On Saturday, July 8, 2023 at 5:44:34 PM UTC-4, ltlee1 wrote:
"On the Fourth of July, a federal judge issued a ruling in a free-speech case that he said upheld Americans’ “right to engage in free debate about the significant issues affecting the country”—by limiting how certain Americans can debate
significant issues affecting the country.
If that sentence looks off to you, you have company among First Amendment scholars.
The seven-page injunction that Judge Terry A. Doughty issued in State of Missouri, et al. v. Joseph R. Biden Jr., et al. bans the leadership of four cabinet departments, along with dozens of named officials, from “urging, encouraging, pressuring, or
inducing in any manner the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech posted on social-media platforms.”
In fewer words: “Feds, shut up.”
Doughty unpacks that injunction in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana with a 155-page opinion that leads off with a sentence inviting speculation about whether the judge’s law-school curriculum skipped the Sedition Act: “
If the allegations made by Plaintiffs are true, the present case arguably involves the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history.”
The alleged offense here is persistent, often insistent, efforts by officials in the White House, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Centers for Disease Control, the Department of Homeland Security, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure
Security Agency, and other federal entities to induce Facebook, Twitter, and other platforms to stop spreading misinformation about Covid-19 and election security, among other trending topics. "
Which side is right?
The article was from
https://newrepublic.com/article/174098/louisiana-judges-anti-biden-social-media-order-makes-zero-sense
The disagreement between the White House and the Judicial illustrated two things.
1. The US has more than 240 years of experience in interpreting what is free speech and what is
not. Yet different different branches of the US government still have different opinions.
Why the pretension that that is REALLY universally acceptable rule all the time on what constitutes
free speech and what a government can limit speech to what degree? Of course, without such pretension,
the US cannot sell itself as the land of freedom.
2. May be the US should amend its Constitution. As is, the Federal judge is correct.
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