When governments across the country enacted face mask mandates during the Covid scare of 2020 and 2021, they created a new normal. Criminals pounced on it. Now, rioters, ancharchists, and criminals routinely wear face masks while committing crimes in cities and towns.
New York’s Nassau County has had enough. Today, lawmakers in the county, a suburb of New York City, approved a bill banning masks in public places. The county leaders made it a misdemeanor offense.
The bill was introduced in response to antisemitic acts perpetrated by those wearing masks, mostly pro-Hamas rioters.
“This legislature [the local government] finds that masks and facial coverings that are not worn for health and safety concerns or for religious or celebratory purposes are often used as a predicate to harassing, menacing or criminal behavior,” the bill says. It allows local law enforcement officers the authority to demand that people remove their masks during a traffic stop or “when the officer has reasonable suspicion of criminal activity and/or intention to partake in criminal activity.”
There is an exemption for those who wear face coverings for religious or health reasons.
The measure passed with 12 Republicans voting for it, and 7 Democrats voting against it.
The American Civil Liberties Union opposed the measure.
“Nassau County’s mask ban is a dangerous misuse of the law to score political points and target protestors,” the regional director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement. “Making anonymous protest illegal chills political action and is ripe for selective enforcement, leading to doxxing, surveillance and retaliation against protesters.”
A mask should not be a get-out-of-jail card, proponents said. Criminals have taken advantage of the normalization of masks, and now citizens are becoming fearful of those who wear them because mask-wearing is becoming synonymous with criminal activity.