A Mask Ban in Nassau County

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Matt Katz: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Welcome back, everybody. I'm Matt Katz, sitting in the big seat for Brian today. We're going to move to Long Island now, where Nassau County Republicans did something that took a lot of us by surprise this week. They voted to ban masks in public with some exceptions. Why? Why now? Masks have been a culture war touchstone since COVID when the right railed against mandates that masks be worn in public spaces, and now the opposite is happening. Banning masks is becoming a public policy priority, and that has less to do with COVID and more to do with anti-Israel protests. My colleague in the WNYC and Gothamist newsroom, Charles Lane, has been covering the story, and he's here with me in the studio to talk over the issue. Good morning, Charles.

Charles Lane: Good morning, listeners.

Matt Katz: Listeners, are you a Nassau County resident affected by the mask ban? Do you support it, oppose it? Or are you just confused why this is an issue at all? Give us a call or send us a text at 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692. Charles, where did this come from? Why did Nassau County legislators bring this up as an issue to be addressed in the first place?

Charles Lane: Well, I think it all goes back to the increasing tensions that we've had around. the protests starting in the early springtime. They've just become more tense, and very often, the protesters want to wear face coverings in order to hide their identity. During the springtime, there was some graffiti, some fistfights, but we really reached a flash point probably about six weeks or so ago when there was a video that surfaced in a subway car where the pro-Palestinian protesters were doing a call in response, looking for "Zionists."

I think a lot of people felt very uncomfortable about that in terms of it brought back images of mass arrests in Europe by the Nazis. Then coupled with that, we had the leaders of the Brooklyn Museum had their doorsteps painted and splashed in red paint. We found out yesterday that we had two indictments for a hate crime.

Those two things sort of prompted New York Governor Kathy Hochul to come out and say, we need to do something about the face coverings during these protests. There was legislation predating that, but no one really paid attention to that legislation until we reached this peak in June, and then enters Nassau County. Nassau County is an extremely interesting place in how they embrace the culture wars there. It's controlled by Republicans. It is somewhat moderate, but Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman has embraced the culture wars and look at things like banning transgender athletes from playing sports in county parks, or they recently created an armed militia for purposes that we don't entirely understand. The legislature was in lockstep with this, and so they came out with this ban on face coverings.

Matt Katz: The idea is that it's harder to identify perpetrators who commit illegal acts during protests if they're wearing masks. If they're not wearing masks, then they're able to be identified after the fact, I guess.

Charles Lane: That was the point that the police commissioner made during the debate in Nassau, yes.

Matt Katz: There's been nothing-- There's been no particular incident in Nassau County, involving a protest where there were masked people who could not be identified.

Charles Lane: No, but the police commissioner during the debate on this bill, really walked the line, suggesting that some protests did get close to that during the George Floyd protest in 2020, but there hasn't been any insinuation in recent months.

Matt Katz: As you can imagine, the phone lines are filling up. I want to just get a little bit into the details here for a second. How would this ban work? I'm walking down the street. I'm wearing a mask because I don't want to get, I don't know, sick or COVID or whatnot. Can I be stopped by a police officer?

Charles Lane: Nassau's ban, it makes exceptions for health and religious reasons, and it entrusts the police department to make that distinction. I think that's the main problem that the opponents to the ban on the face coverings had is like, there's no definition about what a mask is. It leaves it up to the police to do this. It's also a little bit more harsh than what was on the books before. Before, it was a violation that was just disorderly conduct, at most $150 fine and 15 days in jail. The ban that passed on Monday is a misdemeanor, $1,000 fine, and up to a year in jail, so a dramatic difference between the two.

Matt Katz: Let's go to the phones, and hear what some residents of Nassau have to say. Angelique in Sunnybrook is an advisor to a group called Mask Together America. Is that right, Angelique?

Dr. Angelique Corthals: That is correct. Thank you for having me. My name is Dr. Angelique Corthals. I'm the medical advisor for Mask Together America. I was actually at the heated Nassau Legislature meeting on Monday, which was traumatic to say the least. The problem is a mask community has been caught in the crossfire of politicization of masks. Since the beginning of the pandemic, we've been bullied, spat on, coughed on, verbally abused, sometimes physically attacked just for trying to protect our health. These mask bans embolden some members of the public who do not want to understand the vague nuances of the current bill that pass to continue with their attacks against us, against our community.

COVID is still ravaging our communities, especially our medically and socio-economically vulnerable communities, and people of color. Making masks a political issues again now is supremely short sighted, especially on the eve of a very possible new pandemic of another airborne virus, which is H5N1. I truly empathize with some of the testimonies we heard from the proponents, but banning masks, especially as it is written in Nassau, is only going to make matters worse. It's going to escalate tensions, lead to discriminatory arrests, and to massive lawsuits. It's going to cost Nassau County millions, and it's going to cost vulnerable people's health or even their lives.

Matt Katz: Thank you very much, Angelique. Appreciate you calling in. Let's keep it going because we have so many people who want to chime in about this. David in Massapequa. Hi, David.

David: Yes, hello. Can you hear me?

Matt Katz: I can, yes.

David: All right, great. It's great to be here. Thank you for giving me the time to speak. My name is David, and I am a lifelong Long Islander. I just wanted to set the record straight about the mask bans and just at least to start that. I'm very upset to hear that elected officials and Nassau are putting forward this ridiculous and otherwise dangerous mask ban at a time when COVID is still claiming many lives, including members of my own family.

The justification behind this was put out by Legislator Mazi Pilip, who was a veteran of the Israeli Defense Force, and she's putting out language that this law is supposed to be deterring "criminal acts" hurting the Jewish community on Long island. This sort of language is clearly in response to the unprecedented rise in support of young people and anybody who's sympathetic towards the Palestinian cause, and Pilip's comments are merely just a fear tactic that is just trying to sow further division between Jewish Americans and those who support Palestinian rights.

It's also even more infuriating to see the Nassau Democrats allow this to pass on Monday without any contest, and Representative D'Esposito was helping introduce this bill while COVID is still taking lives. As previously mentioned, I've lost members of my family, including my own grandfather, and my grandmother was left widow because of COVID. She and other immunocompromised people should not be harassed by the local police for wearing a piece of cloth over their face.

Matt Katz: Thank you very much for calling, David, and my condolences to you on your loss. Charles, tell us about where the Democrats were on this issue.

Charles Lane: The Democrats did try to make an effort to reach a compromise and offer suggestions to the bill that passed. What the Democrats wanted to do was, one, put definitions around to stop the lawsuits that may come from this and not being able to define what a face covering or a mask is.

They also wanted to make it what we call like an enhancement or an escalation. Rather than just make it a misdemeanor, the Democrats proposed adding it like, if you commit a crime while wearing a face covering, then it's an enhanced penalty, much like we have hate crime laws. If you commit a crime as a hate crime, it has further penalties. Same with if you did it with a gun.

The Nassau Democrats did try to make an effort to inject their opinion, and I think what we've seen in Nassau for, I don't know, a year and a half or more is that the Democrats have been shut out of the process, and only when the Republicans need a super majority are the Democrats included.

Matt Katz: They abstained in the vote. Is that right? That's what I read in your story.

Charles Lane: Right, they did abstain, the nuances of which I can't entirely remember, but they were very vocal in wanting to get the Republicans to reach a compromise. I think the Republicans did, and I should probably put an asterisk next to this, because the Republicans during debate said that they would eventually include Democrat opinion. We should probably not consider that the full truth.

Matt Katz: We actually have a Democratic politician on the line, does not represent Nassau County. It's New York State Assemblymember Jeffrey Dinowitz represents parts of the Bronx, and he has his own proposal on a state level on banning masks. He joins us now. Assemblymember, welcome to The Brian Lehrer Show. Thanks for calling in.

Assemblymember Jeffrey Dinowitz: Well, it's nice to be here.

Matt Katz: Tell us about your proposal.

Assemblymember Jeffrey Dinowitz: The bill, which I introduced in May, and it's a work in progress, so we're still working on specific details, would essentially bring back the law that we had in effect before the pandemic. I should say that I was a very strong advocate of masking during the pandemic. The law we had in place for many years before the pandemic was really aimed at the Ku Klux Klan and white hoods.

What's been going on lately, and this legislation would apply to any one of a number of situations, so it's not directed at one group, it's not directed on one issue or anything like that. The real bottom line is, if you are engaging in political activity, if you had part of a demonstration, you shouldn't be covering your entire face, because those who cover their face, and I mean your entire face, including your head, are doing it for, I guess, two reasons. One is to conceal their identity, and two is to intimidate. That's not something which has ever been considered acceptable before the pandemic, and it's not acceptable now.

Now the bill is not meant to interfere with people who are wearing an N95 mask, a surgical mask, something that would cover your nose and your mouth for health reasons, and it's also would exempt anybody who covers their entire face and head for religious reasons, which a very small number of people do. It's meant to allow people to exercise their First Amendment rights, which we would never want to interfere with on the one hand, but on the other hand, not allow this horrendous situation where some people, and I emphasize the word some, are engaged in horrible activity and concealing their identities at the same time. People who might go on a train, trying to intimidate people.

In the case of a train, we're talking about Jewish people, people who attack the homes of board members of the Brooklyn Museum, people who engage in the most loathsome activity outside the Nova exhibit, downtown in Manhattan, and things like that. We have to be able to balance protecting people's First Amendment rights, but also protecting everybody else's First Amendment rights. You have the right to say what you want, to participate in demonstrations, but you don't have the right to interfere with my First Amendment rights.

As a person who has participated in many demonstrations over the years, who has been participated in marches on Washington, who has been arrested in a nonviolent demonstration, I never wore a mask to conceal my identity. It never even crossed my mind. If you're advocating for something politically, then be public about it, stand up for it, be proud of it. When you hide, it means you're up to no good in my opinion.

Matt Katz: Let me ask you, hypothetical. Under your proposal, I show up to a rally. I'm wearing an N95 mask because there's going to be a lot of people there. I don't want to get COVID. Maybe an officer stops me, and I say, oh, I just don't want to get COVID, but I'm wearing a mask. What would happen? Could I be arrested?

Assemblymember Jeffrey Dinowitz: Not under the bill that I would envision passing, because that's a health issue. An N95 mask doesn't cover up everything. It covers your nose and your mouth. Some of the people who are wearing these masks, they're wearing something much larger than an N95 mask. Whether they're using a shirt or a towel or any one of a number of other things to wrap around their entire face and their head and everything, something clearly meant to conceal your identity. That's not what an N95 mask is.

Matt Katz: Right. I'm going to have my colleague Charles Lane ask you a quick question, assemblyman.

Charles Lane: Hi, assemblyman. You had mentioned that you-- I think you said that you were arrested when you were protesting back in your younger days.

Assemblymember Jeffrey Dinowitz: Well, I was somewhat younger. Yes, I had been arrested once. I'm not one of those that's been arrested a number of times, but I was arrested once, and I went into it knowing I'd be arrested. The circumstances were the demonstrations against what I consider the murder of Amadou Diallo. This was probably 25 years ago, I guess.

Charles Lane: One of the questions that I-- [crosstalk]

Assemblymember Jeffrey Dinowitz: On my way to be arrested, but I was.

Charles Lane: The question that I've been circling around the last couple of days is whether our society has sort of changed over the last 20 or 30 years in terms of anonymous free speech. In other words, I think as you have talked about, it's like if you believe in something, you should have the principles to be able to march in the streets and do that, showing your face, and so everybody knows you. Over the last 20 or 30 years, I think we've seen things like a viral social media or retaliation over, I can imagine like just everybody has phones and passed across a crowded street, and then your face gets picked up by, I don't know, like a potential employer across the country. My question is, since the Court of Appeals decision in 2004, have we sort of evolved where maybe we do need anonymous free speech?

Assemblymember Jeffrey Dinowitz: Listen, things always change. Many things have changed in our country, much of it for the worst, frankly, but no, I do not believe that people who are engaging in activities that they shouldn't be should be able to conceal their identity. Now, I don't agree, in the most recent batch of protests in New York. I don't agree with that, but that's irrelevant whether I agree with it or not, because I do think the vast majority of the people were simply exercising their free speech rights.

There were some people who were going well beyond that. The people who took over the building on the Columbia University campus and vandalized it, or the people who vandalized the homes where some of the Brooklyn Museum people lived, just to cite a couple of examples. Or in Washington, DC, I guess a couple of weeks ago, when Netanyahu was speaking, there were people who vandalized public property and caused considerable damage. Those people shouldn't be able to do that anonymously. If you're going to engage in criminal activity, then you shouldn't be doing that. If you're using the excuse of the First Amendment rights to cover your entire face in order to be able to get away with doing those activities, I don't agree with that. I think people should be open and transparent.

Charles Lane: Your proposal, you would want it tied not necessarily just to protest, but to criminal activity, or would you focus, anybody wearing a mask or face covering in a protest would be penalized?

Assemblymember Jeffrey Dinowitz: Well, that's what the bill currently says. As I said, it's a work in progress. We have to get this right. If we're going to do this, we have to get this right. We have to strike that balance. Different people have different ideas. I heard the segment about what the Nassau County Legislature did. Governor Hochul has come up with some proposals. We really have to work on this and get it right.

I don't really see the difference between one form of covering your face and head, and another, if it's meant to conceal your identity in order to be able to get away with things that maybe you shouldn't be getting away with, or to intimidate people. Covering is a covering, and we shouldn't allow it, and we didn't allow it for many, many years. I totally get the concern people have about COVID. As I said, I was a strong advocate of people wearing masks during the pandemic, and there were still some people who want to wear those masks. I would never want to interfere with health-related matters, but I don't want that to be used as an excuse to do bad things either.

Matt Katz: Assemblyman, thank you very much for calling in and joining this discussion. Really appreciate it.

Assemblymember Jeffrey Dinowitz: Okay. Thank you so much. Have a good day.

Matt Katz: You, too, and that was Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz from the Bronx, who has his own COVID, I'm sorry, not COVID, own mask ban proposal. We're going to leave it there, Charles. Before we wrap up, just give me real quick. He mentioned Governor Hochul. What is the status of her soft proposal on this, and also the mayor's? Tell us real quick.

Charles Lane: Hochul hasn't really provided a lot of contours to what she wants right now, but she has said that she wants to have a dialogue with it. Where Hochul is at is very different than where Dinowitz is at. Dinowitz's proposal would forbid face coverings in protests, whereas Hochul more or less targets-- What she has said is that she wants to prohibit face coverings in the commission of a crime, which is different than what Dinowitz has proposed.

Matt Katz: I was going to ask what's going to happen on Halloween in Nassau County if kids can't be in their Halloween costumes, but we might have to come back to that closer to the date. Charles Lane is a reporter at WNYC. Charles, thanks so much for your reporting. Thanks so much.

Charles Lane: Thank you.

 

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