The New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA), which Columbia legal scholar Philip Hamburger founded in 2017, cheekily describes itself as "a civil libertarian alternative to the ACLU that actually cares about the rights in the Constitution." It therefore may seem surprising that two California chapters of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) have joined the NCLA in opposing a new California law that expands the state medical board's authority to discipline doctors for "unprofessional conduct."
That alliance is less surprising once you read A.B. 2098, which threatens to punish physicians for sharing COVID-19 "misinformation" with their patients. The law, which is scheduled to take effect on January 1, defines "misinformation" as advice "contradicted by contemporary scientific consensus"—an open invitation to suppression of constitutionally protected speech.
