Quarantine Power

Dave: My wife makes me take off my clothes in the garage. Then she leaves out a bucket of warm water and some soap. And then she douses everything in hand sanitizer after I leave. She's overreacting, right?
Dr Erin Mears: Not really. And stop touching your face, Dave.
--Contagion

Judge Nap suggests that federal government quarantines on people returning from Ebola relief efforts in Africa are wrong. I understand his point. Presumption of liberty, a tenet of natural law, precludes government from detaining people without due cause in the name of public safety.

I also understand the very real potential for government to abuse quarantine power.

But is there not a argument that due cause does exist here? Ebola transmission mechanisms are not well understood. There is a chance that relief workers can be carrying the virus in hard-to-detect manners. As such, the fact that these people were exposed to conditions that could have infected them and made them carriers could be seen as constituting due cause.

There is also an argument to be made that people who immerse themselves in contagious environments voluntarily surrender their liberty. Upon their return, there is some probability that they could contaminate others with a deadly virus. Thus, prior to reentering their home society, their freedom must be restricted until it is determined that they do not threaten the freedom of others.

Refusing or avoiding quarantine in such a situation could be seen as aggressing on others. Even if the aggressor does not intend serious even lethal harm, it could happen nonetheless (similar to 'involuntary manslaughter').

One remedy is to make people who do in fact infect others liable for harm that they consequently bring to others. However, establishing clear causal links in such circumstances would likely be difficult.

Quarantine, then, seems a plausible alternative. It can be seen as consistent with the proper scope of government--that being to help people protect their person and property against infringement by others. The returning relief worker who avoids quarantine in situations where knowledge about a lethal virus is lacking can be seen as committing an act of aggression on others. Government-facilitated quarantines help individuals defend themselves against this aggression.

Viewed in this light, presumption of liberty rests with the people who might get infected rather than with the relief worker.

Perhaps this is a case where the Welfare Clause rightly applies...