Missouri vs. BidenThe incident that became known as MaArcey v. Missouri The case, filed at the U.S. Supreme Court, comes in response to well-known efforts by Democratic administrations to silence criticism and questioning of COVID-19 policies and recommended rhetoric during the pandemic that have largely proven unfounded, disastrous, or both in the ensuing years.
The states of Missouri and Louisiana joined other plaintiffs, including Great Barrington Declaration co-authors Dr. Jay Bhattacharya and Dr. Martin Kulldorff, in filing legal action against President Joe Biden, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, Anthony Fauci, and various officials in the Biden administration.
U.S. District Judge Terry A. Doughty, who heard the case last year before it reached the Supreme Court, suggested the plaintiffs had a good chance of succeeding on showing that “the government used its power to silence dissent.”
Opposition to COVID-19 vaccines, opposition to COVID-19 mask wearing and lockdowns, opposition to COVID-19 lab leak claims, opposition to the legitimacy of the 2020 election, opposition to President Biden’s policies, statements that the Hunter Biden laptop story is true, and opposition to the policies of government officials in power. All of these were suppressed. It is highly telling that each example or category of speech that was suppressed was conservative in nature.
The Supreme Court’s three so-called conservative justices, joined by Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, concluded Wednesday that “neither the individual plaintiffs nor the state plaintiffs have established standing under Article III to seek injunctive relief against any defendant.”
Barrett wrote the majority opinion.
Focus on it“Plaintiffs assert their allegations of past government censorship as evidence of the likelihood of future censorship. But generally, Plaintiffs fail to link past social media restrictions to their communications with Defendants’ platforms.”
“The success of this enforcement campaign will serve as an attractive model for future officials who want to control what their citizens say, hear and think.”
Barrett questioned the causal relationship between the Biden administration’s many efforts to censor people who espouse opposing views online and the ultimate censorship efforts by social media platforms.
The former Notre Dame professor noted that among the individual plaintiffs, Jill Hines, a health care activist with Health Freedom Louisiana, “best demonstrated the connection between her social media restrictions and the communications between the relevant platform (Facebook) and specific defendants (the CDC and the White House).”
“That said,” Barrett continued, “most of the lines she draws are vague, especially given the burden of proof at the preliminary injunction stage. Recall that she must show that her restrictions were likely caused by the White House and the CDC.”
“Plaintiffs ask us to examine communications between dozens of federal employees across different agencies, on different social media platforms, and on a variety of topics, spanning years, despite the absence of a tangible connection between Defendants’ conduct and their harm,” Barrett wrote in her conclusion. “This Court’s standing doctrine prevents us from exercising our ‘right to prosecute.'”[ing such] “‘General legal oversight’ over other branches of government.”
The majority overturned the Biden administration’s injunctions against various elements of censorship.
Justice Samuel Alito, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, wrote in dissent that “If the lower courts’ assessment of the voluminous record is correct, this is one of the most significant free speech cases to come before this Court in recent years.”
“Freedom of speech in America is dead, for now.”
“Free speech serves many worthy purposes, but its most important role is to protect speech essential to democratic self-governance and that advances the body of human knowledge, thought, and expression in fields such as science, medicine, history, social science, philosophy, and the arts,” Alito wrote, adding that the speech suppressed by the Biden administration “fits precisely into these categories.”
Alito acknowledged that while private organizations are not subject to the First Amendment, government officials cannot be forced to suppress speech. He emphasized that there is ample evidence that the Biden administration has done just that, and further noted that the majority had failed in its duty to address the free speech at issue.
MurthyThis makes the “success of the enforcement campaign in this case an attractive model for future officials who want to control what the public says, hears, and thinks.”
Alito slammed the efforts of Biden’s top bureaucrats as “dangerous,” said their censorship was “plainly unconstitutional” and could lead the country to regret the majority’s decision.
Contrary to the understanding of the liberal justices, Justice Alito noted that the Hines case did indeed demonstrate the necessary traceability, adding that censorship on social media platforms prior to the government’s direct involvement did not complicate the causation showing, as other cases have suggested.
“For months, government officials have relentlessly pressured Facebook to stifle Americans’ free speech,” Justice Alito wrote in his conclusion. “Because the Supreme Court has unjustly refused to address this serious threat to the First Amendment, I respectfully dissent.”
Bhattacharya
I got it. Regarding X following the Supreme Court ruling, “The Supreme Court Murthy v. Missouri The Biden administration could potentially force social media companies to censor and shadowban people and posts it doesn’t like.”
“This is going to be a key issue in this election. Where do the presidential candidates stand on social media censorship? Biden’s lawyers have argued that Biden has almost monarchical power over speech on social media, so we know where Biden stands.”
continuation “The court ruled that the plaintiffs (the states of Missouri and Louisiana, myself and other blacklisted individuals) have no right to sue,” Bhattacharya said. “This means that the administration can censor ideas and no one has the right to enforce the First Amendment. At this point, free speech in America is dead.”
Other free speech advocates also denounced the outcome.
Republican Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida is one of them.
Said“The Supreme Court majority has approved a way for the federal government to censor speech it doesn’t like. The Court is telling would-be censors that, while they can’t directly censor speech, if they execute a sufficiently ingenious and sophisticated scheme, they can get away with indirectly doing things that the Constitution clearly forbids them from doing directly.”
Co-founder of Blaze Media and nationally syndicated radio host Glenn Beck I have written“The Supreme Court has effectively ruled that the government can continue to pressure social media companies to censor Americans. This is just shocking.”
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