Executive orders - Tom Clancy [543]
What's this? one of them asked.
You maybe want to try reading it? the Marine colonel suggested from behind his mask.
Blood test, one muttered. I guess so. But what about the rest?
Ma'am, those of you who sign the form will find out more. Those who do not will be driven home. Curiosity won in every case. They all signed.
Thank you. The colonel examined all the forms. Now if you will go through the door to your left, some Navy corpsmen are waiting for you.
HE WAS PLEADING his own case. Though a member of the bar for thirty years, Ed Kealty had been in a court of law only as a spectator, though on many occasions he'd stood on the steps of a courthouse to make a speech or announcement. It was always dramatic, and so was this.
May it please the court, the former Vice President began, I stand here to request summary judgment. My right to cross a state line has been violated by the executive order of the President. This is contrary to explicit constitutional guarantees, and also to Supreme Court precedent, to wit, the Lemuel Penn case, in which the Court ruled unanimously
Pat Martin sat beside the Solicitor General, who would speak for the government. There was a camera from Court TV to send the case up and down via satellite into homes across the nation. It was a strange scene. The judge, the court reporter, the bailiff, all the attorneys, the ten reporters, and four spectators were all wearing surgical masks and rubber gloves. All had just seen Ed Kealty make the greatest political miscalculation of his career, though none had grasped it yet. Martin had come in anticipation of that very fact.
Freedom of travel is central to all of the freedoms established and protected by the Constitution. The President has neither constitutional nor statutory authority to deny this freedom to the citizens, most particularly not by the application of armed force, which has already resulted in the death of a citizen, and the wounding of several others. This is a simple point of law, Kealty was saying, half an hour later, and on behalf of myself and our fellow citizens, I beg the court to set this illegal order aside. With that, Edward J. Kealty took his place.
Your Honor, the Solicitor General said, walking to the podium with the TV microphone, as the complainant tells us, this is a most important case, but not one of great legal complexity at its foundation.
The government cites Mr. Justice Holmes in the celebrated free speech case where he told us that the suspension of freedoms is permissible when the danger to the country as a whole is both real and present. The Constitution, Your Honor, is not a suicide pact. The crisis which the country faces today is deadly, as press reports have told us, and it is of a nature that the drafters could not have anticipated. In the late eighteenth century, I remind learned counsel, the nature of infectious disease was not yet known. But quarantining of ships at the time was both common and accepted. We have Jefferson's embargo of foreign trade as a precedent, but most of all, Your Honor, we have common sense. We cannot sacrifice our citizens on the altar of legal theory
Martin listened, rubbing his nose under the mask. It smelled as though a barrel of Lysol had been spilled in the room.
IT MIGHT HAVE been comical, but was not, when each of the fifteen reporters reacted the same way to the blood test. A blink. A sigh of relief. Each one stood and walked to the far side of the room, taking the opportunity to remove his or her mask. When the tests were complete, they were led into another briefing room.
Okay, we have a bus outside to take you to Andrews. You will receive further information after you take off, the PAO colonel told them.
Wait a minute! Tom Donner objected.
Sir, that was on your consent form, remember?
YOU WERE RIGHT, John, Alexandre said. Epidemiology was the medical profession's version of accounting, and as that dull profession was vital to running a business, so the study of diseases and how they spread was actually the