State of the Union: Kavanaugh, Barrett, and Roberts joined the three left-wing justices
Editors Note: We are not lawyers but we have questions. If the Constitutional Rights delineated in the Bill of Rights are being violated, don’t all citizens deprived of their rights have standing? If the aggrieved don’t have standing, who should? If these companies were stealing property, the stolen property and the damaged owners could be identified. But there is no identifiable title to freedom such as the right to speak freely. So, it would seem a broader definition of “damage” would be necessary. We can’t make intelligent decisions when deprived of vital information. When social media companies suppress free speech at the behest of the government, it affects all of us, even if we may vote differently from each other. It is very dangerous to let the government off the hook for violating our rights, simply because they “laundered” their violations through a private company. This is made worse when many of these companies effectively operate as monopolies and citizens can’t find competitive choices. In many cases, these companies either have large contracts with the government or would suffer regulatory retaliation. Thus it would seem, that the government will be able to recruit an even larger number of companies to be used as proxies to violate our rights.
The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday against a challenge from the State of Missouri, which sought to prohibit government officials from contacting social media companies to combat “misinformation.” The former Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, now a U.S. Senator, had launched the challenge in the aftermath of the “Twitter Files.”
The case in question, Murthy v. Missouri, which began as Missouri v. Biden under Schmitt, centered around whether or not government officials were violating the First Amendment by contacting and instructing social media companies to remove posts considered to be “misinformation.” However, today’s 6–3 ruling did not address the First Amendment questions of Missouri’s original lawsuit, and simply limited itself to saying that the states involved lacked direct injury and thus the standing to sue.
In a dissent from the majority, Justice Alito wrote, “High-ranking government officials placed unrelenting pressure on Facebook to suppress Americans’ free speech. Because the court unjustifiably refuses to address this serious threat to the First Amendment, I respectfully dissent.”
The current Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, is facing a primary from the Trump attorney Will Scharf, posted a surprisingly optimistic statement on the Supreme Court’s decision, stating that as the decision allows further discovery and depositions into the matter, and commenting, “We will remain vigilant to build the wall of separation between tech and state.”
As the constitutional question which Missouri had originally sued under was not addressed, it is possible that a similar suit may succeed in prohibiting government officials from contacting and promoting social media censorship, if better proof of direct injury can be provided.
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This article appeared in the American Conservative and is reproduced with permission.
