Missouri & Louisiana sue feds for colluding with Big Tech censors

https://twitter.com/AGAndrewBailey/status/1632895481029206016
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Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey Asks Court To Block Biden From Violating Americans’ 1st Amendment Rights, Citing 1,400 Facts
https://ago.mo.gov/home/news/2023/0...icans-1st-amendment-rights-citing-1-400-facts
Missouri Attorney General (06 March 2023)

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. - In order to protect the constitutional liberties of all Americans, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey and Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry filed their motion for a preliminary injunction in their landmark free speech lawsuit, Missouri v. Biden. After receiving thousands of internal federal documents, the attorneys general ask the court to block top officials in the federal government from coercing and colluding with Big tech social media companies to violate Americans’ right to free speech under the First Amendment. The motion for preliminary injunction highlights 1,432 facts showing that top officials in the federal government are coercing and colluding with big tech social media companies to censor free speech.

“As Attorney General, I will protect the Constitution, which includes defending the fundamental right to free speech enshrined in the First Amendment. The First Amendment is the cornerstone of our republic because the founders understood that the remedy to false speech has always been counter speech, not government censorship,” said Attorney General Bailey. “This case is the most important free speech lawsuit in a generation, as we highlight more than 1,400 facts showing the Biden Administration’s blatant coercion and collusion with Big Tech social media companies to suppress speech it disagrees with. I will not rest until the court blocks unelected bureaucrats from violating our constitutional right to free and open debate.”

“The overwhelming evidence is clear: the highest levels of our federal government are suppressing the First Amendment rights of Americans who have opposing views,” said Attorney General Landry. “This egregious and unlawful viewpoint censorship by the White House, FBI, CDC, CISA, and other agencies not only chills speech; but it also unjustly inflicts grave and irreparable injuries on citizens and states, whose duty it is to protect their fundamental rights.”

Attorneys General Bailey and Landry establish unconscionable federal censorship activities – including, but not limited to:

  • Fauci’s involvement in laundering lies into medical journals in an attempt to bury the lab-leak theory (to save himself from embarrassment given that he had been involved in gain-of-function research on coronaviruses).
  • White House officials like Rob Flaherty, Andrew Slavitt, and Jennifer Psaki have engaged in a relentless pressure campaign, both in public and in private, to coerce platforms into censoring disfavored viewpoints on social media.
  • Surgeon General Murthy and his staff coordinate closely with the White House in this pressure campaign, causing social-media platforms to scramble and assure federal officials that “we hear your call to do more” to censor disfavored viewpoints.
  • The CDC flags specific social-media posts for censorship, organizes “BOLO” (“Be On the Lookout”) meetings to tell platforms what should be censored, and serves as the definitive fact-checker with final authority to dictate exactly what speech will be removed from social media.
  • Dr. Fauci orchestrated an elaborate campaign of trickery and deception to induce social-media platforms to censor the lab-leak theory and other viewpoints he disfavors.
  • The FBI, likewise, deliberately planted false information about “hack-and-leak” operations to deceive social-media platforms into censoring the Hunter Biden laptop story.
  • The FBI, CISA, and the GEC collude with social-media platforms in hundreds of meetings about misinformation, and those agencies repeatedly flag huge quantities of First Amendment-protected speech to compliant platforms for censorship.
  • CISA “switchboards” reports of so-called “misinformation” from state and local governments to platforms for censorship.
  • CISA and the GEC are pervasively intertwined with massive government-private censorship enterprises like the Election Integrity Partnership, a collaboration among government, social-media platforms, and activist nonprofits to monitor, track, and censor enormous volumes of Americans’ speech on social media.
  • Federal health officials in the Surgeon General’s Office, the CDC, and HHS collaborate in a similar censorship enterprise called the Virality Project, which procures the censorship of enormous quantities of First Amendment-protected speech.
“Altogether, these censorship activities by federal officials and agencies constitute a gargantuan federal “Censorship Enterprise.” This enterprise is highly effective—it has stifled debate and criticism of government policy on social media about some of the most pressing issues of our time. And its activities are flagrantly unconstitutional,” noted Attorneys General Bailey and Landry in their request of the Court to stop to these egregious violations of the First Amendment.

Missouri v. Biden was filed by the attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana on May 5, 2022. They filed for a motion for discovery on June 17, 2022, and that motion was granted on July 12, 2022, clearing the way for Missouri and Louisiana to gather discovery and documents from the Biden Administration and social media companies.

Missouri and Louisiana deposed top-ranking officials in the federal government under oath, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, FBI Special Agent Elvis Chan, Eric Waldo of the Surgeon General’s Office, Carol Crawford of the CDC, Brian Scully of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and Daniel Kimmage of the State Department.

The motion for preliminary injunction can be read here: https://ago.mo.gov/docs/default-sou...inary-injunction-motion.pdf?sfvrsn=3d465d71_2

The proposed findings of fact in support of their motion for preliminary injunction can be read here: https://ago.mo.gov/docs/default-sou...oposed-findings-of-fact.pdf?sfvrsn=739f8cbf_2
 
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https://twitter.com/tracybeanz/status/1632905263299559424
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https://twitter.com/tracybeanz/status/1633504249744171015
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The Most Important Civil Liberties Case of Our Time: A Critical Juncture
https://rumble.com/v2c93q8-the-most...ies-case-of-our-time-a-critical-juncture.html
 
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h/t [MENTION=1874]Brian4Liberty[/MENTION]: Judge Bars Biden Officials, Agencies From Contacting Social Media Companies

Link to ruling (PDF file): MEMORANDUM RULING ON REQUEST FOR PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION

"Orwellian Ministry Of Truth" Busted - Judge Bars Biden Officials, Agencies From Contacting Social Media Companies
https://www.zerohedge.com/political...ls-agencies-contacting-social-media-companies
Tyler Durden (05 July 2023)

[all emphasis in the original - OB]

In an order fittingly issued on Independence Day, a federal judge in Louisiana has forbidden multiple federal agencies and named officials from having any contact with social media companies with the intent to moderate content.

The preliminary injunction arises from a suit filed by the states of Missouri and Louisiana, along with individuals that include two leading critics of the Covid-19 lockdown regime -- Harvard's Martin Kulldorff and Stanford's Jay Bhattacharya -- and Jim Hoft, who owns the right-wing website Gateway Pundit.

“If the allegations made by plaintiffs are true, the present case arguably involves the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history,” wrote US District Judge Terry A. Doughty. “The plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits in establishing that the government has used its power to silence the opposition.”
The dozens of people and agencies bound by the injunction include President Biden, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, the Food and Drug Administration, Centers for Disease Control, the Treasury Department, State Department, the US Election Assistance Commission, the FBI and entire Justice Department, and the Department of Health and Human Services.

Bhattacharya and Kulldorff, who are among the originators of the Great Barrington Declaration that denounced the lockdown regime, have been victims of social media censorship. For example, the pair says their censorship-triggering statements included assertions that "thinking everyone must be vaccinated is scientifically flawed," questioning the value of masks, and stating that natural immunity is stronger than vaccine immunity.

While the case is dominated by Covid-19 censorship, it also encompasses the Justice Department's efforts to suppress reporting about Hunter Biden's "laptop from hell" in the run-up to the 2020 election. Doughty gave credence to that accusation.

The injunction represents a major validation of accusations that government officials have colluded with social media platforms to suppress speech that counters official narratives, with the restraints falling almost exclusively on conservative viewpoints.

"The evidence thus far depicts an almost dystopian scenario," wrote Doughty in a 155-page ruling. "During 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 'Ministry of Truth'".

"The White House defendants made it very clear to social-media companies what they wanted suppressed and what they wanted amplified," wrote Doughty. "Faced with unrelenting pressure from the most powerful office in the world, the social-media companies apparently complied."

Doughty quoted communications from administration officials to social media company employees, saying they represent "examples of coercion exercised by the White House defendants." Here's a small sampling:

  • "Cannot stress the degree to which this needs to be resolved immediately. Please remove this account immediately.”
  • To Facebook: “Are you guys fucking serious? I want an answer on what happened here and I want it today.”
  • “This is a concern that is shared at the highest (and I mean highest) levels of the WH”
  • “Hey folks, wanted to flag the below tweet and am wondering if we can get moving on the process of having it removed. ASAP
The judge noted that the badgering came simultaneous with threats of changing the social media regulation scheme, and that those threats had extra credibility since they came as the Democrats controlled the White House and Congress.

The accusation that the social media platforms and government were acting in concert is substantiated by the communication and bureaucracy that surrounded the endeavor. "Many emails between the White House and social-media companies referred to themselves as 'partners.' Twitter even sent the White House a 'Partner Support Portal' for expedited review of the White House’s requests," wrote Doughty, a 2017 Trump nominee.

A long list of agencies and people are now barred from contacting social media platforms with “the purpose of urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech.”

"If there is a bedrock principal underlying the First Amendment, it is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable," wrote Doughty.
 
"Orwellian Ministry Of Truth" Busted - Judge Bars Biden Officials, Agencies From Contacting Social Media Companies
https://www.zerohedge.com/political...ls-agencies-contacting-social-media-companies
Tyler Durden (05 July 2023)

[...]

Establishment Dems Outraged as Court Bans Biden & FBI From Coercing Big Tech Censorship; NYT Defends Illegal Domestic Surveillance | SYSTEM UPDATE #110
"The court ruling banning the FBI and other Biden officials from pressuring Big Tech to censor political speech is massive. We'll analyze this ruling and its importance, as well as establishment anger over it:" -- Glenn Greenwald
https://rumble.com/v2ybni6-system-update-show-110.html
 
Establishment Dems Outraged as Court Bans Biden & FBI From Coercing Big Tech Censorship; NYT Defends Illegal Domestic Surveillance | SYSTEM UPDATE #110
"The court ruling banning the FBI and other Biden officials from pressuring Big Tech to censor political speech is massive. We'll analyze this ruling and its importance, as well as establishment anger over it:" -- Glenn Greenwald
https://rumble.com/v2ybni6-system-update-show-110.html
[... video ...]

CLIP:

HUGE WIN: Biden & FBI Banned From Censoring Big Tech by Federal Court | SYSTEM UPDATE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3g2mC8Z7Uc

 
Coping and seething, seething and coping.

State Dept. cancels Facebook meetings after judge’s ‘censorship’ ruling
A Louisiana federal court’s order is upending efforts to guard against 2024 election interference
https://www.washingtonpost.com/tech...souri-biden-judge-censorship-ruling-analysis/
[archive link: https://archive.li/mQWVm]
Joseph Menn, Will Oremus, Cat Zakrzewski & Naomi Nix (05 July 2023)

One day after a Louisiana federal judge set limits on the Biden administration’s communications with tech firms, the State Department canceled its regular meeting Wednesday with Facebook officials to discuss 2024 election preparations and hacking threats, according to a person at the company. The move came hours before Biden’s Department of Justice filed a notice that it will appeal the ruling.

State Department officials told Facebook that all future meetings, which had been held monthly, have been “canceled pending further guidance,” said the person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to preserve working relationships. “Waiting to see if CISA cancels tomorrow,” the person added, referring to the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

The person at Facebook said they presumed similar meetings the State Department had scheduled with other tech companies also were canceled, but that could not be confirmed immediately. Representatives for the State Department did not respond to a request for comment. CISA declined to comment, referring questions to the Justice Department. A Justice Department official declined to comment on the cancellations, but said the agency expects to request a stay of the District Court’s decision “expeditiously.”

Representatives for Google, which owns YouTube, and other social media companies did not immediately respond.

The cancellation of regular meetings between Facebook parent company Meta — the world’s largest social media firm — and U.S. government agencies shows the immediate impact of Tuesday’s order by U.S. District Judge Terry A. Doughty, a Trump appointee. The order is a win for the political right in a broader battle over the role of social media companies in shaping online speech and information.

While the ruling won’t stop sites such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube or TikTok from moderating online content, it stands to sideline federal government officials and agencies that had become key contributors to those efforts. In the past, meetings between the State Department and Facebook in particular have flagged suspected foreign influence operations for the companies to investigate.

The canceled meetings show that the injunction is affecting government efforts to protect elections, said another person who is familiar with the talks and spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid legal entanglement.

When tech companies and State Department officials meet, “they talk about foreign influence, they compare notes. It gives them the opportunity to ask questions about foreign influence they are seeing,” this person said. “State will share Russian narratives, things they are seeing in state media in Russia about U.S. topics. They will ask whether Facebook is seeing things from known entities, such as the Chinese Communist Party or the Internet Research Agency,” the Russian entity thought responsible for much of the interference in the 2016 election.

The person at Facebook confirmed that the meetings include two-way sharing of information on foreign influence operations.

A former Department of Homeland Security official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they feared legal or political retaliation, said they believed meetings are being canceled because general counsels at the various agencies are parsing the implications of the 155-page ruling. Ultimately, many of the activities they pursued, such as warnings about election disinformation, are exempted from the injunction and are likely to continue, the person said.

“I would expect to see DOJ or the White House take the first public steps,” the former official said. “There will likely be a chilling effect from overly cautious government counsels. What previously had been inbounds will look too close to the line, or we’re not sure how it’s going to work."

Issued on the Fourth of July, the order found that the Biden administration probably violated the First Amendment in applying pressure to Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and other social media firms to restrict the viral spread of posts that stoked fears about coronavirus vaccines or fueled false claims related to U.S. elections.

Leading U.S. social media companies began coordinating regularly with the federal government in 2017, following revelations of a Russian campaign to sow discord among Americans during the 2016 presidential election campaign. Partnerships between Silicon Valley and Washington on what the tech companies call “content moderation” deepened and broadened during the pandemic, when platforms such as Twitter, Google’s YouTube, and Meta’s Facebook and Instagram became hotbeds for conspiracy theories about the virus and opposition to public health guidance.

The attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana, along with a host of other plaintiffs, sued Biden and a bevy of government agencies and officials in 2022, alleging that they had cajoled and coerced the tech firms into removing or suppressing speech that is protected under the First Amendment. The Biden administration has argued that it did not violate the First Amendment, but rather used its bully pulpit to promote accurate information in the face of a public health crisis and foreign interference in U.S. elections.

On Tuesday, Doughty, who sought to block several Biden administration mandates during the pandemic, sided largely with the plaintiffs. He issued a preliminary injunction that prohibits several federal agencies and their employees from “meeting 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.”

Doughty’s decision left exceptions for the government to continue to communicate with tech companies, including carveouts for officials to warn Silicon Valley about criminal activity, foreign election interference and cyberattacks.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the meeting cancellations. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said during a briefing with reporters on Wednesday that the administration disagrees with the injunction. The Department of Justice continues to review it and evaluate its options, she said.

Jean-Pierre said that the administration has been “consistent” in its dealings with tech firms and that it will “continue to promote responsible actions to protect public health, safety and security when confronted by challenges like a deadly pandemic and foreign attacks on our elections.”

“Our view remains that social media platforms have a critical responsibility to take action or to take account of the effects their platforms are having [on] the American people, but make independent choices about the information they present,” she said.

Meta, Twitter and Google have declined to comment on the injunction. But the judge’s decision creates uncertainty about the future of content moderation at the companies ahead of the 2024 elections and raises legal questions about how they will communicate with officials at all levels of government about falsehoods related to voting.

The Biden administration is likely to appeal the injunction before voters head to the polls next year. But in the interim, the order is poised to have a chilling effect on the companies’ efforts to guard against misinformation as they work to sort out what types of partnerships are allowed.

Tech companies are already taking significant steps to unwind programs to combat disinformation on their services. Under the helm of Elon Musk, Twitter has slashed its Trust and Safety teams and initiatives. Amid financial pressure and company layoffs, Meta has also made cuts to similar teams.

“There is so much wrong with this decision — not least of all that it will make us less secure going into the 2024 elections,” wrote Yoel Roth, the former head of Trust and Safety at Twitter, in a social media post. Roth said the most glaring problem with the decision is that it asserts the companies were “coerced” to remove posts simply because they met with government officials. “That’s just … not how any of this works,” he wrote.

Roth’s work at Twitter has come under the glare of Republican politicians. He has said during testimony before Congress that Twitter independently made decisions to remove content its staffers believed violated its rules. He said the U.S. government “took extraordinary efforts” to ensure it did not even hint at demanding the company remove posts.

Emails produced as evidence in the case also show tech companies pushing back against the Biden administration, at times telling government officials that the videos or posts they flagged did not run afoul of their policies against misinformation. The companies’ decisions frequently appeared to prompt frustration among Biden White House officials.

In April 2021, then-White House adviser Andy Slavitt sent an email to Facebook staff with the subject line, “Tucker Carlson anti-vaccine message,” noting that it was “number one on Facebook.” Later that day, a Facebook staffer responded, saying the video did not qualify for removal under its policies. The employee said the company was demoting the video and labeling it with a “pointer” to accurate information about the vaccine.

The company’s decision to leave the video up prompted backlash from Rob Flaherty, a another former White House official, who responded: “Not for nothing but last time we did this dance, it ended in an insurrection.”

The lawsuit also named as defendants several academics and civil society organizations that had contributed to partnerships between the online platforms and the government. On Wednesday, researchers outside of government and companies were reeling from the injunction and sorting out how to handle it.

“There’s no version of us being able to do our job, or other versions of the field of trust and safety, without being able to communicate with all stakeholders, including government and including industry,” said a leading researcher on extremism and foreign influence who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the ongoing litigation.

Another researcher, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity because of pending litigation, added: “Platforms had already gutted their trust and safety departments, and now they aren’t supposed to [talk to the] government.” The person added, however, that “information sharing between platforms and government in this area was always fairly minimal.”

Doughty’s ruling is unlikely to be the last word on the question of what level of government pressure on platforms constitutes a First Amendment violation, said Jeff Kosseff, a cybersecurity law professor at the U.S. Naval Academy.

“The really tough question is when does the government cross the line from responding to speech — which it can and should do — to coercing platforms to censor constitutionally protected speech?” Kosseff said. “The judge here believes that line was crossed, and he certainly cited some persuasive examples,” such as administration officials suggesting antitrust actions against tech firms or changes to their liability protections while criticizing their content moderation efforts.
 
Coping and seething, seething and coping.

State Dept. cancels Facebook meetings after judge’s ‘censorship’ ruling
A Louisiana federal court’s order is upending efforts to guard against 2024 election interference
https://www.washingtonpost.com/tech...souri-biden-judge-censorship-ruling-analysis/
[archive link: https://archive.li/mQWVm]
Joseph Menn, Will Oremus, Cat Zakrzewski & Naomi Nix (05 July 2023)

Fresh shipment of Copium has just arrived...

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Some god-tier gaslighting going on here - and they don't even bother trying to hide it (bold emphasis added):

State Dept. cancels Facebook meetings after judge’s ‘censorship’ ruling
A Louisiana federal court’s order is upending efforts to guard against 2024 election interference
https://www.washingtonpost.com/tech...souri-biden-judge-censorship-ruling-analysis/
[archive link: https://archive.li/mQWVm]
Joseph Menn, Will Oremus, Cat Zakrzewski & Naomi Nix (05 July 2023)

[... T]he State Department canceled its regular meeting Wednesday with Facebook officials to discuss 2024 election preparations [...]

The canceled meetings show that the injunction is affecting government efforts to protect elections, [...]

[M]any of the activities they pursued, such as warnings about election disinformation, are exempted from the injunction and are likely to continue [...]

Doughty’s decision left exceptions for [...] election interference [...]

[... T]he judge’s decision creates uncertainty about the future of content moderation at the companies ahead of the 2024 elections [...]

“There is so much wrong with this decision — not least of all that it will make us less secure going into the 2024 elections,” [...]
 
[Former head of Trust and Safety at Twitter Yoel] Roth’s work at Twitter has come under the glare of Republican politicians. He has said during testimony before Congress that Twitter independently made decisions to remove content its staffers believed violated its rules. He said the U.S. government “took extraordinary efforts” to ensure it did not even hint at demanding the company remove posts.

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Sure, bub, sure - if you say so ... :rolleyes:

https://twitter.com/shellenberger/status/1676761172354433025
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(Rob Flaherty was Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of Digital Strategy.)
 
Federal Court Makes This July 4th a True Independence Day


Ron Paul
July 11, 2023


While Americans were enjoying hot dogs and fireworks this Fourth of July, federal Judge Terry A. Doughty commemorated Independence Day by striking a blow for the separation of big tech and state. Specifically, he issued a preliminary injunction prohibiting a number of government officials and agencies from communicating with social media companies to request they censor certain posts.

Judge Doughty wrote that, “If the allegations made by Plaintiffs are true, the present case arguably involves the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history.” This may seem like hyperbole until one considers that the list of those affected by this injunction includes White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the State and Health and Human Services Departments, as well as the Justice Department and the FBI.

Among the plaintiffs are Harvard Professor Martin Kulldorff and Stanford Professor Jay Bhattacharya. Professors Kulldorff and Bhattacharya were among the health experts who big tech censored at the behest of government because they dared question the government’s message regarding covid. People questioning government supported claims of the benefits of lockdowns, the efficacy and safety of covid vaccines, the use of masks to protect against infection, and vaccine immunity being superior to natural immunity was silenced.

Eventually the establishment was forced to admit that many of the arguments of those like Kulldorff and Bhattacharya were correct. However, by that point many of those courageous enough to speak out had already suffered irreparable damage to their reputations and careers. Contrary to the covid authoritarians and other users of science claims to promote statist policies like the anti-“climate change” movement, science is in fact never settled.

While much of the lawsuit concerns covid censorship, some of the components revolve around efforts to suppress the Hunter Biden laptop story. The effort to suppress and discredit the story may have influenced the election. Some Biden voters would have voted differently had they had full access to the information.

The suppression of the truth about covid and the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story were both justified as serving a “higher good.” With regard to covid, the online censorship was justified as necessary to protect public health. In the case of the laptop story, it was justified as necessary to prevent Donald Trump from winning a second term. The now more widely known revelations regarding Hunter Biden’s business dealings and the possibility that his father not just profited from them but used his position in government to be an active participant may help Donald Trump regain the Oval Office in 2024.

Reading the emails between government officials and employees of big tech companies shows that government officials clearly believed they had every right to tell these private companies how to run their businesses. The government officials even “reminded” them that the companies were in danger of having increased regulations imposed on them by the White House and Congress. This shows the folly of those who think that increasing government involvement with big tech will somehow reduce big tech censorship. The only way to make the internet a free speech zone is to build on Judge Doughty’s decision: separate big tech and state.

//
 
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