HUGE: Judge Delivers Major Blow to Biden Admin in MASSIVE Ruling for Freedom of Speech on the Fourth of July

What a wonderful Independence day gift. The Judge said the US government appears to have acted like ‘an Orwellian ‘Ministry of Truth.’

A U.S. District Court judge is temporarily preventing White House officials from meeting with tech companies about social media censorship, arguing that such actions in the past were likely First Amendment violations.

The Tuesday injunction by Louisiana Judge Terry A. Doughty was in response to recent lawsuits from Louisiana and Missouri attorneys general. The suits allege that the White House coerced or “significantly encourage[d]” tech companies to suppress free speech during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Doughty is barring several federal officials and agencies – including some of Biden’s Cabinet members and White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre – from contacting social media companies in efforts to suppress speech.

Google, Meta and Twitter were all named in the lawsuits. (source)

U.S. District Judge Terry A. Doughty has blocked various federal government entities and figures from pressuring social media companies to censor “protected free speech” on their platforms.

Plaintiffs have alleged that the government wielded its authority to trample First Amendment free speech rights.

Breaking: Judge Delivers Major Blow to Biden Admin in Social Media Censorship Case

By Tom Ozimek, The Epcoh Times, July 4, 2023Updated: July 4, 2023:

A federal judge has made a historic ruling by partially granting an injunction that blocks various Biden administration officials and government agencies like the Justice Department and the FBI from working with big tech firms to censor posts on social media.

The injunction came in response to a censorship-by-proxy lawsuit brought by attorneys general in Louisiana and Missouri, who have accused Biden administration officials and various government agencies of pressuring social media companies to suspend accounts or take down posts.

The judge, Terry A. Doughty, wrote in the July 4 judgment (pdf) that various government agencies, including the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency (CISA), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the U.S. Department of State, the Department of Justice (DOJ), and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are prohibited from taking a range of actions with regards to social media companies.

Specifically, the agencies and their staff members are prohibited from meeting or contacting by phone, email, text message or “engaging in any communication of any kind with social-media companies urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner for removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech,” per the injunction.

The agencies are also barred from flagging content on posts on social media platforms and forwarding them to the companies with requests for action such as removing or otherwise suppressing their reach.

Encouraging or otherwise egging on social media companies to change their guidelines for the removal, suppression, or reduction of content that contains protected free speech by the government is also not allowed.

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The judge, a Trump appointee, wrote in the ruling that the Republican attorneys general who sued the Biden administration “have produced evidence of a massive effort by Defendants, from the White House to federal agencies, to suppress speech based on its content.”

The judge wrote in an accompanying memorandum that the plaintiffs are “likely to succeed on the merits in establishing that the Government has used its power to silence the opposition.”

“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,” Doughty wrote.

While the judge’s ruling is not final, the preliminary injunction is a win for the Republican attorneys general who have accused the Biden administration of pressuring big tech companies to engage in censorship-by-proxy scheme.

‘We’re Not Done Yet’

Following the injunction, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey hailed the decision in a series of posts on social media.

“The Court has granted our motion to BLOCK top officials in the federal government from violating the First Amendment rights of millions of Americans. What a way to celebrate Independence Day,” Bailey said in a statement on Twitter.

“The preliminary injunction prohibits nearly all of the federal government, including DHS, DOJ, and HHS, from coercing and colluding with social media companies to censor free speech,” Bailey added.

However, the judge made some exceptions in his order, allowing government officials to contact social media companies to alert them of criminal activity or threats to national security.

Also allowed are contacts notifying social media companies about posts intending to mislead voters about voting requirements or procedures as well as communicating with companies about suppressing posts that are not protected free speech.

The injunction pertains to various named agencies as well as their agents, officers, employees, and contractors.

The Epoch Times has contacted the White House and various agencies named in the injunction with a request for comment.

“We’re not done yet,” Bailey wrote in a post. “We’re just getting started.”

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