5th Circuit Upholds Injunction Against Government Censorship

My reaction to the 5th circuit decision Friday upholding the injunction prohibiting government censorship in our Missouri v Biden case. A big win for free speech. pic.twitter.com/ke7unseeVM

— Aaron Kheriaty (@AaronKheriatyMD) September 10, 2023

By Aaron Kheriaty

Here’s my five-minute summary and reaction to the appellate court’s decision on Friday upholding the central provisions in our injunction against the government. (I’ll post the full interview soon when it’s available.)

The unanimous three-judge panel ruled: “The White House, the Surgeon General, the CDC, and the FBI likely coerced or significantly encouraged social-media platforms to moderate content, rendering those decisions state actions. In doing so, the officials likely violated the First Amendment.” The appeals court thereby confirmed that for last several years, our Federal government has been systematically violating the highest law of the land—the United States Constitution—by censoring the protected speech of hundreds of thousands of ordinary Americans tens of millions of times. News of the ruling was front page above-the-fold yesterday in The New York Times and The Washington Post, suggesting that the legacy media cannot ignore this issue any longer.

Not all the defendants in the suit were enjoined by the appellate court’s decision, which focused on the White House, the Surgeon General, the CDC, and the FBI. This is not, however, an indication that the other agencies named as defendants, such as CISA, are free to engage in censorship of protected speech. It simply means that at this early stage of limited discovery the appellate court did not think we have presented sufficient evidence to meet the very high legal bar required for a preliminary injunction. Although the injunction focuses on four agencies, the entire federal government is now on notice: any future communications between government officials and big tech are subject to subpoena and scrutiny in our case. If those come from any of the four enjoined agencies, those officials may now be subject not only to civil liabilities but to criminal penalties as well.

The ruling also confirmed that not only coercion but even “significant encouragement” by government officials to modify content is a form of unconstitutional censorship. The judges ruled that evidence we presented demonstrated both coercion and significant encouragement.

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Via https://aaronkheriaty.substack.com/p/breaking-5th-circuit-upholds-injunction