Supreme Court: US government may censor Americans at least until summer
The Biden administration may continue working with social media companies to suppress speech at least until June 2024, according to an order by the US Supreme Court Friday.
Until last week the Biden administration was under a temporary injunction — upheld last month by a federal district court — blocking its extensive censorship enterprise with tech companies.
But legal experts are unable to explain why the Supreme Court lifted the injunction until the hearing is decided near the end of June. Even Supreme Court Associate Justice Samuel Alito — who dissented along with Associate Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch — expressed his concern.
“At this time in the history of our country, what the Court has done, I fear, will be seen by some as giving the Government a green light to use heavy-handed tactics to skew the presentation of views on the medium that increasingly dominates the dissemination of news. That is most unfortunate,” Associate Justice Alito wrote in a dissenting opinion.
The Biden administration is appealing a July 4th order in which US District Judge Terry Doughty found that “the United States Government seems to have assumed a role similar to an Orwellian ‘Ministry of Truth’” and may be responsible for “the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history.”
But the Biden administration successfully filed a preliminary injunction against the judge’s order while it appealed the ruling. Joseph R. Biden et al. argued that ending their censorship activities would “cause the government and thus the public to suffer irreparable injury.”
According to evidence brought by the Louisiana and Missouri attorneys general in the lawsuit last year, the White House not only successfully suppressed speech on Facebook and Twitter, but officials even sought to control Americans’ private WhatsApp messages concerning the COVID-19 vaccines.
White House personnel also worked with tech companies to censor speech on other issues including “climate change,” totalitarian gender ideology, Hunter Biden’s laptop, abortion, gas prices and even mockery of Joe Biden.
“The Plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits in establishing that the Government has used its power to silence the opposition,” wrote the judge. “Opposition to COVID-19 vaccines; opposition to COVID-19 masking and lockdowns; opposition to the lab-leak theory of COVID-19; opposition to the validity of the 2020 election; opposition to President Biden’s policies; statements that the Hunter Biden laptop story was true; and opposition to policies of the government officials in power. All were suppressed. It is quite telling that each example or category of suppressed speech was conservative in nature. This targeted suppression of conservative ideas is a perfect example of viewpoint discrimination of political speech. American citizens have the right to engage in free debate about the significant issues affecting the country.”
