#CNN #BillBarr #WilliamBarr #AttorneyGeneral #Slavery #Lockdown

US Attorney General Bill Barr compared US coronavirus lockdowns to American slavery on Wednesday night as it was revealed he is encouraging prosecutors to charge police brutality and racial injustice protesters with sedition whenever possible.

Barr spoke out at the Constitution Day celebration at Hillsdale College in Michigan, suggesting the measures put in place to help prevent the spread of COVID-19 were on par with an alternative to being put in prison, but one step down from the restrictions slaves endured.

'You know, putting a national lockdown, stay at home orders, is like house arrest. Other than slavery, which was a different kind of restraint, this is the greatest intrusion on civil liberties in American history,' Barr told a crowd which applauded in response, CNN reported.

Barr likened the pandemic to life for Black people before slavery was abolished after he was asked to explain 'constitutional hurdles for forbidding a church from meeting during Covid-19.'

He then blasted state governors, claiming they were using their executive powers to prevent businesses from reopening and people from returning to work.

'Most of the governors do what bureaucrats always do, which is they ... defy common sense,' Barr said. 'They treat free citizens as babies that can't take responsibility for themselves and others.

'We have to give business people an opportunity, tell them what the rules are you know the masks, which rule of masks, you had this month... and then let them try to adapt their business to that and you'll have ingenuity and people will at least have the freedom to try to earn a living.'

More than 6 million American have been infected with the virus and 196,000 have died from COVID-19.

Barr's speech came on the same day it was revealed he told federal prosecutors that protesters demonstrating for reforms of a justice system that has been compared to modern-day slavery, could be charged with sedition.

As the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), an independent global health research center at the University of Washington, declared racism a public health issue this summer, protesters have also asked for equality in wider systems.

Amid the demonstrations, the CDC also said in July that long-standing systemic health and social inequities have put many people from racial and ethnic minority groups at increased risk of getting sick and dying from COVID-19.

It's due to factors such as discrimination, the income gap and disproportionate representation in essential work.