Supreme Court Allows Government Control Over Speech on Social Media Platforms, Rejects standing in Murthy vs Missouri
The Supreme Court rejected the standing of the State of Missouri and five individuals in the censorship and free-speech case surrounding social media. The court came down with a 6-3 decision, Justice Amy Coney-Barrett writing the majority opinion. Justices Alito, Gorsuch and Thomas dissented in the minority.
The background of the case was very familiar to this audience as the Biden administration was previously blocked by lower courts from telling Social Media platforms to remove content against their interests. Today the Supreme Court rejected the standing of the plaintiffs, essentially giving a green light to the USA government to begin controlling social media platforms again.
If you read the opinion [FULL PDF HERE] I would strongly urge readers to focus beginning on page #11 of the Justice Barrett opinion. It is obvious in the three or four pages that follow, the court was looking for an exit from the free speech issue. Denying the case on “standing” grounds became their justification for the cop-out.
Barrett goes out of her way to make the standing issue the crux of the majority opinion. Comey-Barrett dismisses all the instances of censorship and coerced removal under the auspices that the relief sought by the plaintiffs was for future harm, not past injury. The lower courts had ruled the government could not interfere with speech in the future, without establishing that each individual plaintiff was harmed specifically by each action of the government.
Social media platforms did some censorship and content removal on their own, without government direction. Therefore, it becomes impossible for the court to determine which censorship decisions were made by government coercion, and which were made by the social media platform with ordinary moderation rules being applied. {pdf page #11}
Just because some of the removal was done at the direction of government, doesn’t mean all of the activity was done at the direction of government, and therefore the plaintiff standing is undetermined as a result of the lack of uniformity. [WATCH THIS ASPECT CLOSELY, because CTH already predicted this was going to happen (¹I’ll come back to it)]….
As noted by Jeff Clark, “In effect, the Supreme Court majority is requiring government-private partnerships aimed at censorship to overlap entirely. If there are situations where private censorship predates and or postdates government calls for censorship, then the majority is saying the actions should be treated as independent and therefore to frustrate satisfaction of the causation and redressability prongs of standing analysis. And the Supreme Court majority did this even where they simultaneously acknowledged there was evidence of government collusion with Big Tech to censor COVID-related and 2020 election-related speech.”
Justice Samuel Alito Jr, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil M. Gorsuch, dissented. Alito criticized the majority for failing to address the underlying free-speech questions in the case, calling efforts by the government to police content “coercion.”
The court “shirks that duty and thus permits the successful campaign of coercion in this case to stand as an attractive model for future officials who want to control what the people say, hear and think,” Alito wrote. “That is regrettable.”
¹We keep saying in the Government censorship 2.0 model we were going to see a shift. The original censorship removal was going to shift away from “content” as defined by the subject matter and will resurface as censorship against the specific individual person or outlet. This Supreme Court decision aligns with that visible DHS intention.
This case is part of the reason why DHS shifted from censorship based on what was being said (ex COVID-19), and now focuses on who is saying it. How big is their influence? What is the size of their audience? What is their platform? Where are they vulnerable or fragile?
The targeting is not necessarily the subject matter; now it’s the person or outlet with the voice that spreads the subject matter. This is what has already started to happen, and this is the approach that will continue to happen – only at a faster pace and larger scale.
It is even more critical now to show support to the entities that are at the forefront of the information network. We must support the voices that are digging, sharing, providing the raw material information and analyzing the ramifications so that an understanding expands the awakening.
Those voices who provide truthful information… information that enlarges the understanding of the average person… are going to be the biggest targets now. DHS will shift away from spider crawls looking for “keywords” and “phrases,” and they will specifically be using AI to look for context within the content.
Accurate context with accurate content will be information most perceived as against the interest of government.
Biden Campaign Balks — Won’t Commit to Drug Test
By Cristina Laila Jun. 26, 2024
The Biden Camp officially refused to drug test Joe Biden ahead of Thursday night’s highly anticipated presidential debate.
Joe Biden is currently hiding at Camp David and doing “debate prep.”
President Trump and Joe Biden will face off in the first presidential debate next Thursday. The debate will be hosted by CNN in Atlanta.
The microphones will be muted except when it is the candidate’s ‘turn’ to speak.
The bar is set so low for feeble Biden that all he has to do is show up and not keel over and he will be applauded.
Former White House physician Dr. Ronny Jackson demanded Joe Biden take a drug test before and after the debate.
President Trump has offered to take a drug test before the debate.
Joe Biden however is refusing to take a drug test because he has to be heavily medicated just to make it through the day.
WATCH:
Transcript from the Mediate:
BORIS SANCHEZ: One last question, Adrienne. President — former President Trump asking President Biden for a drug test going into Thursday night. What’s your reaction?
ADRIENNE ELROD: I mean, I don’t even really know what to say about that. I worked on Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
You know, she also debated him very effectively. He accused her of being on drugs.
President Biden defeated Donald Trump twice in previous debates.
This is what he does because he doesn’t have anything else to run on. He doesn’t have a plan. He doesn’t have a record for fighting for the American people. He doesn’t know why he’s running, except for to seek political retribution on his enemies.
And so he has to resort to these types of tactics which are, frankly, just silly. Turns off a lot of voters, especially voters who want to see their president fight for them.
BORIS SANCHEZ: Adrienne Elrod, we have to leave the conversation there.
The last time Joe Biden was seen in public (Thursday night), he was staggering and swaying across the tarmac in Maryland as he made his way to Marine One en route to Camp David.
WATCH:
Recall that President Trump called on Biden to take a drug test ahead of a debate in 2020 and Joe Biden refused.
JUST IN: Rep Anna Paulina Luna Lowers The Boom on Merrick Garland — Warns He Has Until Friday Morning To Turn Over Tapes Or Be Taken Into Custody
By Patty McMurray Jun. 26, 2024
Earlier today, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) announced that she would be holding a press conference to address the statement she made last week about holding Merrick Garland accountable after he was found in contempt of Congress. “We will hold Merrick Garland in inherent contempt of Congress. No one is above the law. Tune in!” she wrote on her X account:
Just now, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna appeared in public to discuss the arrest of Barack Obama’s failed Supreme Court Justice nominee and America’s most crooked ever Attorney General.
Below is the transcript of her speech:
“We are here today because of the double standard that exists within the justice system. As you know, on February 27, the Oversight Committee, as well as the House Judiciary, had sent a subpoena to Attorney General Garland, of which we received no response, and after referring him for criminal contempt within 48 hours or less, the Department of Justice refused to prosecute. Inherent contempt is clearly within our Article One authority, and Congress does have the power to investigate all legislative powers.
Investigations are part of our legislative process, and people who interfere with these processes should be held accountable. Inherent Contempt was first used in 1795, and this was further upheld in a Supreme Court decision in 1927 and McGrain versus Doherty, which stated that Congress does indeed have this authority. It’s important to note that when an individual is called before courts across the country, they appear.
Why should the attorney general, who is supposed to be head of all law enforcement authorities, be any different? Garland still has time to comply with this request. We are asking that he bring the tapes to the house and let us listen to them, but in the event that he does not, we will press forward with calling the privilege motion on Inherent Contempt to the floor on Friday morning.
It is also important to note that if we as a Congress do not have the ability to enforce our investigative ability that we are essentially going to be ignored and undercut, and essentially handicapped by all other branches, which would make us not a co-equal branch of government.
I would appreciate that the press report on this accurately, that Congress again, does have the authority to do this, that the attorney general is not above the law, and ultimately, we will be pressing forward with this.
This is something that, again, would enable the Speaker of the House to order the Sergeant of Arms to take into custody the attorney general if he fails to comply with our request.”
Democrats will certainly cry “foul” when they hear Rep. Luna threaten AG Garland with Inherent Contempt, but one doesn’t have to go back too far in history to find a time when a leading figure in the Democrat Party threatened President Trump-appointed AG Bill Barr with Inherent Contempt of Congress.
In May of 2019, Democrat Rep. and then-House Judiciary Chair Jerry Nadler threatened AG Bill Barr with Inherent Contempt of Congress if the DOJ didn’t give his committee an unredacted version of the Mueller report.
Congress’s dormant inherent contempt power—is rarely used in modern times. Inherent contempt was the mode employed by Congress to directly enforce contempt rulings under its own constitutional authority until criminal and civil contempt statutes were passed, and it remained in use into the twentieth century. Under inherent contempt proceedings, the House or Senate has its Sergeant-At-Arms or deputy, take a person into custody for proceedings to be held in Congress.
Although these powers are not directly stated in the Constitution, the Supreme Court has ruled on multiple occasions that they are implicit as an essential legislative power held by Congress.
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