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Casablanca – Due to the ongoing outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus, President Barack Obama has decided to sign an amendment to an executive order that aims to authorize the control of medical authorities over American citizens in cases of communicable diseases, such as respiratory illnesses.
The President’s new executive order, entitled “Revised List of Quarantinable Communicable Diseases,” is an upgraded version of the “executive order 13295,” which was issued by former president George W.Bush in 2003.
In 2014, Obama has concluded that the earlier order needed fine-tuning. The new order stresses the importance of“apprehension, detention, or conditional release of individuals to prevent the introduction, transmission, or spread of suspected communicable diseases.”
Obama’s amendment immediately allows detention of any American citizen who shows“ severe acute respiratory syndromes, which are diseases that are associated with fever and signs and symptoms of pneumonia or other respiratory illness, are capable of being transmitted from person to person, and that either are causing, or have the potential to cause, a pandemic, or, upon infection, are highly likely to cause mortality or serious morbidity if not properly controlled.”
Although, the original order by Bush is quite similar to the recent version approved by Obama, Obama’s upgraded version makes clear that anyone infected with a contagious disease can be forcibly arrested by the medical authorities in order to prevent the spread of disease in the U.S.
The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons raised a red flag, suggesting that new executive order could “turn governors into dictators.”
