Read Unauthorized Reporting, Analyses — You Endanger Democracy, Liberals Warn

State Battles Against Enemy Within, Rampant Wrong Reads Subverts Effort

Commentary

The grave and gathering threat imperiling American democracy, and our fellow citizens persists like a mutated virus reproducing itself, looking to infect others: Misinformation, or bad thought.

After years of warning by American liberals, led by Joe Biden and his Disinformation Governance Board, (status unknown), a federal judge disagreed this week, and ruled agencies of U.S. government can no longer coerce major social media outlets into banning writers and censoring works because the U.S. government and liberal establishment do not like the information being read or written.

In a federal case, STATE OF MISSOURI V JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR (CASE NO. 3:22-CV-01213) brought by two governors against the Biden administration, Judge Terry Doughty's ruling grants an injunction that forbids the Biden administration from contacting 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." (MEMORANDUM RULING ON REQUEST FOR PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION; July 4, 2023)

The reaction from Democratic Party press is outrage.

Leah Litman and Laurence H. Tribe conclude in Just Security that this "decision, if left standing, will make us less secure as a nation and will endanger us all every day the injunction remains in force."

Wow.

It's not government goading Big Tech into censorship that is the concern, liberals assure.

It's people writing thought deemed wrong, and people reading these thoughts, that's the problem. Because those readers of misinformation, having contracted this malinformation, will transmit the misinformation to other unsuspecting Americans, not trained in liberal defense of democracy or possessing of individual minds vaccinated against bad thought.

Writes Matt Taibbi, author of the Twitter Files, in reply:

The Missouri v. Biden investigators found the same fact patterns found by Twitter Files reporters like me, Michael Shellenberger, Bari Weiss, Lee Fang, David Zweig, and Paul Thacker, and then later Andrew Lowenthal, Aaron Mate, Sue Schmidt, Matt Orfalea, Tom Wyatt, Matt Farwell, @Techno_Fog, and many others. They also echoed descriptions by like Jacob Siegel at Tablet, or Robby Soave at Reason, who wrote about similar issues at Facebook.

Those of us who worked on the Twitter Files story initially experienced the same problem investigators and plaintiffs in the Missouri v. Biden case apparently did, being unsure of what to make of the sheer quantity of agencies and companies involved in what looked like organized censorship schemes. I know I wasn’t alone among Twitter Files reporters in being nervous to report that content moderation “requests” were coming from “agencies across the federal government — from the State Department to the Pentagon to the CIA.” It’s what we were seeing, but seemed too nuts to be true. But as time went on, even more topics, government offices, and state-partnered organizations started popping up, leaving little question of what we were looking at.

Eventually, we found the same plot outlined in Missouri v. Biden: pressure from government in the form of threatened regulation, followed by a stream of recommendations about content from multiple agencies (the investigators in this lawsuit even found meddling by the Census Bureau). This was capped by the construction of quasi-private bureaucracies that in some cases appeared to have been conceived as a way for the government to partner on content moderation without being in direct violation of the First Amendment. 

Concludes Judge Terry Doughty:

Although this case is still relatively young, and at this stage the Court is only examining it in terms of Plaintiffs’ likelihood of success on the merits, the evidence produced thus far depicts an almost dystopian scenario. 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.” [Note 721]

The Plaintiffs have presented substantial evidence in support of their claims that they were the victims of a far-reaching and widespread censorship campaign. This court finds that they are likely to succeed on the merits of their First Amendment free speech claim against the Defendants.
Therefore, a preliminary injunction should issue immediately against the Defendants as set out herein.

[Note 721] An 'Orwellian 'Ministry of Truth' refers to the concept presented in George Orwell's dystopian novel, '1984.' In the novel, the Ministry of Truth is a governmental institution responsible for altering historical records and disseminating propaganda to manipulate and control public perception.

Yes.

There is a threat to our democracy, but it comes from Biden ideologues, fervent champions of the surveillance state and the censorship-industrial complex.

In the vital decision UNITED STATES v. UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT, 407 U.S. 297 (1972), Justice Lewis Powell denounced the Nixon administration’s electronic surveillance, warrantless-wiretapping program not just on Fourth Amendment grounds, but as a betrayal of the sovereign rights of citizens in a democracy to criticize their own government.

Powell's warning should be sounded today:

History abundantly documents the tendency of Government - however benevolent and benign its motives - to view with suspicion those who most fervently dispute its policies. Fourth Amendment protections become the more necessary when the targets of official surveillance may be those suspected of unorthodoxy in their political beliefs. The danger to political dissent is acute where the Government attempts to act under so vague a concept as the power to protect ‘domestic security.’ Given the difficulty of defining the domestic security interest, the danger of abuse in acting to protect that interest becomes apparent. ... The price of lawful public dissent must not be a dread of subjection to an unchecked surveillance power. Nor must the fear of unauthorized official eavesdropping deter vigorous citizen dissent and discussion of Government action in private conversation. For private dissent, no less than open public discourse, is essential to our free society.
- Justice Lewis Powell (UNITED STATES v. UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT, 407 U.S. 297 (1972))

The most bizarre and revealing part of the liberal media script on this court ruling -- that the judge didn't bar *censorship* but merely the US Govt's effort to combat disinformation -- is that the FBI is not only qualified to decree Truth, but it uses censorship to Protect Us: https://t.co/yz50RO6NMU

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) July 6, 2023

RFK, Jr. Hails Freedom of Speech, as Biden Loses State Censorship Ruling

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. blasted Democrats as betraying
liberty and free speech. Reacting to a federal judge's
injunction stopping the Biden administration from censoring
and banning speech on the Internet, RFK excoriated
government suppression of information.

"This ruling has been widely reported as barring the
administration from ‘working with,' 'contacting,' or
'coordinating with' social media," said Democratic
Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who
is mentioned in the injunction as one of the people
censored on social media. "These are euphemisms. The
case is about blatant censorship, in which government
agencies colluded with and coerced tech platforms
to censor Constitutionally-protected speech."

U.S. District Court Hits Joe Biden's Ministry of Truth

Update: Biden is "appealing a court ruling sharply limiting the ability of federal officials to interact with social media companies about the content contained on their platforms," reports Politico.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., hailed a Louisiana federal judge's ruling to grant an injunction against President Joe Biden, ordering the administration to halt government-induced censorship of the internet, and the administration's myriad contacts with Big Tech,

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is a candidate for the Democratic Party's nomination for Untied States president.

Judge Doughty's ruling forbids the Biden administration from contacting 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."

As the national Democratic Party has become a champion of censorship of speech that the administration says is too dangerous to read or hear, Kennedy has taken the opposite position, blasting Democrats as betraying liberty and free speech.

"This ruling has been widely reported as barring the administration from ‘working with,' 'contacting,' or 'coordinating with' social media," said Democratic Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who is mentioned in the injunction as one of the people censored on social media. "These are euphemisms. The case is about blatant censorship, in which government agencies colluded with and coerced tech platforms to censor Constitutionally-protected speech."

The Biden administration's work for state censorship has also defined the national Democratic Party, as not one Democratic member of Congress has expressed public objection to what Judge Doughty calls Biden's "Ministry of Truth."

Kennedy is mentioned several times in Judge Judge Doughty's Memorandum Ruling on Request for Preliminary Injunction.

Kennedy, a prominent environmental attorney and children's' advocate, has been banned and censored by Big Tech for advocating for patients, consumers and families against what Kennedy has said are sometimes dangerous corporations.

Writes Judge Doughty:

(1) On January 23, 2021, three days after President Biden took office, Clarke Humphrey (“Humphrey”), who at the time was the Digital Director for the COVID-19 Response Team, emailed Twitter and requested the removal of an anti-COVID-19 vaccine tweet by RobertF. Kennedy, Jr.21 Humphrey sent a copy of the email to Rob Flaherty (“Flaherty”), former Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of Digital Strategy, on the email and asked if “we can keep an eye out for tweets that fall in this same genre.” The email read, “Hey folks-Wanted to flag the below tweet and am wondering if we can get moving on the process of having it removed ASAP.”22

Kennedy's press release in reproduced below:

RFK, Jr. Responds to Federal Judge Freedom of Speech, Censorship Ruling

July 05, 2023 Team Kennedy  

LOS ANGELES, CA—JULY 5, 2023—A federal judge issued an injunction Tuesday prohibiting Biden administration officials and federal agencies from communicating with social media companies about certain forms of protected speech.

The 155-page ruling details numerous clear violations of the First Amendment’s free speech clause. Amply referenced and footnoted, the document describes how Biden administration officials demanded that social media companies suppress information and deplatform people who expressed political views they deemed harmful.

“This ruling has been widely reported as barring the administration from ‘working with,’ ‘contacting,’ or ‘coordinating with’ social media,” said Democratic Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who is mentioned in the injunction as one of the people censored on social media.

“These are euphemisms. The case is about blatant censorship, in which government agencies colluded with and coerced tech platforms to censor Constitutionally-protected speech.”

As described in the injunction, government censorship demands were backed with threats to revoke Article 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which shields social media companies from liability for actions taken on their websites, as well as the threat of anti-trust action. Both of these, in the words of Mark Zuckerberg, are “existential threats” to social media companies’ business.

The injunction describes the formation of a censorship apparatus that includes public-private partnerships with groups like the Virality Project, the Stanford Internet Observatory, and the Election Integrity Project. They operated not only through direct demands, but also through creating a tacit consensus about what information is permissible.

Disallowed posts and suppressed information included those:

• Questioning the safety of the Covid vaccines
• Claiming the shots did not prevent infection or transmission
• Doubting the utility of masks and lockdowns
• Suggesting the lab leak hypothesis for Covid origins
• Questioning the integrity of the 2020 elections
• Claiming the authenticity of the Hunter Biden laptop story

“The judge got it exactly right when he wrote, ‘Freedom of speech and press is the indispensable condition of nearly every other form of freedom,’” Kennedy said. “Without freedom of speech, there is no democracy.”

Attorneys for Team Kennedy are considering further legal action to protect Mr. Kennedy’s rights and those of the campaign to be heard, free of censorship.

#

Democrats Jettison Free Speech, Free Press and Free Inquiry

Matt Taibbi has committed cardinal sins in the eyes of the Democrat Party and contemporary corporate liberalism: Journalism.

Taibbi penned a report entitled The Great Covid-19 Lie Machine: Stanford, the Virality Project, and the Censorship of “True Stories.”

Taibbi reported Twitter emails detailing efforts of the American intelligence and public health communities plotting how to censor and marginalize speech and other information deemed too dangerous for Americans to read.

Some speech even, such as the release of liberal-favorite Dr. Anthony Fauci’s Spring 2020 emails was "used to exacerbate distrust in Dr. Fauci."

In liberal circles, this distrust of Fauci is considered heresy, so must be stopped.

Read Taibbi's work to see how far our country's Democrat Party has drifted from cherished notions such as free speech and free press.

“The Vitality Project however is just part of a broader cultural shift that reverses long standing liberal/left commitments to free expression and allows censorship in the name of protection and safety.” ⁦@NAffects⁩ https://t.co/CWJGENs3pi

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 19, 2023

Biden, Democrats Surpass Orwell's Imagination; Proclaim Power to Discern and Delete Harmful Speech

Facing political disaster in the mid-term elections this Nov, the Biden administration and its media acolytes want the American people to know something: Fear Elon Musk.

That's right, Elon Musk's buying Twitter is a dire threat, and we ought not worry about inflation, looming recession, supply chains, student loans, healthcare costs, household debt and corporate takeover of elected government.

Because you the American people have never had it so good, and you need to trust your betters, and stay away from disinformation.

Now, Musk 'threatens' to open up Twitter to dissident voices who are popular with the American people, but the wrong kind of people who voice the wrong kind of speech and think the wrong kind of thought.

It's obvious Democrats and liberal allies fear the mid-terms because they fear the American people. And when information and thought are presented that threatens Democrat rule, the medium that conveys this information must be policed, and the thought must be purged.

Notes Glenn Greenwald this morning: "The worst, most egregious and most nefarious official US disinformation campaign in years was the pre-election CIA lie that the authentic Biden emails were 'Russian disinformation.' It was led by liberal outlets: CNN, Politico/Natasha Bertrand, HuffPost, Mother Jones, Intercept."

The worst, most egregious and most nefarious official US disinformation campaign in years was the pre-election CIA lie that the authentic Biden emails were "Russian disinformation."

It was led by liberal outlets: CNN, Politico/Natasha Bertrand, HuffPost, Mother Jones, Intercept. pic.twitter.com/h3Exzd8YLJ

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) May 2, 2022

Liberals have long besmirched social media because, they say, they fear platforms in which accredited "lies have unfettered access to the American electorate," in the words of corporatist Democrat, Aaron Sorkin, writing in the New York Times in 2019 in favor of censorship of Facebook.

Sorkin well represents the liberal mindset that reasons liberals and content managers are able to sift and winnow social media writing without being corrupted and misled, but most Americans are not equipped with liberals' powers of discernment.

I read about about Sorkin's call for heavy censorship in 2019, but now his narcissism and silly condescension have become Democrat orthodoxy, terrified of the American population.

Time again for a refresher on free speech.

Free speech need not be defended on grounds that consequences of liberty make for a healthy classical liberal society, ala New York Times v Sullivan (1964), an inspiring statement for liberty against those advocating for authoritative selection of published views.

However, the words of Justice William Brennan and other 20-century jurists speak forever to those who believe only they are immune from corruption of unorthodox thought, and their politcal rule must be protected against the vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks.

Writes Brennan in Sullivan:

The First Amendment, said Judge Learned Hand,

presupposes that right conclusions are more likely to be gathered out of a multitude of tongues than through any kind of authoritative selection. To many, this is, and always will be, folly, but we have staked upon it our all. United States v. Associated Press, 52 F.Supp. 362, 372 (D.C.S.D.N.Y. 1943).

Mr. Justice Brandeis, in his concurring opinion in Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357, 375-376, gave the principle its classic formulation:

Those who won our independence believed . . . that public discussion is a political duty, and that this should be a fundamental principle of the American government. ... Believing in the power of reason as applied through public discussion, they eschewed silence coerced by law -- the argument of force in its worst form. Recognizing the occasional tyrannies of governing majorities, they amended the Constitution so that free speech and assembly should be guaranteed.

Thus, we consider this case [New York Times v. Sullivan] against the background of a profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials. (New York Times v. Sullivan).

Aaron Sorkin and Democrats ought consider the foundations of Sullivan today, because free speech protections may not be around forever.

Facebook and other social media well serve our national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited.

Consider the thoughts of Glenn Greenwald this morning, and don't worry, you won't be corrupted.

In fact, some of the most sanctimonious leftist writers have been on the dole of Silicon Valley billionaires while attacking others for impure funding. That Musk's purchase of Twitter is some novel development - except for its potential to restore free speech - is laughable. pic.twitter.com/4y7E9LB4kF

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) May 2, 2022

Collecting my checks from the Sulzberger dynasty (NYT). Laurene Powell-Jobs (Atlantic), MacKenzie Scott (countless left-liberal NGOs), Jeff Bezos (WP), Comcast Corp. (NBC/MSNBC), Warner Bros. Discovery Corp. (CNN), to write about the dangers of a billionaire's control of Twitter.

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) May 2, 2022

Ok so why is it better for Musk to run Twitter than Dorsey and co? Is it better in any way? Or just better because it’s closer to your worldview of social media operation?

— Xavier Koenig (@xavkoenig) May 2, 2022

Because the current scheme is a censorship regime imposed on major social media platforms. Musk is promising to uproot that and instead allow free speech.

If he's sincere and follows through, it will be important. If he isn't and doesn't, nothing will change.

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) May 2, 2022

Google, YouTube, Facebook Censoring Former NYT Reporter, Chris Hedges

Democratic Party-supported Big Tech has discovered an enemy of the state that must be censored: Former New York Times reporter, Chris Hedges.

Reports Hedges this week in ScheerPost:

"The entire archive of On Contact, the Emmy-nominated show I hosted for six years for RT America and RT International, has been disappeared from YouTube. Gone is the interview with Nathaniel Philbrick on his book about George Washington. Gone is the discussion with Kai Bird on his biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer. Gone is my exploration with Professor Sam Slote from Trinity College Dublin of James Joyce’s “Ulysses.” Gone is the show with Benjamin Moser on his biography of Susan Sontag. Gone is the show with Stephen Kinzer on his book on John Foster Dulles and Allen Dulles. Gone are the interviews with the social critics Cornel West, Tariq Ali, Noam Chomsky, Gerald Horne, Wendy Brown, Paul Street, Gabriel Rockwell, Naomi Wolff and Slavoj Zizek. Gone are the interviews with the novelists Russell Banks and Salar Abdoh. Gone is the interview with Kevin Sharp, a former federal judge, on the case of Leonard Peltier. Gone are the interviews with economists David Harvey and Richard Wolff. Gone are the interviews with the combat veterans and West Point graduates Danny Sjursen and Eric Edstrom about our wars in the Middle East. Gone are the discussions with the journalists Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi. Gone are the voices of those who are being persecuted and marginalized, including the human rights attorney Steven Donziger and the political prisoner Mumia Abu Jamal. None of the shows I did on mass incarceration, where I interviewed those released from our prisons, are any longer on YouTube. Gone are the shows with the cartoonists Joe Sacco and Dwayne Booth. Melted into thin air, leaving not a rack behind."

The increasing censorship by Big Tech shows the extent to which Democratic Party-supporting Big Tech has become an adjunct the authoritarian Democrat Party.

Writes Glenn Greenwald: "I really believe history will record that the people who destroyed the full potential of the internet to free us of centralized state and corporate control are the liberal journalists, Dem politicians and activists who spent years demanding a new censorship regime from Big Tech."

Matt Taibbi wrote about Big Tech's censorship of Hedges. 

So, I quoted Greenwald in a Facebook post, and added a link to Taibbi's piece.

This morning, Facebook alerted me it was censoring my Chris Hedges piece as a "violation of community standards," effectively demonstrating again what Hedges, Greenwald and Taibbi have been warning about for years.