(CNN) -- Kaci Hickox, a nurse placed under mandatory quarantine in New Jersey, went on CNN on Sunday and criticized the "knee-jerk reaction by politicians" to Ebola, saying "to quarantine someone without a better plan in place, without more forethought, is just preposterous."
Hickox, an epidemiologist who was working to help treat Ebola patients in Sierra Leone, has tested negative twice for Ebola and does not have symptoms, she said. She is quarantined for 21 days at University Hospital in Newark.
"This is an extreme that is really unacceptable, and I feel like my basic human rights have been violated," Hickox told CNN's Candy Crowley on "State of the Union."
She described herself as "physically strong" but "emotionally exhausted."
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"To put me through this emotional and physical stress is completely unacceptable," she said.
She slammed New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie for describing her as "obviously ill."
"First of all, I don't think he's a doctor; secondly, he's never laid eyes on me; and thirdly, I've been asymptomatic since I've been here," Hickox told Crowley Sunday.
In a separate interview with CNN Senior Medical Correspondent Elizabeth Cohen, Hickox elaborated on what she thought of Christie's assessment of her medical condition.
"I'm sorry, but that's just a completely unacceptable statement in my opinion. For (Christie) -- a politician who's trusted and respected -- to make a statement that's categorically not true is just unacceptable and appalling."
What would mandatory quarantines do?
"She's fine. She's not sick."
Hickox told Crowley that mandatory quarantine is "not a sound public health decision" and that public health officials -- not politicians -- should be making the policies related to Ebola and public safety.
"For the first 12 hours, I was in shock. Now I'm angry," she added.
On Sunday, Hickox's lawyers met with Hickox at the hospital, saying they had a 75-minute conversation through a piece of clear plastic while she sat inside the tent.
"She's fine. She's not sick," lawyer Steven Hyman said in a sidewalk news conference aired on CNN affiliate WABC. "She went and did a magnanimous thing and deserves to be treated with respect and dignity, not put in isolation because some political leaders decided it looks good to do that."
Lawyer Norman Siegal, former director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said he'll be filing papers in court for Hickox to have a hearing no later than five days from the start of her confinement.
He said the doctors at the hospital say there's no medical reason to hold her. The policy Christie enacted is unconstitutional and too broad, he said.
"We need to know what the medical facts are and not rely on politicians who have their own vested interests," he said.
In a Sunday evening news conference, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio commented briefly on Hickox's case, saying that "what happened to her was inappropriate."
"This hero was treated with disrespect and was not given a clear direction."
"We owe her better than that, and all the people who do this work, better than that," he added.
'To put me in prison is just inhumane'
Hickox arrived in Newark Liberty Airport on Friday afternoon and after a seven-hour wait at the hospital. She was put in an isolation tent inside University Hospital in Newark. She's twice tested negative for Ebola, including a test at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta.
Hickox says she has asked repeatedly but hasn't been told how long she'll be held at the hospital.
"To put me in prison," she said, "is just inhumane."
On Sunday night, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced he was changing the state's mandatory 21-day quarantine policy for health workers who return from the Ebola zone. People who worked with Ebola patients but don't show symptoms of having the virus can serve their 21-day quarantine at home, the governor's office said.
Christie spokesman Kevin Roberts said late Sunday night: "The protocol is clear that a New Jersey resident with no symptoms, but who has come into contact with someone with Ebola, such as a health care provider, would be subject to a mandatory quarantine order and quarantined at home. Nonresidents would be transported to their homes if feasible and, if not, quarantined in New Jersey."
On Fox News Sunday morning, Christie said he had "no second thoughts" about New Jersey's mandatory quarantine for health care workers.
"I believe that folks who want to take that step and are willing to volunteer also understand that it's in their interest and the public health interest to have a 21-day period thereafter if they've been directly exposed to people with the virus," he said.
Christie also told "Fox News Sunday" that a voluntary system of quarantine isn't reliable.
"I don't believe that when you're dealing with a serious situation like this that we can count on a voluntary system; this is the government's job."
At a news conference Saturday, the governor said, "I'm sorry if in any way she was inconvenienced, but inconvenience that could occur from having folks that are symptomatic and ill out amongst the public is a much, much greater concern of mine. I hope she recovers quickly."
Hickox said she has nothing to recover from. Her temperature is normal, and she feels fine.
"Everyone keeps asking how I'm feeling physically and of course I'm fine physically, but I don't think most people understand what it's like to be alone in a tent and decisions are being made that don't make sense and show no compassion," Hickox said, starting to cry.
"I just feel like fear is winning right now, and when fear wins, everyone loses."
Her life in quarantine
She's not allowed to have her luggage and was given paper scrubs to wear. Hickox said she has no shower, no flushable toilet and the hospital gave her no television or any reading material. Mostly, she says, she stares at the walls.
On Sunday afternoon, the hospital issued an update saying "the patient has computer access, use of her cell phone, reading material (magazines, newspaper) and requested and has received take-out food and drink."
Hickox said she's not allowed to see her lawyer or anyone else.
"The tent has a window, and doctors talk to me in normal clothes from outside the window," she says. "So if there's no risk to them talking to me from outside the window, it doesn't make any sense that my lawyer wouldn't be able to do the same."
A spokeswoman for the hospital said staff is trying to make Hickox comfortable.
"While we understand that the required quarantine is an inconvenience, it is our primary goal to make sure the patient is as comfortable as possible. We have given our prompt attention to provide the patient with basic needs and to accommodate additional requests made by the patient," said Stacie Newton, spokesperson for University Hospital in Newark.
Would policy discourage health workers?
Hickox said she worries that her experience will discourage other aid workers from going to West Africa to help quell the Ebola outbreak.
That thought was echoed by Dr. Rick Sacra, an Ebola survivor.
He said he's afraid some returning healthcare workers will skirt the system and end up not being monitored
"You might have some renegade workers flying into Toronto and then driving home and so they're not on anyone's radar," he said. "If quarantines push people away from transparent, friendly, respectful, dialogue with public health workers, that may increase the risk back home."
Hickox said she would welcome Christie to visit her in the hospital.
"Maybe he could tell me what 'obviously ill' means. That would be great," she said.
She added that she doesn't regret her trip to help Ebola patients in Africa.
"Someone asked me earlier would I do this again if I knew what would happen, and my answer is categorically yes," she said. "I feel incredibly privileged to be able to do this work."
After hearing Hickox's phone interview with Candy Crowley on Sunday, New Jersey Health officials emailed CNN's "State of the Union" to refute some of the claims made by Hickox.
In the email, Donna Leusner, communications director for the New Jersey Department of Health, wrote that Hickox did receive reading materials and got computer access.
Leusner also wrote that "the patient was given a copy of the quarantine order on Friday and is receiving regular updated information."
CNN's Chelsea J. Carter, Kristina Sgueglia and Josh Levs contributed to this report.
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Kaci Hickox, who recently returned to the United States after working in Ebola-ravaged West Africa, sent CNN this image of the tent where she was being isolated for Ebola monitoring Sunday, October 26, in New Jersey. Hospital officials told CNN the indoor tent is in a climate-controlled extended-care facility adjacent to a hospital. Hickox was eventually discharged after testing negative for Ebola twice.
Hickox also sent this image of the toilet facilities in the tent.
U.S. President Barack Obama hugs Ebola survivor Nina Pham in the Oval Office of the White House on Friday, October 24. Pham, one of the two Dallas nurses who were diagnosed with the virus, was declared Ebola-free after being treated at a hospital in Bethesda, Maryland.
Police officers on Thursday, October 23, stand outside the New York City apartment of Craig Spencer, a Doctors Without Borders physician who recently returned from West Africa and tested positive for Ebola. Health officials say the Ebola outbreak in West Africa is the deadliest ever. More than 4,800 people have died there, according to the World Health Organization.
Health workers in Port Loko, Sierra Leone, transport the body of a person who is suspected to have died of Ebola on Tuesday, October 21.
RoseAnn DeMoro, executive director of the California Nurses Association and National Nurses United, talks to reporters in Sacramento, California, after meeting with Gov. Jerry Brown to discuss the Ebola crisis on October 21.
Health workers bury a body on the outskirts of Monrovia, Liberia, on Monday, October 20.
Christine Wade, a registered nurse at the University of Texas Medical Branch, greets Carnival Magic passengers disembarking in Galveston, Texas, on Sunday, October 19. Nurses met passengers with Ebola virus fact sheets and were available to answer any questions. A Dallas health care worker was in voluntary isolation aboard the cruise ship because of her potential contact with the Ebola virus. She had shown no signs of the disease, however.
Garteh Korkoryah, center, is comforted during a memorial service for her son, Thomas Eric Duncan, on Saturday, October 18, in Salisbury, North Carolina. Duncan, a 42-year-old Liberian citizen, died October 8 in a Dallas hospital. He was in the country to visit his son and his son's mother, and he was the first person in the United States to be diagnosed with Ebola.
An airplane carrying Nina Pham arrives at an airport in Frederick, Maryland, on Thursday, October 16. Pham is one of the two nurses who were diagnosed with Ebola after treating Duncan. Pham was sent to Maryland to be treated at a National Institutes of Health hospital, and she was declared Ebola-free several days later.
Boys run from blowing dust as a U.S. military aircraft leaves the construction site of an Ebola treatment center in Tubmanburg, Liberia, on Wednesday, October 15.
Aid workers from the Liberian Medical Renaissance League stage an Ebola awareness event October 15 in Monrovia. The group performs street dramas throughout Monrovia to educate the public on Ebola symptoms and how to handle people who are infected with the virus.
U.S. President Barack Obama speaks to the media about Ebola during a meeting in the Cabinet Room of the White House on October 15. Obama said his administration will respond to new Ebola cases "in a much more aggressive way," taking charge of the issue after the second Texas nurse was diagnosed with the disease.
A U.S. Marine looks out from an MV-22 Osprey aircraft before landing at the site of an Ebola treatment center under construction in Tubmanburg on October 15. It is the first of 17 Ebola treatment centers to be built by Liberian army soldiers and American troops as part of the U.S. response to the epidemic.
A man dressed in protective clothing treats the front porch of a Dallas apartment where one of the infected nurses resides on Sunday, October 12.
Ebola survivors prepare to leave a Doctors Without Borders treatment center after recovering from the virus in Paynesville, Liberia, on October 12.
A member of the Liberian army stands near a U.S. aircraft Saturday, October 11, in Tubmanburg.
A woman crawls toward the body of her sister as a burial team takes her away for cremation Friday, October 10, in Monrovia. The sister had died from Ebola earlier in the morning while trying to walk to a treatment center, according to her relatives.
Ebola survivor Joseph Yensy prepares to be discharged from the Doctors Without Borders treatment center in Paynesville, Liberia, on Sunday, October 5.
Sanitized boots dry at the Doctors Without Borders treatment center in Paynesville on October 5.
Residents of an Ebola-affected township take home kits distributed by Doctors Without Borders on Saturday, October 4, in New Kru Town, Liberia. The kits, which include buckets, soap, gloves, anti-contamination gowns, plastic bags, a spray bottle and masks, are meant to give people some level of protection if a family member becomes sick.
A person peeks out from the Dallas apartment where Thomas Eric Duncan, the first person diagnosed with the Ebola virus in the United States, was staying on Friday, October 3.
A girl cries as community activists approach her outside her Monrovia home on Thursday, October 2, a day after her mother was taken to an Ebola ward.
Marie Nyan, whose mother died of Ebola, carries her 2-year-old son, Nathaniel Edward, to an ambulance in the Liberian village of Freeman Reserve on Tuesday, September 30.
A health official uses a thermometer Monday, September 29, to screen a Ukrainian crew member on the deck of a cargo ship at the Apapa port in Lagos, Nigeria.
Children pray during Sunday service at the Bridgeway Baptist Church in Monrovia on Sunday, September 28.
Residents of the St. Paul Bridge neighborhood in Monrovia take a man suspected of having Ebola to a clinic on September 28.
Workers move a building into place as part of a new Ebola treatment center in Monrovia on September 28.
Medical staff members at the Doctors Without Borders facility in Monrovia burn clothes belonging to Ebola patients on Saturday, September 27.
A health worker in Freetown, Sierra Leone, sprays disinfectant around the area where a man sits before loading him into an ambulance on Wednesday, September 24.
Medics load an Ebola patient onto a plane at Sierra Leone's Freetown-Lungi International Airport on Monday, September 22.
A few people are seen in Freetown during a three-day nationwide lockdown on Sunday, September 21. In an attempt to curb the spread of the Ebola virus, people in Sierra Leone were told to stay in their homes.
Supplies wait to be loaded onto an aircraft at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport on Saturday, September 20. It was the largest single shipment of aid to the Ebola zone to date, and it was coordinated by the Clinton Global Initiative and other U.S. aid organizations.
A child stops on a Monrovia street Friday, September 12, to look at a man who is suspected of suffering from Ebola.
Health workers on Wednesday, September 10, carry the body of a woman who they suspect died from the Ebola virus in Monrovia.
A woman in Monrovia carries the belongings of her husband, who died after he was infected by the Ebola virus.
Health workers in Monrovia place a corpse into a body bag on Thursday, September 4.
After an Ebola case was confirmed in Senegal, people load cars with household items as they prepare to cross into Guinea from the border town of Diaobe, Senegal, on Wednesday, September 3.
Crowds cheer and celebrate in the streets Saturday, August 30, after Liberian authorities reopened the West Point slum in Monrovia. The military had been enforcing a quarantine on West Point, fearing a spread of the Ebola virus.
A health worker wearing a protective suit conducts an Ebola prevention drill at the port in Monrovia on Friday, August 29.
Volunteers working with the bodies of Ebola victims in Kenema, Sierra Leone, sterilize their uniforms on Sunday, August 24.
A guard stands at a checkpoint Saturday, August 23, between the quarantined cities of Kenema and Kailahun in Sierra Leone.
A burial team from the Liberian Ministry of Health unloads bodies of Ebola victims onto a funeral pyre at a crematorium in Marshall, Liberia, on Friday, August 22.
Dr. Kent Brantly leaves Emory University Hospital on Thursday, August 21, after being declared no longer infectious from the Ebola virus. Brantly was one of two American missionaries brought to Emory for treatment of the deadly virus.
Family members of West Point district commissioner Miata Flowers flee the slum in Monrovia while being escorted by the Ebola Task Force on Wednesday, August 20.
An Ebola Task Force soldier beats a local resident while enforcing a quarantine on the West Point slum on August 20.
Local residents gather around a very sick Saah Exco, 10, in a back alley of the West Point slum on Tuesday, August 19. The boy was one of the patients that was pulled out of a holding center for suspected Ebola patients after the facility was overrun and closed by a mob on August 16. A local clinic then refused to treat Saah, according to residents, because of the danger of infection. Although he was never tested for Ebola, Saah's mother and brother died in the holding center.
A burial team wearing protective clothing retrieves the body of a 60-year-old Ebola victim from his home near Monrovia on Sunday, August 17.
lija Siafa, 6, stands in the rain with his 10-year-old sister, Josephine, while waiting outside Doctors Without Borders' Ebola treatment center in Monrovia on August 17. The newly built facility will initially have 120 beds, making it the largest-ever facility for Ebola treatment and isolation.
Brett Adamson, a staff member from Doctors Without Borders, hands out water to sick Liberians hoping to enter the new Ebola treatment center on August 17.
Workers prepare the new Ebola treatment center on August 17.
A body, reportedly a victim of Ebola, lies on a street corner in Monrovia on Saturday, August 16.
Liberian police depart after firing shots in the air while trying to protect an Ebola burial team in the West Point slum of Monrovia on August 16. A crowd of several hundred local residents reportedly drove away the burial team and their police escort. The mob then forced open an Ebola isolation ward and took patients out, saying the Ebola epidemic is a hoax.
A crowd enters the grounds of an Ebola isolation center in the West Point slum on August 16. The mob was reportedly shouting, "No Ebola in West Point."
A health worker disinfects a corpse after a man died in a classroom being used as an Ebola isolation ward Friday, August 15, in Monrovia.
A boy tries to prepare his father before they are taken to an Ebola isolation ward August 15 in Monrovia.
Kenyan health officials take passengers' temperature as they arrive at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport on Thursday, August 14, in Nairobi, Kenya.
A hearse carries the coffin of Spanish priest Miguel Pajares after he died at a Madrid hospital on Tuesday, August 12. Pajares, 75, contracted Ebola while he was working as a missionary in Liberia.
Health workers in Kenema screen people for the Ebola virus on Saturday, August 9, before they enter the Kenema Government Hospital.
Paramedics in protective suits move Pajares, the infected Spanish priest, at Carlos III Hospital in Madrid on Thursday, August 7. He died five days later.
Nurses carry the body of an Ebola victim from a house outside Monrovia on Wednesday, August 6.
A Nigerian health official wears protective gear August 6 at Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos.
Officials with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta sit in on a conference call about Ebola with CDC team members deployed in West Africa on Tuesday, August 5.
Aid worker Nancy Writebol, wearing a protective suit, gets wheeled on a gurney into Emory University Hospital in Atlanta on August 5. A medical plane flew Writebol from Liberia to the United States after she and her colleague Dr. Kent Brantly were infected with the Ebola virus in the West African country.
Nigerian health officials are on hand to screen passengers at Murtala Muhammed International Airport on Monday, August 4.
Nurses wearing protective clothing are sprayed with disinfectant Friday, August 1, in Monrovia after they prepared the bodies of Ebola victims for burial.
A nurse disinfects the waiting area at the ELWA Hospital in Monrovia on Monday, July 28.
In this photo provided by Samaritan's Purse, Dr. Kent Brantly, left, treats an Ebola patient in Monrovia. On July 26, the North Carolina-based group said Brantly tested positive for the disease. Days later, Brantly arrived in Georgia to be treated at an Atlanta hospital, becoming the first Ebola patient to knowingly be treated in the United States.
A doctor puts on protective gear at the treatment center in Kailahun on Sunday, July 20.
Members of Doctors Without Borders adjust tents in the isolation area in Kailahun on July 20.
Boots dry in the Ebola treatment center in Kailahun on July 20.
Dr. Jose Rovira of the World Health Organization takes a swab from a suspected Ebola victim in Pendembu, Sierra Leone, on Friday, July 18.
Red Cross volunteers disinfect each other with chlorine after removing the body of an Ebola victim from a house in Pendembu on July 18.
A doctor works in the field laboratory at the Ebola treatment center in Kailahun on Thursday, July 17.
Doctors Without Borders staff prepare to enter the isolation ward at an Ebola treatment center in Kailahun on July 17.
Dr. Mohamed Vandi of the Kenema Government Hospital trains community volunteers who will aim to educate people about Ebola in Sierra Leone.
A woman has her temperature taken at a screening checkpoint on the road out of Kenema on Wednesday, July 9.
A member of Doctors Without Borders puts on protective gear at the isolation ward of the Donka Hospital in Conakry on Saturday, June 28.
Airport employees check passengers in Conakry before they leave the country on Thursday, April 10.
A Guinea-Bissau customs official watches arrivals from Conakry on Tuesday, April 8.
Egidia Almeida, a nurse in Guinea-Bissau, scans a Guinean citizen coming from Conakry on April 8.
A scientist separates blood cells from plasma cells to isolate any Ebola RNA and test for the virus Thursday, April 3, at the European Mobile Laboratory in Gueckedou, Guinea.
Health specialists work Monday, March 31, at an isolation ward for patients at the facility in southern Guinea.
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