[Seenso]

> If they closed airports and put up some checkpoints on the interstate to only allow select traffic through, I imagine that would cut travel pretty dramatically.

> Courts tend to believe that the Privileges and Immunities Clause gives a constitutional right to travel between states.

Interstate closures happen all the time for all kinds of reasons.

If someone wants to unconditionally exercise their "constitutional right to travel between states" when epidemic control measures are in place, they can walk or swim.

[SllX]

Or just reroute off an interstate onto a different road between states, which is a lot more likely.

Then somebody takes the whole thing to the courts, and the courts tell the Feds to knock it off and let people through because they are violating the law of the land.

[bluGill]

Courts do tend to accept extreme circumstances as exceptions. I think any supreme court judge would give a warrant to everybody in the US to not travel between states based on the evidence at hand. It is a stretch but this time it might be deserved - it is less of the stretch than the ones required to lock up all Japanese descendants in WWII.

[Seenso]

> Or just reroute off an interstate onto a different road between states, which is a lot more likely.

If you're implementing a lockdown, you'd close more than just the interstates for that exact reason. At a minimum, you'd probably want manned checkpoints on the interstates, state highways, major county roads, and obvious choke points like bridges; and unmanned barriers on the minor roads.

> Then somebody takes the whole thing to the courts, and the courts tell the Feds to knock it off and let people through because they are violating the law of the land.

I'm skeptical that the courts would act as you assume when "the public Safety may require it."

Also, who says "the feds" have to implement it? It's my understanding that state authorities have broad powers to combat epidemics, too. They're also the ones with the manpower to implement lockdowns.

[jandrewrogers]

The US Supreme Court has consistently affirmed that Americans have a right to freely travel by the common conveyances of the day, and this right cannot be restricted without due process. The government would be required to prove that a specific person has a high probability of harming the public before it would pass judicial muster outside of very narrow contexts that won't apply to most Americans. A vague "because you might have coronavirus" has the same weight as "because you might be a terrorist".

As an example, this is one of primary legal arguments for why the No Fly List is unconstitutional.

[Seenso]

But there's a nuance there that I think needs clarification: is the right to not be discriminatorily singled out or a right to be provided access to infrastructure in all circumstances?

I think the right has to be the former, and general, nondiscriminatory restrictions would be OK. I posted in another comment that state governments regularly shut down roads and other infrastructure due to public safety concerns. I think closing roads in a lockdown could be done under similar authority.

The latter, to be provided access to infrastructure in all circumstances, is kinda nonsensical when you think about it. For instance, it would mean everyone had a constitutional right to drive through roads that have been closed for construction, which would be ridiculous.

[jandrewrogers]

No, this is not correct. There are only allowances for non-discriminatory "reasonable restrictions" such as closing roads during unsafe road conditions. There is no general "public safety" loophole that enables the Federal government to abrogate well-established rights, there must be due process for each individual so-deprived. This is essentially settled law in the US. And for good reason: it would give the government carte blanche to abrogate any Constitutional right using a nebulous notion of public safety as a fig leaf.

It is the same reason that courts have consistently rejected public safety arguments for depriving Americans of firearms without due process, as well as de facto deprivation attempts via regulatory technicalities like a million dollar tax on guns or banning ammunition.

[Seenso]

> No, this is not correct. There are only allowances for non-discriminatory "reasonable restrictions" such as closing roads during unsafe road conditions. There is no general "public safety" loophole that enables the Federal government to abrogate well-established rights, there must be due process for each individual so-deprived.

Do you have a citation for that?

If you're correct, this interpretation is to be verging on Constitution-as-a-suicide-pact territory, and the Constitution should be amended or the opinion changed to correct the flaw, and allow suspension of those rights during serious epidemics.

[chimeracoder]

> Also, who says "the feds" have to implement it? It's my understanding that state authorities have broad powers to combat epidemics, too. They're also the ones with the manpower to implement lockdowns.

The authority to restrict travel into a state (from an adjacent state) unambiguously lies with the federal government, under even the narrowest possible interpretation of the Commerce Clause.

[Seenso]

> The authority to restrict travel into a state (from an adjacent state) unambiguously lies with the federal government, under even the narrowest possible interpretation of the Commerce Clause.

Honestly, the scenario I had in mind was intrastate travel restrictions, especially around cities.

[chimeracoder]

> Honestly, the scenario I had in mind was intrastate travel restrictions, especially around cities.

Also covered by the Commerce Clause, since 1937.

[Seenso]

> Also covered by the Commerce Clause, since 1937.

So you're saying the commerce clause requires states to keep intra-state transportation infrastructure open, regardless of the public safety risk? That's unbelievable, since that infrastructure is regularly closed for public safety reasons (e.g. closing roads during blizzards):

https://www.mprnews.org/story/2019/12/01/blizzard-closes-hig...:

> To the west, the Minnesota Department of Transportation closed a stretch of Interstate 35 between Duluth and Cloquet. The Cloquet Police Department posted a photo of vehicles stranded along Highway 33 in that city late Saturday.

https://apnews.com/25d827c21bff49bba79339c51a6f3407:

> The Nebraska State Patrol has closed Interstate 80 from the Wyoming border east to North Platte as well as all state highways in the Nebraska Panhandle as a late-winter blizzard swept into the state.

[tangental]

I don't know about the US but in Europe many police stations are situated beside a bridge. There is a reason for that.

[petschge]

Do you have statistics on that? (Should be possible to get from openstreetmap using overpass queries, but I am busy with other things right now.)