Ferret McDuff commented on the legal grounds to resist surrendering their ferrets for rabies testing: >What about the Constitutional right to due process which guarantees that >no governmental agency (even the mighty public health) can deprive any >citizen of their private property (which includes livestock, working >animals, pets and other domestic creatures) without going through very >prescribed steps to insure that the action is correct? Yow! Turn down the contrast on your monitor, dude! You've managed to view a discussion that I took pains to paint in elusive shades of gray as stark black and white. Before you go thumping your copy of the Constitution you should know that lots of Constitutional "rights" are not absolute, like shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater. In the area of search and seizure, any law enforcement authority has the right to dispense with due process if there is reason to suspect that a life may be saved. Thus, if I'm pulled over by a state trooper for having a burnt-out tail light, if the officer hears muffled cries and pounding from the trunk of my car, he can force me to open the trunk or restrain me in whatever way reasonable to take my keys to open it himself. No warrant is needed. It's 100% legal. Ask any lawyer. >...even in matters of public health and the public welfare, [public >health officials] are not omnipotent and DO have to follow the same >rules as any other less powerful governmetal agency. In a non-emergency, yes, but when the health of another human or the entire community is at risk, public health officials have authority that can bypass due process. That was the whole point of my previous post. A misinformed, pressured or malevolent person *could*--at risk of being censured later-- invoke his or her authority in emergency situations to seize a ferret without a warrent. I would happily testify in court that rabies does not qualify as such an emergency but I see members of my own profession as well as the media magnify rabies into something like Ebola Zaire. In response to Judith's query about legal grounds to resist surrendering ferrets I wanted to make a point that the laws ARE NOT absolute. (That's one olf those gray things I was talking about.) Clutching the Constitution to your bosom and going down in a blaze of glory won't change that. And this member of "the mighty public health" (I may put that on my business cards--I kinda like it!) *supports* the ability of public health officials to override the Constitution in *genuine* emergencies. And those emergencies DO exist--I also subscribe to a list-server for emerging infectious disease (a la "Outbreak"-- the movie) and public health folks around the planet head off real, live emergencies all the time that could leave many, many people or animals dead. The authority that public health officials have in emergencies can never be taken completely away, so there is always going to be a small chance that someone will abuse that authority. Like Prometheus and the flame, the choice is not to abandon fire altogether, but to make certain it is always used safely. Knowing and demanding your rights *is* wonderful advice, and can give folks time to think about any decision to kill/test or quarantine/observe. BUT, that won't always work. In the worst scenario, your rights can--legally-- be overridden. THAT is why I advocated educating public health officials *and* the public, to minimize the chance that anyone will feel pressured to seize a ferret. If you'd stop to recognize public health officials as uninformed-yet-teachable human beings rather than the jack-booted thugs you paint them to be, you might find that you can sway a few of them to our side. --Jeff (I-don't-even-wear-boots) Johnston ([log in to unmask]) [Posted in FML issue 1718]