Protecting Liberty in Times of Calamity: The Long and Short Term Benefits of Data Minimization During National Emergencies Like COVID-19

Abstract

Overall, data minimization provides more benefits to the United States in both the short and the long term because it directs governmental resources to areas that curb the spread and effects of COVID-19; it honors our democratic, republican principles of government; and it protects individual liberties reinstated by judicial precedent and guaranteed by the United States Constitution. While it may appear, in the short term, broader data information would aid in the fight against COVID-19, it would need to reach the level of surveillance as seen in communist, dictatorial regimes in order to be effective, which is something the Constitution and the American people will not allow. Thus, in the short term, it is far wiser and more prudent to direct financial energy toward those areas that do in fact aid in the fight against COVID-19, which, in the long term, upholds American democracy and liberty. When the COVID-19 chapter of history closes, those governments that did not give in to the reactionary, totalitarian temptations will be made clear. If there only be one, let it be America.

Keywords: coronavirus, law, privacy, liberty