SPECIAL GUEST COMMENTARY by Andrea Shaffer: Missouri v. Biden Preliminary Injunction to Stop the White House, Surgeon General, CDC, and FBI from Censoring Americans
Andrea Shaffer is an American Constitutionalist and Defender of Freedom and Peace. She provides her analysis of this "Freedom of Speech and Censorship" Suit Who was left out, and what does that mean?
In a unanimous decision by the United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans on Friday, an injunction by a district court was AFFIRMED.
The injunction protects free speech by preventing the White House, Surgeon General, CDC, and the FBI from colluding with big tech companies to censor.
Plaintiffs
The plaintiffs are Jayanta Bhattacharya, Jill Hines, Jim Hoft, Aaron Kheriaty, and Martin Kulldorff.
Decisions and Comments
This panel of three judges gave many individual cases where the government pushed big tech to suppress information and individual communications, including those of Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy. Jr.
Our Content Today
A Special Guest Commentary by Andrea Shaffer, American Constitutionalist, on Missouri v. Biden.
Jacobson v. Massachusetts
“What I Really Think”
Missouri v. Biden: The 74-page Ruling (found below as a Reference)
Encouraging you to subscribe to Andrea Schaffer’s Newsletter.
The Court Writings Include:
Emphases and headings are added.
“… the government is not permitted to use the government-speech doctrine to muffle the expression of disfavored viewpoints.”
The White House, Surgeon General and the CDC
“We find that the White House, acting in concert with the Surgeon General’s office, likely (1) coerced the platforms to make their moderation decisions by way of intimidating messages and threats of adverse consequences, and (2) significantly encouraged the platforms’ decisions by commandeering their decision-making processes, both in violation of the First Amendment.”
“…the officials made express threats and, at the very least, leaned into the inherent authority of the President’s office. The officials made inflammatory accusations, such as saying that the platforms were ‘poison[ing]’ the public, and ‘killing people.’ The platforms were told they needed to take greater responsibility and action. Then, they followed their statements with threats of ‘fundamental reforms’ like regulatory changes and increased enforcement actions that would ensure the platforms were ‘held accountable.’ But, beyond express threats, there was always an unspoken ‘or else.'”
The FBI
“We find that the FBI, too, likely (1) coerced the platforms into moderating content, and (2) encouraged them to do so by effecting changes to their moderation policies, both in violation of the First Amendment.
COERSION
We start with coercion. Similar to the White House, Surgeon General, and CDC officials, the FBI regularly met with the platforms, shared ‘strategic information,’ frequently alerted the social media companies to misinformation spreading on their platforms, and monitored their content moderation policies.
BEYOND COERSION
But, the FBI went beyond that—they urged the platforms to take down content. Turning to the Second Circuit’s four-factor test, we find that those requests were coercive.”
The Biden administration has ten days to appeal the decision.
Andrea Schaffer, American Constitutionalist
Guest Commentary
American Constitutionalist, Equality of Opportunity, Equal Application of Law, Limited Government, Pro-life, Peace, Limited Foreign Intervention
It is my pleasure to have met Andrea Shaffer through her Twitter and multiple Twitter Spaces. Andrea researches Constitutional issues for We The People and has proven to be a solid force in defending the Constitution, equality, Pro-life, peace, limited foreign intervention, and more. You will love her! Click on the tweets below to join her on Twitter, and subscribe to Andrea’s Substack here.
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Andrea Shaffer’s Biography
Andrea Shaffer has an undergraduate degree in business and chemistry. While working in the international biotechnology pharmaceutical industry, she obtained her graduate degree in Employment Labor Law and Human Resources. Other experience includes teaching at a local community college technical program in her area of professional expertise. Andrea loves nature, dogs, animals and children; but most of all, preserving the American Constitution. All things are possible through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.
The First Injunction
The first injunction was broader than the current modified injunction at the fifth circuit of appeals court, which brings concern to many individuals in both the legal realm and to the election integrity advocates with the upcoming 2024 Presidential election season upon us. The lower fifth district court outlined the below departments and gave relief to the following:
”The district court agreed with the Plaintiffs and granted preliminary injunctive relief. In reaching that decision, it reviewed the conduct of several federal offices, but only enjoined the White House, the Surgeon General, the CDC, the FBI, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and the Department of State.
The Recent Modified Injunction at the Appellate Court
Excluded the following departments:
“As explained in Part IV above, the district court erred in finding that the NIAID Officials, CISA Officials, and State Department Officials likely violated Plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights. So, we exclude those parties from the injunction.”
What this means:
CISA is part of the Department of Homeland Security and plays a large role in our election infrastructure. Further, the Department of Homeland Security is the largest law enforcement agency within the federal government.
The role of CISA is outlined below:
Election infrastructure is an assembly of systems and networks that includes, but is not limited to:
Voter registration databases and associated IT systems
IT infrastructure and systems used to manage elections (such as the counting, auditing, and displaying of election results, and the post-election reporting to certify and validate results)
Voting systems and associated infrastructure
Storage facilities for election and voting system infrastructure; and
Polling places (to include early voting locations).
Also not included in the modified injunction:
“Third-party entities such as the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP), the Virality Project, the Stanford Internet, the Observatory, the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public, Graphika, and the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab.”
In both the run-up to the 2020 election and since, EIP and the Virality Project worked as an extension outside of CISA, working with social media companies to pressure censorship of Americans First Amendment rights.
Thus, the censorship efforts and their influence on government and social media officials to squash the First Amendment rights of citizens may go unabated with these third-party groups in the modified injunction. Furthermore, most if of the above groups receive federal grants.
Finally, the Department of Homeland Security is not in the modified injunction. Does this give DHS and CISA carte blanche to interact, communicate and place pressure on the social media giants moving forward to censor subscribers?
The modified injunction states the third-party actors are not part of the case and are private entities protected by the First Amendment.
“Finally, the fifth prohibition—which bars the officials from “collaborating, coordinating, partnering, switchboarding, and/or jointly working with the Election Integrity Partnership, the Virality Project, the Case: 23-30445 Document: 238-1 Page: 68 Date Filed: 09/08/2023 No. 23-30445 69 Stanford Internet Observatory, or any like project or group” to engage in the same activities the officials are proscribed from doing on their own— may implicate private, third-party actors that are not parties in this case and that may be entitled to their own First Amendment protections.”
Therefore, as the modified injunction reads, third-party activities are protected by their own First Amendment protections.
Will these third-party actors have unholy partnerships with social media and the government at large moving forward? Will the American people uncover secretive rendezvous between the DHS, the above private third-party entities, and social media companies in the future? The potential continued ramifications are clear from fact checkers slapping claims on subscribers’ posts, to unwarranted suspensions and accounts on social media losing freedom of reach because of these third-party entities. It’s early in the court proceedings, motions and appeals.
This is the biggest First Amendment private-public partnership government collusion case in history.
Stay tuned.
WHAT I REALLY THINK
More work is needed to further define just what level of frank or subdued intimidation the government can inflict on social media companies.
If we know the government… you give them an inch… they will take a mile. And just look at all the government agencies that were left out of this modified injunction.
And what about bribery? After all, hospitals were all too happy to lie about Covid and pneumonia diagnoses, put patients on ventilators, then put them on IV drugs usually given to death-row inmates. Hospitals made up to $500,000 per patient, and doctors who pushed the jab made up to $250,00 or more per quarter.
In one scenario, some can argue that if the government just pays social media companies to censor by signing a “disinformation” or “misinformation” voluntary contract for pay, what is to stop them from censoring? After all, isn’t a social media company a private company?
Just as some employees can get fired for a public social media comment, shouldn’t a CEO of a social media company suffer a consequence for privately disagreeing with censorship?
And even though publicly, Facebook censored for vax “misinformation”, Zuckerberg himself expressed doubts to his executives on genetic modification of jab.
And Elon can now read our direct messages on “X”, the former Twitter.
I think there are more questions than answers, and hopefully, the Court will clarify a zero tolerance policy for censoring freedom of speech.
But perhaps Elon was most honest of all when he let us know on January 16, 2023 that Twitter was really, “State-Affiliated Media”:
Missouri v. Biden Ruling
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