Oral arguments were heard today in the appeal of the government against the states of Louisiana, Missouri and seven plaintiffs who claim that Biden officials, including Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, violated the First Amendment by pressuring social media platforms to suppress or delete content about COVID-19 that federal officials found objectionable.
The Biden administration had an extensive communication pipeline into Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Google, YouTube and various subsidiary tech companies where instructions, the government says “encouragement”, were/was given about the removal of content critical of the government position, and the removal of content providers – American citizens. Full Hearing Audio:
Making the case for the Biden administration, Deputy Solicitor General Brian Fletcher led the way. “We don’t think it’s possible for the government — through speech alone — to transform private speakers into state actors,” he said.
Fletcher said the government didn’t engage in coercion — which he said would be unconstitutional — just encouragement and persuasion for the social media platforms to enforce their existing rules at the time barring Covid-19 misinformation. “If it stays on the persuasion side of the line — and all we’re talking about is government speech — then there’s no state action and there’s also no First Amendment problem,” he said. “I think it’s clear this is exhortation, not threat.”
Louisiana state Solicitor General Benjamin Aguiñaga, arguing for the plaintiffs, said the speech the platforms were suppressing wasn’t their own speech but those of third parties, ordinary Americans. Aguiñaga also said the users often had no idea they were being impacted by the federal effort to prod the platforms to take down content. “The bulk of it is behind closed doors. That is what is so pernicious about it,” he said.
The questioning by the majority of the Supreme Court justices appeared to favor the government, in large part due to the inability of the plaintiffs to outline direct actionable harm to them as an outcome of the regulation of their speech by the tech platforms. The Supreme Court is expected to issue a decision in the case by late June.
So remember kids, when you lie it’s illegal disinformation, but when big pharma and government lie it’s free speech. Did I get that right your lordships?
My Memory is kinda shit , but maybe the ndaa made it legal for the government to lie . Kinda remember reading something like that a decade ago.
It’s the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act that legalizes the government to lie to the American people. When is congress going to rescind that legislation?
My guess,never 🤔🫣
I think the second Tuesday after never. ???
Wow, where did you get that precious nugget of information.
Cornpop Bribem directly threatening every Justice on the Supreme Court, right to their faces, during the State Of The Union address will get the Government the unconstitutional verdict that it wants.
It’s always worked in the past.
And the CIA/NY Times article in Sunday’s paper was a message to the US Supreme Court.
Very well said.
“If it stays on the persuasion side of the line — and all we’re talking about is government speech — then there’s no state action and there’s also no First Amendment problem,” he said. “I think it’s clear this is exhortation, not threat.”
Arguing the Federal government has a constitutional right to free speech follows the same corrupted logic that the Federal government has a right to a speedy trial when trying to convict a former President.
The Bill of Rights protects our civil liberties against the power of the State. To argue those amendments also guarantee the State a right to exercise its power against those liberties is a total perversion of what America is supposed to be.
But if it is true that the State has a right free speech, and if my free speech is limited to not shouting fire in a crowded theater, then does it not follow the State has no right to shout Pandemic in an election year?
Correct. The problem is that for many honest, patriotic Americans, accepting the fact that the U.S. government went rogue and became rapaciously predatory with its policies completely and intentionally based on lies and deception is a small form of suicide.
Somehow, and I don’t know how we get there, we have to have lawyers trained not to argue all these peripheral issues, but stick to the ONE relevant issue- WHERE does the Constitution grant the power / action / oversight in question, whatever that is, SPECIFICALLY to the agents of the federal government?
Even most leftists realize our government does not have unlimited power, though they think that only applies to issues they support.
WE THE PEOPLE, through the States, delegated certain limited powers TO THEM, FROM US. And as Jefferson said (paraphrasing) the WALL of the Constitution was built sufficiently high to keep them inside and out of our rights and liberties.
The question is NOT whether the government is transforming private speakers into state actors. It’s WHERE THE HELL DID WE GIVE THE GOVERNMENT ANY POWER TO EVEN OPINE ON THE SUBJECT, OR INTERVENE ?
What will be interesting in June when this case is decided is how some of the conservative justices turned themselves into a pretzel to side for the government. Their reasoning will be revealing of how they view the power of the government vs We The People.
I will be especially interested in what flaws they see in the lower court’s initial ruling. This may end up being the worst decision in SCOTUS history for what it will mean in future government suppression of speech.
The justices are selected by the administrative state to protect the interest of the government. It’s that simple.
Each president since JFK has been a factotum of the Deep State. President Trump rebelled against the unelected, corrupt apparatchiks and ended up being charged with a litany of made-up crimes he did not commit, and he is about to be bankrupted by the rogue judiciary.
You need a way of making the definitions of words immutable. Their wordgames somehow turn into federal investigations and special counsels.
You cannot engage in honest dialogue with dishonest people.
The difference between ‘legal ‘ and Lawful.
NOTICE WHICH ‘CONSERVATIVE’ IS ATTACKING THE FIRST AMENDMENT – THE SAME ONE WHO HELPED WRITE THE PATRIOT ACT.
The only reason one side of the Uniparty is trotting out Blasey Ford right now is to make sure they get to eat the white meat on the turkey.
And that is mostly what we are – a carcass being devoured.
Kavanaugh WROTE THE PATRIOT ACT. Only a turkey would be surprised by what he’s doing now.
Additional info on Kavanaugh’s participation in the creation of Patriot Act can be found here:
https://fee.org/articles/the-constitutional-reasons-to-oppose-kavanaugh-for-the-supreme-court/
It was brought out during his confirmation but didn’t receive much press attention as the power behind the government needed the Patriot Act, among other ‘rights’, to spy on American citizens for greater control.
You can thank the Federalist Society and GW Bush for JR and Kavanaugh, he and Comey-Barrett are the worst picks by Trump.
McConnell picked them and told Trump take ‘em or leave ‘em
Yep! We need to STOP using ONLY the Federalist Society picks for SCOTUS. That was easy peasy lemon squeezy for the left to corrupt. Then again, is there a law school left in the country that teaches legit CONSTITUTIONAL LAW?!?!?🤔
I wonder… The fury over Kavanaugh (see another article about it posted here at TCTH today)… had we not been so aghast at the machinations against him, maybe we would have put some energy into finding out this patriot act connection and would not have wanted him. Do you think the outrage was stirred up as a distraction? We have to get smarter…
Only in the last couple of days has that possibility occurred to me, yet it seems entirely plausible. I guess the question is, how else could they get the right to back such an anti-freedom nominee so blindly and militantly? Without the massive circus, or side show, of Blasey Ford Kavanaugh’s central role in drafting the Patriot Act would have become a major focus.
He at that point already had an established history of profoundly eroding jurisprudent precedents undergirding the Fourth Amendment. Imagine if we had debated those decisions instead of whether America should ‘believe all women.’
you are correct
BUT
where were the conservative
media outlets with the information
that Kavanaugh wrote the Patriot Act?
Apparently Justices Alito, Gorsuch and Thomas rejected the emergency appeal from the Biden administration. So, I assume they are happy with the decision of the lower court.
Maybe they are playing politics here? If they can send this back to the 5th Circuit for clarifications and further consideration about when it is appropriate and not appropriate for the government to contact social media companies, the primary issue of today’s hearing …that will probably delay any resolution of the case until after the election. And there is no way that a Trump administration DOJ will continue the appeal, as any normal government would have seen the reprimand of the 5th Circuit as a huge redlight. Thus, the case goes away, with most of the 5th Circuit decision intact with some clarifications around appropriate contact. A SCOTUS version of Lawfare?
Maybe that is hopium, but is the best possible light I can bring to bear on what happened today in oral arguments and preserve my sanity.
Ladies and gentlemen, may I bring your attention to this story from NBC.
You can expect much more “encouragement” by the goverment/security apparatus, especially with regards to AI.
To me this looks like a blueprint for stealing the next elections or at least for throwing the elections into absolute chaos.
NBC: “Experts war-gamed what might happen if deepfakes disrupt the 2024 election. Things went sideways fast”.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/war-game-deepfakes-disrupt-2024-election-rcna143038
Some quotes:
Lastly, this here:
Adding more suspicion is this story from one year ago published by The Intercept.
“U.S. SPECIAL FORCES WANT TO USE DEEPFAKES FOR PSY-OPS”
https://theintercept.com/2023/03/06/pentagon-socom-deepfake-propaganda/
A lot of people seemed to have missed the Taylor Swift AI pornography controversy a few weeks ago. Someone began flooding social media platforms with deepfakes, and the social media platforms responded by temporarily blocking all Taylor Swift search terms world wide. (Think about that precedent for a moment and get back to me).
This also led to calls for legislation in the US and passage of legislation in the EU to criminalize deepfakes… or, in other words, take control over AI technology and keep it out of the public’s hands. Now The International Panel on the Information Environment is studying the issue. According to Wikipedia the IPIE “is an international consortium of over 250 experts from 55 countries dedicated to providing actionable scientific knowledge on threats to our information landscape. The IPIE has said it is modeled after and learning from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.”
The IPIE is also investigating the issue of “election misinformation.”
Does it begin to make sense why 2023 was the year of the Taylor Swift Psy-Op?
I like that commercial where there’s a dozen of her in all different outfits. That’s hot. I can think of so many different ladies I’d love to have a dozen at once of.
“Safeguard.” Isn’t that the rationalization used in the Newsweek article on how the Intelligence Agencies stole the election?
I think the word they used was “fortified”.
I saw that. There they go again!
Actionable harm arises from the deaths caused by government censoring voices about early treatment of COVID as outlined by Dr. David Martin in the two links below, further exacerbated by the financial conflicts of interests of government employees like Fauci and Collins in re participating in royalties that flowed from EUA drugs that otherwise could not be sold in the US market place. They were only able to gain EUA by withholding the material fact that other effective remedies were available, which was a requirement of EUA eligibility.
When government employees and officials engage in criminal activity, the unrestricted public speech on forums is essential to the preservation of the public commons, the public interests and the unalienable enumerated rights of our nations’ citizens who are at grave disadvantage when cabals of government insiders use their unique influence and authority to conceal employee crimes from the public by censoring the public commons.
Dr. David Martin explains this in full, with coherent factual examples in parts 1 and 2 at the following links:
https://rumble.com/v4jjmt8-the-great-setup-with-dr.-david-martin-full-part-1.html
https://rumble.com/v4jljhc-the-great-setup-with-dr.-david-martin-full-part-2.html
According to Dr. Martin, great harm was done by government employees colluding in bad faith to censor essential information necessary to prevent the occurrence of crimes, unnecessary deaths and otherwise avoidable human suffering resulting from breaches of lawful due process by fiat of deception, corrupt process and unchecked insider dealings.
You just explained it better than the state government attorneys. They are not the sharpest tools in the lawyer box.
You should file an amicus brief with the Supreme Court. I’m serious.
This is the kind of argument I would have expected. It’s the first thing I thought of when the court – or the article – said that the plaintiffs could not show harm.
The simple fact is this: The network effect companies are per se monopolies. And that is why they over pay for any network effect company that gets enough traction to disrupt their network effect, see many facebook, google, etc transactions, instagram, WhatsApp, etc. A simply shift in attitude by DOJ or FTC would block these transaction and break up the network effect monopolies. In short, the feds have a gun to their heads of their monopoly network effect profits. Would we all be better off and more informed if the feds followed the anti-trust laws – yes. But instead the feds abuse their ‘discretion’ to effect censorship for the governments aims.
Undue Influence of sorts. Do as we “exhort” or there will be consequences.
I would point out some of the harm done with the question of how many MDs in our nation lost their licenses to practice medicine because of their stance (FREE SPEECH) in videos that were removed from these sites, and, their strong medical position of treating “covid” (PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE) with well established long standing INEXPENSIVE therapies like Ivermectin, zinc, vitamin D, etc.
The world seems so upside down and inside out anymore, and evil, ignorance and “compliance” is so overwhelming at times that it feels like we’re living in an alternate dimension where demonic influence is running rampant.
It’s a crazy time in mankind’s history, but a prophetic time in biblical history.
Medical is left now. Righty medicos were driven out. It was on purpose. Part of the overall plan to kill all humans.
And they can’t find any harm done? Half our country was harmed.
We are not living in an alternate dimension, the prophets of the Bible as well as Jesus Christ himself warned us about this evil. This has been coming since the dawn of time.
The government was staying on the persuasion side of the line? Really? Like when the Gestapo visited a business and asked the owner to fore all his Jewish employees. It’s “understood” what would happen if the owner didn’t do as asked. Same thing here with the FBI visiting social media companies asking them to censor opposing viewpoints.
Want to bet this will be a 6-3 decision for the government with Roberts, Kavanaugh, and Barrett joining the 3 libs against the 3 true Constitutionalists.
I wouldn’t take that bet. This should be a 9-0 decision in favor of the plaintiffs. I’m not a constitutional expert, but its pretty easy to see that there’s nothing in the constitution that empowers the federal government to oversee what private businesses are legally allowed to do. We the people have the right to petition the government, but I can’t find a clause that gives the government that right. Rights belong to people, not institutions.
The questioning by the majority of the Supreme Court justices appeared to favor the government, in large part due to the inability of the plaintiffs to outline direct actionable harm to them as an outcome of the regulation of their speech by the tech platforms.
There’s a reason for that.
It’s ok, Bones. They’re reimbursable deaths.
Spot on.
Dammit Jim I’m a Doctor! Not some kind of economist!
I’m in disbelief right now at what is happening to our rights. The government is like the ocean eroding a beach(our rights). The left accuses conservatives of fascism when that is exactly what is going on here and now. What the hell is the recourse going to be? I feel like I’m in a bad dream watching this country end.
I seem to remember an email from the gubmint to Twitter saying, essentially, “We want these 5 or 6 accounts shadowbanned or canceled because we disagree with what they’re saying.” A Twit employee says, essentially, “We’ve taken care of it.” They were colluding on who could have free speech and who couldn’t.
Someone, please, correct me if I’m totally delusional in my memory! 🤣
Get with this: all SCOTUS justices, ‘conservatives’ and ‘liberals’ alike, are selected by the administrative state and confirmed by the corrupt U.S. Senate. McConnell, Schumer or any of their corrupt predecessors–it doesn’t really matter. When push comes to shove, these cowering clowns in black robes get a late night call and a person will calmly explain to each of them how to vote. And if some of them refuse to fall in line… bhahahaha… Nobody wants to follow in the footsteps of Nino Scalia.
It’s important to understand that the system is now 100 percent corrupt: Courts, elections, federal agencies, every institution of the government. What does this mean? It means that we cannot count on the institutions to do their job – that is to do those things we need them to do because their real job is now perpetuating their operators’ grift – and we have no legitimate political representation.
Remember, truth is an external condition of what is real – period, full stop!
“The truth just sits out there, waiting to be discovered. Our feelings about it are irrelevant to its existence. The idea is to look deeply at uncomfortable things, then accept them as they are and not as we would wish or, even worse, pretend them to be.”
You give the govt an inch and they take miles between Patriot Act renewals until they’re confident the people are clueless then pull this stunt.
It’s the 1st Amendment. If that goes, there goes the Constitution. Bye, bye America.
I don’t understand how in a case of our 1st amendment rights, an injured party has to be established. It either violates the 1st amendment or it doesn’t and the government clearly has violated it
There was no injured party in Trump case but it is still pursued…. what will SCOTUS rule there?
When the code enforcement officer asks you to paint your building green and not blue, is it just persuasion?
When the IRS asks you to give you a list of doners, is it just persuasion?
When ATF asks you who you sold ammunition to, is it just persuasion?
TRUTH: Any request by any government official who has the power to hurt you (or knows another government official who can hurt you), is COERCION!
Hamstring the government! Do it! Better yet, cut its achilles!
Honestly cutting the hamstrings is more cruel. You would only do it to let them think they still can move. Achilles is devestating and makes intentions clear. Both are generally fatal, although I am sword minded.
To me it’s pretty simple; the first amendment tells Congress that they “shall make no law” to violate those rights…..only saying Congress does not imply that the Executive and/or Judiciary can, but this is exactly what is happening; the executive branch did and the judicial branch may very well join them.
Speechless
Stefanie Lambert, a Michigan lawyer who was fighting election fraud, was arrested in Washington, D.C.
Supreme Court indefinitely blocks Texas from enforcing immigration law.
Further proof that even the vaunted Supreme Court is corrupt. Eight of them anyway…
This case seems so basic one marvels that it got to the SC. Or that it should even need to be litigated!
Depending on the Supreme Court to preserve and protect the Republic is a fool’s errand. Ultimately it will be up to We the People to keep the Republic.
“I think it’s clear this is exhortation, not threat.”
Many realize that government exhortation became extortion between 1933 and 1963, if not before.
Ultimately this case is about censoring any views, data and information that is different than what the government deems.
The government is appealing for a stay of the total ban on ANY contact with the media which can and is being argued as too broad.
No matter how SCOTUS rules on the stay, it is NOT going to stop the freight train of the underlying case that’s coming roaring down the tracks.
Meanwhile if SCOTUS affirms the stay, the government is free to continue their censorship shenanigans going into the 2024 elections or worse another “emergency”.
I don’t get it. Didn’t pushing various covid ‘treatments’, or the vax itself, giving ‘direct harm’ to a number of people??
Yes, but dead people cannot testify or be deposed.
They are still doing it on Facebook……
History will not remember this body of feckless quislings well.
Which history?
Dear govt agents,
I don’t care what the Supreme Court says about free speech one way or the other. My natural rights are not granted nor limited by government. God gave me my natural rights, and I can keep them as long as I defend them.
And that is where you govt censors moonlighting as moderators come in–you are the tip of the censor’s spear. You are responsible for implementing the destruction of the 1st amendment.
In short, YOU are the problem.
But very soon the real Wolverines will stop you. They will realize that when free speech is under direct attack, you kiII the censors.
Don’t be a censor. Don’t be a traitor.
I would think if the Federal Government has regulatory control over a business entity, and issues a “wink-wink” suggestion that the entity take action against a third party, de-facto intimidation is manifest. The “wink-wink” meaning ” we can shut you down if you don’t comply”
Isn’t it that when a ‘person’ of power encourages one that has power over to do something, then that thing is called coercion?
Gov’t has power over everyone.
How is it so hard for the plaintiffs to outline what harm is done? It’s like… they don’t really want to win.
But then, shouldn’t the Judges question on common sense? Maybe I ask too much of the oligarchy.
“What is a woman?” – something USSC (a presumed juris-prudence doctorate)’just-us’ ‘Kenji’ could not answer ….
I have NO faith in these ppl at this point; We are IN the movie “Idiocracy” for sure.
“The questioning by the majority of the Supreme Court justices appeared to favor the government, in large part due to the inability of the plaintiffs to outline direct actionable harm to them as an outcome of the regulation of their speech by the tech platforms. ” How about the actionable harm of long covid or long Vax or….I don’t know….. death because actual treatment information was suppressed.
Lets apply the persuasion argument to another scenario. If a female employee’s boss suggests that she go to dinner with him, but doesn’t order to, is that sexual harassment? Yep, because the employee can say no, but has no power to deal with any consequences that may follow. The playing field isn’t level in either argument because the goverment has a huge advantage because it is the government. Going back in time, would the Founders have allowed any government to tell people what to say, short of something like slander. Government protection is a sorry argument. In order for it to be needed, it says that we are in fact submissive to the government and can’t care for ourselves, yet people with an 8th grade education fought and won WWII and the Cold War that followed. We don’t need the government helping us, haven’t asked for it and the 1A prohibits it.
State action. Jeff Clark on John Fredericks am on RAV nails it. There is more than sufficient evidence to find state action. “We are all in this together”
Roberts needs to retire and spend more time with his purchased, Irish family.
This scotus disgusts me. Cowards
I feel like I’ve seen this movie before. I think it had a big action piece in the middle where about 300,000 Americans died, and spoiler, the tyrant was killed in the end.
The problem with Supreme Court nominees is that you’re lucky if you can get a Scalia or Thomas onto the court given the weak effeminate and compromised Republicans who vote with Democrats (eg John McCain). You end up with milk toasts who always fade left.
Deplatforming and demonetizing and debanking isn’t harmful? Even when they completely censor the sitting President? How about a Governor (Florida) who was unable to give an understandable press conference because media (local news) monkeyed with the sound) in the middle of a pandemic?
Who are these lawyers that can’t demonstrate harm? Getting thrown off Facebook kept families from communicating when they were quarantined.
It’s all so insidious. Manipulate public discourse by squelching certain viewpoints so they cannot be heard, which only allows approved choices to the public. Then call this totalitarian thought police engineered slice of life “democracy.”
WTAF?!
Slow but steady erosion of the Constitutionally-protected and God-given rights of We, The People by the totalitarian leftists. It never ends. Subjugation.
“…direct actionable harm…”
I guess a tens or hundreds of millions strong lawsuit against the federal government, and other governments and groups, for pushing the Jab, which increased death, disability, injury, cancer, immune system exhaustion, etc., might be considered “…direct actionable harm…” for suppressing the truth about the Jabs. Suppression of truth led to great harm to many millions of people around the world…
There was a reason our forefathers took up arms against the king (and Bank of England). We are being reminded of this everyday now. The question we all need to ask ourselves is are we prepared to fight back? Or will we roll over and complain?
Of course, once a constitutional right is impacted, that is all the injury you need. In the covid case, government supression of truthful information caused scores of deaths.
No mention of having a TikTok “pipeline; because there is NONE! That’s why the Kongress is in such a kerfuffle over China servers, China clouds holding data, China in control; WHICH IS A PRETEND STORY! Once somebody political buys TT and hires retired spooks for the staff, everything will be fine.
Kongress doesn’t worry about nuclear war with Russia, China or Iran; just about any Free Speech that may be going thru TT! There’s your priorities they speak of!
You either have protected free speech or you don’t. It’s like being a little bit pregnant…………………you either are or you’re not. There is no in between . Anyone telling you different is lying.
If the SC rules that it is ok to “encourage” social media to censor certain opinions, then what would they say is the check or balance on the government? If congress is doing the encouraging our system says the Executive branch and or the Supreme court is the check.
If Executive branch is doing it then Congress and SC must have all the details in order to be a check.
I don’t believe the Executive branch was fully informing Congress about all their “encouraging”. I would expect that a decision allowing this would also emphasize that one branch is not allowed to encourage without informing the other branches.
What if the Executive branch “encouraged” some other companies to stop producing or selling a product that some people believed was harming others, but actually was not? Meat? Gasoline? Paper? Plastic? lumber? Gas appliances?
I don’t think the SC will just allow this to go on because it sets a dangerous precedence for the government to pressure American business about anything they don’t like. It can’t allow the back door methods. It must rule that this can only be done by executive orders, regulation, or legislation, thus forcing transparency and allowing oversight.
” Encouraging” could be said to be the same as blackmailing!