Before COVID we happily took a train to our workplace without wearing a mask, leaving our computer at home. We used email and the phone to link to people. With relative abandon, we vacuumed up a vast range of digital technology from frivolous fitness apps to multiple office screen processes likes Microsoft Teams and Zoom. We often failed to distinguish between what was simply playful and what was actually useful, even though that too is a shifting plane. We gave little or no thought to the looming age of the disadvantaged or, equally problematic, the potentially privileged COVID cyborg described in Galloway’s essay in this collection. To cite one example of how our excitement for the digital transformation has both lacked sophistication and been co-opted for change, consider TikTok. This young person’s video song and dance trivia app has become so successful as political satire that the President of the United States (who probably first watched it for the song and dance moves) has now rushed into CAPS LOCK to threaten its prohibition. Who could have anticipated that? For some this sort of transformation will always present opportunities. For others it is deeply uncomfortable, if not downright threatening. As COVID continues to bite, this embrace of digital technologies is undergoing upheaval and re-evaluation. We witness it unsettling our working lives and our personal relationships, our faith in medical interventions, and our rather casual (very Australian) respect for the law. We are asking ourselves – is this healthy? who benefits? who loses? who looks after the lost? This Alternative Law Journal collection responds to these questions. Many facets of the legal landscape are considered. A starting point is found in considering the app COVIDsafe. What are the privacy implications when we are told that embracing an app which telegraphs our every move to some faceless government server is good health policy (Lodders and Paterson)? Telegraphing and even collapsing COVID and climate change problematics, is it good to be able to shift seamlessly from emergency to action without considering what this means for accountability (Boughey)? How do we, as a democracy, respond to the accountability puzzle when our parliaments are not sitting? More particularly how did we get here without being able to deploy technology, legally, to make it possible for politicians to sit and vote remotely? In the 21st century, this is a rather perplexing problem when every child has a tablet and knows how to use it, and every parent has been able to censor what they watch for at least a decade. Is COVID now forcing us to adjust hastily when we should have already adapted, thoughtfully and carefully? Those among us who are curious to know what all the fuss is about will be impressed with, and concerned about, the analysis of the role our human rights Acts can and should take in responding to COVID (Evans and Petrie). For those who are complaining about the impact of border closures or mask directions on their constitutional rights, this essay might prove a revelation. Think back to the time before COVID. Consider how we relied upon a raft of parliamentary committees to do their near-invisible work of holding the executive to account. Moulds’ essay confronts us with questions of what we are doing without that level of scrutiny and how powerful they are as we pause (freeze) parliamentary sittings. A cautionary ‘state of emergency’ case study from Tasmania illustrates the complexity of the issues. There the Subordinate Legislation Committee which is intended to manage crises like COVID is limited by overly prescriptive interpretation and is arguably not mobile or modern enough to deal with the challenges (Gogarty and Appleby). Is it the case that, as we struggled to source ventilators, we should have been considering putting our legal machinery on life support? Do not relax. If we thought the courts could provide the level of flexibility required to deal with this crisis McIntyre, Olijnyk and Pender consider online justice and dispute resolution with a ‘cold eye’, providing both

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大流行中的法律

在 COVID 之前，我们不戴口罩高兴地坐火车去了我们的工作场所，把电脑留在家里。我们使用电子邮件和电话来联系人们。我们相对放弃了大量的数字技术，从琐碎的健身应用程序到 Microsoft Teams 和 Zoom 等多个办公室屏幕流程。我们经常无法区分什么是简单的好玩的和什么是真正有用的，即使那也是一个不断变化的平面。我们很少或根本没有考虑到加洛韦在本集中的文章中描述的处于不利地位或同样有问题的潜在特权 COVID 半机械人即将到来的时代。举一个例子来说明我们对数字化转型的兴奋是如何既缺乏复杂性又被选为变革的，请考虑 TikTok。这个年轻人的视频歌舞琐事应用变得如此成功，就像政治讽刺一样，以至于美国总统（他可能是第一次看到它是为了歌舞动作）现在冲进CAPS LOCK威胁要禁止它。谁能预料到呢？对于某些人来说，这种转变总是会带来机会。对于其他人来说，即使不是彻头彻尾的威胁，也是非常不舒服的。随着新冠肺炎疫情持续蔓延，对数字技术的这种拥抱正在经历剧变和重新评估。我们见证了它扰乱了我们的工作生活和个人关系、我们对医疗干预的信念以及我们对法律相当随意（非常澳大利亚）的尊重。我们问自己——这健康吗？谁受益？谁输了？谁来照顾迷失者？本《替代法律杂志》合集对这些问题做出了回应。法律环境的许多方面都被考虑在内。在考虑应用程序 COVIDsafe 时可以找到一个起点。当我们被告知拥抱一个应用程序将我们的一举一动发送到某个匿名的政府服务器是良好的健康政策时，对隐私的影响是什么（Lodders 和 Paterson）？电报甚至解决 COVID 和气候变化问题，能够在不考虑这对问责制（Boughey）意味着什么的情况下无缝地从紧急情况转变为行动是好事吗？当我们的议会不开会时，作为民主国家，我们如何应对问责制难题？更具体地说，我们是如何在无法合法部署技术的情况下到达这里的，使政治家可以远程坐下来投票？在 21 世纪，当每个孩子都有平板电脑并知道如何使用它时，这是一个相当令人困惑的问题，每个父母都能够审查他们观看的内容至少十年。当我们本应深思熟虑地适应时，COVID现在是否迫使我们匆忙调整？我们当中那些想知道大惊小怪的人会对我们的人权法案在应对 COVID（埃文斯和皮特里）中可以而且应该发挥的作用的分析留下深刻印象并感到担忧。对于那些抱怨边境关闭或戴口罩对他们宪法权利的影响的人来说，这篇文章可能是一个启示。回想一下COVID之前的时间。想想我们如何依靠大量议会委员会来完成他们几乎看不见的工作，让行政部门承担责任。莫尔德斯的文章向我们提出了一个问题，即我们在没有这种程度的审查的情况下正在做什么，以及当我们暂停（冻结）议会会议时，它们的力量有多大。来自塔斯马尼亚的警示性“紧急状态”案例研究说明了问题的复杂性。在那里，旨在管理 COVID 等危机的下属立法委员会受到过于规范性解释的限制，并且可以说不够灵活或现代，无法应对挑战（Gogarty 和 Appleby）。当我们努力采购呼吸机时，是否应该考虑将我们的法律机制用于生命支持？不要放松。