Republican Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona introduced a bill in the House of Representatives that would prohibit the federal government from funding the collection of information about COVID-19 vaccine recipients.
“I am extremely concerned that the Biden administration, working closely with totalitarian regimes across our nation, will leverage this historic vaccine in order to dismantle peoples’ privacy yet again,” Biggs told Fox News. “All Americans should be able to choose to take this vaccine — with no fear of government or public-private partnership reprisals and monitoring.”
The bill comes as some businesses, corporations, and others have floated the idea of mandating the vaccine in exchange for their services. If passed, this legislation seeks to ensure Americans’ privacy and prohibit the government from financing any attempts to “maintain a database of, or collect, information that can be used to identify an individual” who has received the COVID-19 vaccine.
Biggs introduced the new legislation in conjunction with a bill that bars the federal government from funding mask or vaccine mandates, a response to the “draconian mandates” and exploitation of emergency orders by bureaucrats.
“I unequivocally oppose any government official who seeks to mandate this vaccine on any American, or who keeps a database of Americans who may have chosen not to receive the vaccine,” Biggs added. “All Americans should value and protect our freedoms and personal responsibility — no matter the emergency we face as a community, state, or nation.”
Federalist Senior Editor Chris Bedford weighed in on the new bill on Tuesday morning, saying it is a fair response after Americans “have given up more civil liberties than we ever thought that we would be willing to.”
“There’s been a massive erosion of civil rights, and if there is a way for government to track us and say, ‘If you haven’t done this medical procedure, then you can’t board an airplane. You can’t go to a shopping center. You can’t go to the movies. You can’t see your family or visit our state.’ That’s an incredible next step, and it’s one that is totally feasible given where we’ve gone so far in the past year,” Bedford said.
