Dr. Tom Woods has been following a free speech case that involves the states of Missouri and Louisiana vs the federal government. This case aims at the heart of the federal government’s suppression of free speech during the COVID episode.
Dr. Woods:
The case of Missouri v. Biden, in which the attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana are accusing the federal government of assaults on free speech during the Covid madness, will go forward, despite the Biden White House’s efforts to get it dismissed, thanks to a memorandum ruling by Judge Terry A. Doughty.
I am very happy about this. We cannot pretend none of this happened and simply resume normal life. The insanity has to be confronted in as many aspects as possible.
The memorandum is over 70 pages long, though most of it involves laying out various precedents in order to respond to the Biden team’s legal technicalities.
It’s clear that the judge has sympathy for the plaintiffs, who include our friends Jay Bhattacharya and Martin Kulldorff, both of whom were censored for opposing the ridiculous government Covid response.
I thought you’d like to see it, so I’m going to share bits and pieces of it with you here. Even when the judge is simply paraphrasing the plaintiffs’ arguments, it’s still a good opportunity to see how strong those arguments are.
(I have omitted the internal citations for the sake of readability. Also, the “States” referred to are Missouri and Louisiana.)
Some excerpts:
Because of the alleged coercion and collusion by the Defendants to suppress speech, the States assert “at least eight forms of imminent, continuing, irreparable injury.” The States list these eight alleged injuries as follows:
(1) “The federal censorship program directly undermines Missouri’s and Louisiana’s fundamental policies favoring the freedom of speech, and thus it inflicts a clear and direct injury on the States’ sovereignty”;
(2) “The States and their agencies and political subdivisions have suffered government-induced online censorship directly”;
(3) “State agencies—such as the Offices of the States’ Attorneys General— closely track and rely on free speech on social media to understand their citizens’ true thoughts and concerns,” and “censorship of social-media speech directly interferes with this critical state interest, because it ‘directly interferes with [our] ability to follow, measure, and understand the nature and degree of [constituents’] concerns’”;
(4) “Social-media censorship thwarts the States’ ability to provide free, fair, and open political processes that allow citizens to petition their government and advocate for policy changes”;
(5) “Federally induced social-media censorship directly affects Missouri, because it has resulted in the extensive censorship of Plaintiff Dr. Bhattacharya”;
(6) “Missouri and Louisiana have a quasi-sovereign interest in protecting the free-speech rights of “a sufficiently substantial segment of its population,” and “preventing ultra vires actions against those rights”;
(7) “Missouri and Louisiana ‘ha[ve] an interest in securing observance of the terms under which [they] participate in the federal system’”; and
(8) “Missouri and Louisiana have a unique interest in advancing, protecting, and vindicating the rights of their citizens who are listeners, readers, and audiences of social-media speech.”
The Private Plaintiffs, primarily through the use of individual Declarations, allege their own ongoing injuries as a result of the alleged government action described above. The Private Plaintiffs state that the alleged censorship “is achieved through a wide variety of methods, ranging from complete bans, temporary bans, insidious ‘shadow bans’ (where neither the user nor his audience is notified of the suppression), deboosting, de-platforming, de-monetizing, restricting access to content, imposing warning labels that require click-through to access content, and many other ways….”
For example, Jay Bhattacharya, one of the Private Plaintiffs, stated in his declaration, “Because of my views on COVID-19 restrictions, I have been specifically targeted for censorship by federal government officials.” Bhattacharya, the Professor of Health Policy at Stanford University School of Medicine, specifically alleges that a publication entitled the “Great Barrington Declaration,” which Bhattacharya co-authored, was subject to “immediate backlash from senior government officials who were the architects of the lockdown policies” for COVID-19.
The Great Barrington Declaration “called for an end to economic lockdowns, school shutdowns, and similar restrictive policies on the ground that they disproportionately harm the young and economically disadvantaged while conferring limited benefits.” Bhattacharya stated that, because the Great Barrington Declaration “contradicted the government’s preferred response to COVID-19,” its content was suppressed in various ways.
Specifically, Bhattacharya alleges that “Google deboosted search results for the Declaration, pointing users to media hit pieces critical of it, and placing the link to the actual Declaration lower on this list of results.” Further, a “roundtable” discussion between Bhattacharya and others, posted via video to YouTube, was removed from the social-media platform, with YouTube claiming that the video “contradicts the consensus of local and global health authorities regarding the efficacy of masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19.”
Additionally, Bhattacharya alleges that he and his co-authors of the Great Barrington Declaration were personally censored on social media, primarily on Twitter and LinkedIn.
Martin Kulldorff, another of the Private Plaintiffs, made similar allegations in his declaration. Along with Bhattacharya, Kulldorff co-authored the Great Barrington Declaration and allegedly “experienced censorship on social media platforms due to [his] views on the appropriate strategy for handling the COVID-19 pandemic.”
In addition to the alleged suppression of the Great Barrington Declaration itself on platforms such as Google and Facebook, Kulldorff asserts that his individual opinions were censored on his private social media accounts…. Kulldorff echoed Bhattacharya’s belief that the censorship of COVID-19-related opinions on social media was driven by government officials….
The Court finds that Plaintiffs have stated plausible claims on the merits in all counts of the Complaint…
Traditionally, the First Amendment imposes limitations only on “state action, not action by private parties.” However, plaintiffs “may establish a First Amendment claim based on private conduct if that conduct ‘can fairly be seen as state action….’”
The Complaint contains over 100 paragraphs of allegations detailing “significant encouragement” in private (i.e., “covert”) communications between Defendants and social-media platforms….
The Complaint even alleges…that President Biden threatened civil liability and criminal prosecution against Mark Zuckerburg if Facebook did not increase censorship of political speech. The Court finds that the Complaint alleges significant encouragement and coercion that converts the otherwise private conduct of censorship on social media platforms into state action, and is unpersuaded by Defendants’ arguments to the contrary….
Plaintiffs have plausibly alleged joint action, entwinement, and/or that specific features of Defendants’ actions combined to create state action. For example, the Complaint alleges that “once in control of the Executive Branch, Defendants promptly capitalized on these threats by pressuring, cajoling, and openly colluding with social-media companies to actively suppress particular disfavored speakers and viewpoints on social media.” Specifically, Plaintiffs allege that Dr. Fauci, other CDC officials, officials of the Census Bureau, CISA, officials at HHS, the state department, and members of the FBI actively and directly coordinated with social-media….
The Complaint alleges that federal officials set up a long series of formal meetings to discuss censorship, setting up privileged reporting channels to demand censorship, and funding and establishing federal-private partnership to procure censorship of disfavored viewpoints. The Complaint clearly alleges that Defendants specifically authorized and approved the actions of the social-media companies and gives dozens of examples where Defendants dictated specific censorship decisions to social-media platforms….
Plaintiffs have clearly and plausibly alleged that Defendants engaged in viewpoint discrimination and prior restraints. As discussed in great detail above, Plaintiffs allege a regime of censorship that targets specific viewpoints deemed mis-, dis-, or malinformation by federal officials.
Because Plaintiffs allege that Defendants are targeting particular views taken by speakers on a specific subject, they have alleged a clear violation of the First Amendment, i.e., viewpoint discrimination. Moreover, Plaintiffs allege that Defendants, by placing bans, shadow-bans, and other forms of restrictions on Plaintiffs’ social-media accounts, are engaged in de facto prior restraints, another clear violation of the First Amendment. Thus, the Court finds that Plaintiffs have plausibly alleged their First Amendment claims.
And so the case proceeds, thank goodness.
I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know Jay and Martin over these past few years, and as you’ve seen, these are mild-mannered academics who never imagined themselves ever becoming the public faces of an international resistance movement. But their convictions compelled them to do so all the same.
The sleepers awaken.
Do not cave into them.
You are not alone.
You can make a profound difference.
Godspeed!