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Comment by lkramer | Hacker News Reader

In Denmark, most (all?) of the emergency measures have come with a sunset clause, typically a year from inception.

That's a good thing, but lingering emergency laws are not the full extent of the risk.

The risk is largely related to changing perceptions and standards for what is normal, beyond the pales & such. Once something has been done widely and publicly, it becomes more normal and less scary.

Why a year? Emergency measures being valid for the duration of the emergency would be pretty straightforward.

I think it's because it makes them able to react much quicker if hit by a second infection wave

You are forgetting to factor in complacency. When is the second wave? when should we stop waiting for it? that just depends on how useful the law is for those in power.

> Emergency measures being valid for the duration of the emergency would be pretty straightforward.

Deciding when the emergency is over is less straightforward than a fixed time period. A government that wanted to extend the measures indefinitely would just claim there's still an emergency.

For example the Patriots Act in USA, signed into law after 9/11 attacks. The sunset was in 2005, but it's still in force.

But the cooperation of legislators is required because of the fixed deadlines. If the government would be allowed the right to extend the provisions on their own, they probably would try to do that in perpetuity. With a legislative branch that actually cares about civil rights, the former is the much better option.

Not straightforward - somebody would have to decide when the emergency is over, which then becomes a political question.

And even if the emergency is not over in a year, it makes a lot of sense to reconsider if the measures (which were decided very quickly) are actually appropriate and necessary going forward. Hopefully a lot have been learned in a year.

That's quite a long time - the state of emergency here in Cze Republic can be only 30 days, after which the parliament needs to confirm any extension. Which it already did & for less than the extra month originally requested by the government.

I would also assume that the GDPR would impose severe restrictions as to the allowed duration of data collection for contact tracing purposes (in the sense that it shouldn't be legal anymore once Coronavirus ceases to be a major threat), but IANAL, so I could be wrong.

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