Today I devoted quite a few neurons to thinking about something to say about 9/11 and decided that I have nothing new and interesting to add to the flow of discourse on that topic. I did, however, notice an essay behind National Review Online’s paywall (Kenin M. Spivak, “The Biden Administration Is Engaged in a Massive Censorship Campaign”) that is 9/11-adjacent and deserving of close attention. It recounts, in startling detail, the Biden Administration’s strenuous efforts to subject online speech to what can only be called “censorship”, as revealed by evidence presented by the plaintiffs in one of the several ongoing court cases styled Missouri v. Biden, this one seeking to “to enjoin the defendants [an array of Executive Branch agencies] from taking any steps to demand, urge, pressure, or otherwise induce any social-media platform to censor or restrict access to content”.
The evidence shows that at least 80 senior officials have participated in a concerted federal enterprise involving at least eleven federal agencies, including the White House, Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Office of the Surgeon General, Census Bureau, and FBI. The manifestly unconstitutional public–private partnership between the administration and Big Tech disregards Chief Justice Warren Burger’s warning that it is “axiomatic that a state may not induce, encourage or promote private persons to accomplish what it is constitutionally forbidden to accomplish.”
Responses to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and emails produced in discovery show that White House, DHS, and HHS officials flagged specific content and examples of content for censorship, including factually accurate dissenting views, under the guise of suppressing “domestic terrorism.”
That President Biden would seek to use government power to silence criticism was sadly predictable, if only the electorate had been paying attention to what little he said during his basement hideaway campaign:
In January 2020, then-candidate Biden told the New York Times editorial board that Section 230 [of the Communications Decency Act] should be “revoked” because social-media companies like Facebook did not do enough to censor false information in political ads criticizing him, and that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg should be subject to civil liability and possibly criminal prosecution for not censoring the Trump campaign. In June and again in September 2020, the Biden campaign demanded that Facebook censor Trump and his supporters.
Examples follow of the implementation of what was thus foreshadowed. To take just three:
At a White House press briefing on July 15, 2021, White House press secretary Jen Psaki explained: “We are in regular touch with these social-media platforms . . . through members of our senior staff.” She made explicit the administration’s unconstitutional violation of free speech when she admitted, “We’re flagging problematic posts for Facebook that spread disinformation,” and added, “They certainly understand what our asks are.”
On February 7, 2022, DHS issued a National Terrorism Advisory Bulletin that claimed that the “proliferation of false or misleading narratives, which sow discord or undermine public trust in U.S. government institutions,” constitutes a “domestic terror threat.” Then, on April 12, CISA announced that it was coordinating directly with social-media platforms to police “Mis-, Dis-, and Malinformation.” Premising its activities on unconstitutional motives, CISA stated: “False or misleading information can evoke a strong emotional reaction that leads people to share it without first looking into the facts for themselves, polluting healthy conversations about the issues and increasing societal divisions.”
At an Axios event on June 14, 2022, White House national climate adviser Gina McCarthy demanded that “tech companies have to stop allowing specific individuals over and over again to spread disinformation” – speech that contradicts federal officials’ preferred narratives on climate change – and threatened congressional action to “hold companies accountable.”
I doubt that very many Americans think that it would be a good idea for the government to take up the role of Supreme Fact Checker. The Administration probably has the same doubt, for it fought hard – unsuccessfully – to hide much of the key evidence sought by the Biden v. Missouri plaintiffs behind a wall of executive privilege.
President Biden talks a lot about “saving democracy”. There will be little democracy left to save if the incumbent regime can decide who is allowed to speak and what they are allowed to say.
Further reading: Jacob Sullum, “Biden’s Sneaky Censors”
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