Journalist Glenn Greenwald criticized the idea of COVID-19 vaccine passports during a Tuesday night segment of Fox News’ “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”
President Joe Biden’s administration is reportedly seeking to ally with tech companies in order to produce a digital vaccine passport for Americans.
Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who earlier Tuesday called the idea “Orwellian,” asked Greenwald if he felt like the idea would work to convince more Americans to get the vaccination.
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“Well, I think you have to start with noting how draconian of an invasion this is in three different ways,” Greenwald said. “Number one, coercing citizens to put a substance into their body that they don’t want in their body, a pretty grave invasion of bodily autonomy, one of the most fundamental rights we have. Secondly, gathering a new database that can track people in terms of their health, that can easily be expanded as government programs often do into a whole variety of other uses, and then thirdly, you are restricting people’s movement. Freedom of movement is one of the most fundamental rights we have. It’s actually guaranteed in the Constitution.”
Greenwald suggested that a real “health catastrophe” could someday necessitate the use of such a measure, but argued that current vaccine demand and the coming arrival of herd immunity means the pandemic isn’t at that level.
“Why is it necessary to stigmatize them and create a caste system?” he asked, citing the tendency of Americans “to not want to do” what the government wants.
The independent journalist went on to compare the proposed vaccine passport system to the Patriot Act, which was originally meant to be temporary but grew “beyond its original intentions.” (RELATED: Rand Paul Says Pro-Vaccine Passport, Anti-Voter ID Americans ‘Need Some Serious Help’)
“I think there’s a huge cultural strain here that liberals have this kind of punitive strain in their politics that they like the idea of being able to stigmatize people who don’t agree with them on vaccines by creating a second-class citizenry for them,” he said. “I think that’s a big part of the motive.”