{"id":15223,"date":"2023-07-07T04:08:16","date_gmt":"2023-07-07T09:08:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=15223"},"modified":"2023-07-07T04:08:20","modified_gmt":"2023-07-07T09:08:20","slug":"ushistoric-first-judge-blocks-biden-admins-orwellian-collusion-with-big-tech-to-suppress-free-speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=15223","title":{"rendered":"USHISTORIC FIRST: Judge Blocks Biden Admin\u2019s \u2018Orwellian\u2019 Collusion With Big Tech to Suppress Free Speech"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

On the Fourth of July<\/a>, a federal judge condemned the Biden administration\u2019s collusion with Big Tech companies to suppress Americans\u2019 free speech as \u201csimilar to an Orwellian \u2018Ministry of Truth\u2019\u201d and issued a historic order temporarily blocking the federal government from pressuring tech companies to stifle speech.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is fitting that the judge granted a first-of-its-kind injunction on the Fourth of July because that day paved the way for our country to adopt the First Amendment,\u201d Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, a Republican, told The Daily Signal<\/a> in a statement Wednesday. \u201cWe had to fight the Revolutionary War in part because King George tried to stamp out political dissent. Now, the Biden administration is trying to censor speech he disagrees with. Fortunately, and thanks to the brave Founders on the Fourth of July, we now have the First Amendment to push back against the Biden administration\u2019s censorship regime.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt could not be more perfect timing,\u201d Louisiana Solicitor General Liz Murrill, a Republican, told The Daily Signal in a phone interview Wednesday. \u201cI can\u2019t ever recall such a sprawling government enterprise to censor American speech being unraveled in this manner.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bailey and Murrill are leading the case Missouri v. Biden, and they celebrated Judge Terry Doughty\u2019s ruling in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana on Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDuring the COVID-19 pandemic, a period perhaps best characterized by widespread doubt and uncertainty, the United States government seems to have assumed a role similar to an Orwellian \u2018Ministry of Truth,\u2019\u201d<\/a> Doughty wrote. His ruling included a preliminary injunction, barring federal officials from colluding with Big Tech companies to suppress free speech.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gene Hamilton, vice president of America First Legal, which represents two plaintiffs in the case against the Biden administration, told The Daily Signal he did not consider it a \u201ccoincidence\u201d that Doughty issued the order on July Fourth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a monumental decision for the American people\u2014a great day for all Americans,\u201d Hamilton said in a phone interview Wednesday. \u201cIt was a great, great Fourth of July.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was only appropriate for this decision to be rendered on Independence Day,\u201d he added. \u201cIt\u2019s a reaffirmation of our enduring principles on which our country was founded.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Biden administration<\/a> has made combating \u2018mis-,\u2019 \u2018dis-,\u2019 and \u2018malinformation\u2019 a high priority,\u201d Hamilton added. \u201cThey appear to view it as a systemic threat to the existence of democracy when nothing could be further from the truth. The solution to \u2018mis-\u2019 and \u2018disinformation\u2019 and false information is simply the truth and more information, and letting people draw their own conclusions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lawyer also said he had never heard of another judge issuing an injunction to prevent the federal government from directing Big Tech to suppress speech online.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Doughty\u2019s ruling notes that the plaintiffs in the case\u2014Missouri and Louisiana, represented by Bailey and Murrill; doctors who spoke out against the COVID-19 mandates<\/a>, such as Martin Kulldorff, Jayanta Bhattacharya, and Aaron Kheriaty; Gateway Pundit founder Jim Hoft; and anti-lockdown advocate and Health Freedom Louisiana Co-Director Jill Hines\u2014allege that the Biden administration \u201csuppressed conservative-leaning free speech\u201d on the Hunter Biden laptop story ahead of the 2020 presidential election; on COVID-19 issues, including its origin, masks, lockdowns, and vaccines; on election integrity in the 2020 presidential election; on the security of voting by mail; on the economy; and on President Joe Biden himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Doughty\u2019s injunction names various federal agencies\u2014including the Department of Health and Human Services<\/a>, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (the agency Dr. Anthony Fauci formerly directed), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the FBI, the Department of Justice, and the State Department\u2014and officials, including HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, and White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It forbids those people and agencies from \u201cmeeting with social media companies for the purpose of urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech posted on social-media platforms\u201d; from flagging posts for removal or suppression; from encouraging censorship; and from contacting Big Tech companies<\/a> via email, phone, or letters for such purposes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It also specifically bars collaboration with third-party organizations aiming at urging social media companies to suppress forms of speech. It also bars the Biden administration from notifying Big Tech firms to \u201cbe on the lookout\u201d for posts containing protected free speech.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The injunction does not restrict government agencies from all collaboration with Big Tech companies, however. It does not prohibit agencies from flagging posts involving criminal activity, or from notifying them of national security threats, malicious cyber activity, or criminal efforts to suppress voting or influence elections. It also expressly allows the administration to post \u201cpermissible public government speech\u201d online.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hamilton, the America First Legal attorney whose firm represents Hoft and Hines, argued that the injunction\u2019s carve-outs for specific government interaction with Big Tech firms would return the relationship to the status quo before the Biden administration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no First Amendment right to engage in criminal conduct,\u201d he noted. \u201cIt\u2019s still totally fine for the government to point out to a social media company, \u2018It turns out you have some child porn from this user,\u2019 or that there\u2019s a drug trafficker using your platform to communicate.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThose are natural functions of government,\u201d Hamilton explained. \u201cMost folks would understand this is the role that the government used to play with social media companies online\u201d before the Biden administration weaponized it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The judge\u2019s order does not represent a complete win for the defendants, however. It denies plaintiffs a \u201cclass determination,\u201d which would have included far more people in the lawsuit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was unfortunate that he didn\u2019t certify a class,\u201d Murrill, the solicitor general of Louisiana, told The Daily Signal. \u201cI think that part of the ruling is disappointing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both Hamilton and Murrill predicted that the Biden administration will file a motion to \u201cstay\u201d the injunction, likely followed by an appeal to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Murrill also condemned the censorship \u201centerprise\u201d the Biden administration set up<\/a>. She likened it to the government\u2019s targeted silencing of people loosely associated with the Communist Party under Sen. Joe McCarthy, R-Wis., in the 1950s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHere, you basically see a similar enterprise being set up, targeting predominantly conservative speech, but the enterprise doesn\u2019t know political boundaries,\u201d she warned. \u201cOnce the structure\u2019s in place, the structure can be weaponized by anybody in power.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt turns the Constitution<\/a> on its head,\u201d Murrill declared. \u201cIt flagrantly violates the First Amendment rights of everyone in this country.\u201d She further noted that when Americans challenge the Biden administration on this, \u201ctheir answer is not to pull back on violating people\u2019s rights; it\u2019s to defend the enterprise. It\u2019s to double down on speech as dangerous.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The solicitor general cited Jen Easterly, the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, who called it \u201creally, really dangerous if people get to pick their own facts.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo, in her view, government needs to pick those facts for us,\u201d Murrill said. \u201cIt ought to shock everyone\u2019s conscience that they\u2019re so willing to unapologetically violate our constitutional rights and then turn around and tell us it\u2019s good for us, that they know better.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She emphasized that the federal government circumvented \u201cthat pesky First Amendment\u201d by making Big Tech companies \u201cagents of the government.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The White House did not respond to The Daily Signal\u2019s request for comment by publication time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bhattacharya, the doctor who opposed COVID-19 lockdowns and led the Great Barrington Declaration, found himself on a Twitter Trends blacklist for his medical guidance on combating the pandemic. As evidence of government collusion with Twitter came out in the Twitter Files, Bhattacharya wrote, \u201cI learned in a very concrete and painful way the effects of Washington and Silicon Valley working together to marginalize unpopular ideas and people to create an illusion of consensus<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In January, as part of this lawsuit, Bailey, the Missouri attorney general, unearthed documents in which Facebook told the White House that it suppressed \u201coften-true content<\/a>\u201d that might discourage Americans from taking COVID-19 vaccines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the 2020 election, Doughty wrote that Easterly\u2019s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the third-party Election Integrity Partnership are \u201ccompletely intertwined.\u201d The Election Integrity Partnership reported \u201cmisinformation\u201d to social media platforms, helping the federal government pressure Big Tech to silence speech.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dailysignal<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On the Fourth of July, a federal judge condemned the Biden administration\u2019s collusion with Big Tech companies to suppress Americans\u2019 free speech as \u201csimilar to an Orwellian \u2018Ministry of Truth\u2019\u201d and issued a historic order temporarily blocking the federal government from pressuring tech companies to stifle speech. \u201cIt is fitting that the judge granted a first-of-its-kind […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":15224,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1152],"tags":[1169,4366,3574,9597,3606],"class_list":["post-15223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-humanrights","tag-biden","tag-condemnation","tag-free-speech","tag-repression","tag-tech-companies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15223"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15223\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15225,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15223\/revisions\/15225"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}