of one document, and you've decided that your take is the perfect truth.

People who actually devote their lives to studying and practicing the law, on the other hand, have a much more nuanced perspective. Freedom of speech is indeed a right, but it's not absolute. Courts have found "time, place, and manner" restrictions perfectly constitutional, and have for as long as America has existed: https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1023/time-place...

It seems very likely that the Supreme Court would side with "governments can restrict the movement of people during health emergencies especially if there is reasonable science supporting that". I guess we don't know unless they take up such a case.

My statements are purely practical; I've never "fought for my rights" or "lived in a place lacking them", but my ancestors did, and in ever sense, the conditions of my rights seem to be as unrestricted as is possible within a large nation that follows the rule of law.

The right to assembly has a significant explicit limitation in the text.