Below is my column on Fox.com on the most recent release of Twitter files detailing the FBI’s direct involvement in the targeting and censoring of citizens. The most notable aspect is the effort by the FBI to censor references to the Hunter Biden scandal before the 2020 election. Here is the column:
“They are probing & pushing everywhere.” That line sums up an increasingly alarming element in the seventh installment of the so-called “Twitter files.” “They” were the agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and they were pushing for the censorship of citizens in an array of stories.
Writer Michael Shellenberger added critical details on how the FBI was directly engaged in censorship at the company. However, this batch of documents contains a particularly menacing element to the FBI/Twitter censorship alliance. The documents shows what writer Shellenberger described as a concentrated effort “to discredit leaked information about Hunter Biden before and after it was published.”
Twitter has admitted that it made a mistake in blocking the Hunter laptop story. after roughly two years, even media that pushed the false “Russian disinformation” claims have acknowledged that the laptop is authentic.
Yet, those same networks and newspapers are now imposing a new de facto blackout on covering the details of the Twitter files on the systemic blacklisting, shadow banning, and censorship carried out in conjunction with the government.
The references to the new Hunter Biden evidence were also notable in the dates of these backchannel communications. On October 13, weeks before the election, FBI Special Agent Elvis Chan sent 10 documents to Twitter’s then-Head of “Trust & Safety” Yoel Roth as part of its ongoing efforts. Twitter officials have said the FBI pressure played a role in spiking the laptop story.
It was the next day the New York Post ran its story on the laptop and its incriminating content. The United States government played a key role trying to bury a story damaging to the Democrats before the election.
The Twitter files now substantiate the earlier allegations of “censorship for surrogate” or proxy. While the First Amendment applies to the government, it can also apply to agents of the government. Twitter itself now admits that it acted as an agent in these efforts.
The current media blackout on the Twitter files story only deepens these concerns. For years, media figures have denied Twitter was engaging in censorship, blacklisting, shadow banning and other techniques targeting conservatives. The release of the files has shattered those denials. There is simply no further room for censorship apologists.
In a city that relies on “plausible deniability,” there is no longer a plausible space left in the wake of the releases. All that remains is silence — the simple refusal to acknowledge the government-corporate alliance in this massive censorship system.
To cover the story is to admit that the media also followed the same course as Twitter in hampering any discussion of this influence peddling scandal. Indeed, while the media is now forced to admit that the laptop is authentic, it cannot get itself to address the authentic emails contained in that laptop. Those emails detail millions of dollars in influence peddling by the Biden family. They also detail the knowledge and involvement of Joe Biden despite his repeated denial of any knowledge of the deals.
Those files also raise potential criminal acts that some of us have been writing about for two years. The emails are potentially incriminating on crimes ranging from tax violations to gun violations. In the very least, it is a target rich environment for investigators or prosecutors.
Yet, earlier disclosures showed that key FBI figures tamped down any investigation into the laptop. The latest documents now show the FBI also actively pressured the media to kill the story. That raises deeply troubling questions of the FBI politicalization. After Watergate, the Congress moved aggressively to pursue the use of the bureau by a president for political purposes. There is little call from the media for such an investigation today when the bureau is accused of working for Democratic rather than Republican interests.
The record of such bias extends beyond the Twitter files. In the prior years, FBI agents were found to have shown overt political bias in the handling of FBI investigations. The agency continued to rely on sources like the Steele dossier despite warnings that the Clinton-funded report was likely Russian disinformation. Yet, when it came to Hunter Biden, the FBI reportedly was not interested in aggressively pursuing an investigation while calling on social media companies to censor any discussion of the scandal before the election. It continued to do so despite Twitter executives “repeatedly” indicating there was “very little” Russian activity on the platform.
In January 2020, Twitter’s then director of policy and philanthropy, Carlos Monje Jr., expressed unease on the pressure coming from the FBI and said “They are probing & pushing everywhere they can (including by whispering to congressional staff).”
The question is why the FBI would be “probing & pushing everywhere” despite the fact that the Russian investigation had exposed prior bias related to the 2016 election. That was no deterrent to killing a story viewed as damaging to the Biden campaign.
In the end, the government-corporate alliance failed. Despite the refusal of many in the media to cover the Twitter files, nearly two-thirds of voters believe Twitter shadow-banned users and engaged in political censorship during the 2020 election. Seventy percent of voters want new national laws protecting users from corporate censorship.
It is clear that any such reforms should include a full investigation of the FBI and its involvement in censorship efforts. As many as 80 agents reportedly were committed to this effort. It is clear now that, if we are to end censorship by surrogate, the House will have to “probe and push everywhere” in the FBI for answers.
*The original version of this column linked the ten documents sent by the FBI with the Hunter Biden story. The FBI denies that relationship so that line was altered.
Further proof that what the Twitter files really show is nothing more than government is right up there to the line. Knowing full well about their limitations without breaching them. From the Federalist,
“ An email from the FBI’s National Election Command Post to the San Francisco field office also parrots the key language necessary to avoid triggering the Constitution. Specifically, the FBI’s national election group asked the San Francisco field office to assist in coordinating efforts with Twitter to obtain “any location information associated with the accounts that Twitter will voluntarily provide to aid the FBI in assigning any follow-up deemed necessary to the appropriate FBI field office.” The same email makes clear the FBI would use the necessary “legal process” to obtain access to account-holders’ information.
https://thefederalist.com/2022/12/19/6-huge-takeaways-from-the-sixth-dump-of-twitter-files/
For all the screaming about the First Amendment, then, and the declaration by many that the “Twitter Files” prove the FBI violated Americans’ constitutional rights by seeking the censorship of speech, these exchanges show the FBI attempting to thread the needle to avoid making Twitter a state actor.”
They are not “attempting” to thread the needle. They are successfully threading the needle and that is why those on the right are exploiting this delicate balancing act to deliberately insinuate that they are “hiding” behind those legal terms for to do something more sinister and illegal despite the fact that factually and legally it IS legal. It’s the stuff lawyers like Turley love to discuss at the local pub because of it’s intricate legal reasoning according to the law, not public interpretations of what it should be.
The Federalist despite it’s critical bias has done a good job of being as objective as it can despite it’s obvious want to join in on the narrative that other right -wing media wants to portray.
Knowing full well about their limitations without breaching them. From the Federalist,
Yet Trump instructed the people to peacefully march to the Capital. But his words are ignored, because, shutup.
I wish that Trump would go away as I believe he is harming conservatives with his presence and his lapsing into insanity. HOWEVER, I find it sickening that they will be releasing the guys tax returns into the public domain which is unlike anything that has been done to any other politician since probably Nixon.
How many people would like a gander at Joe Biden’s true financials? He has been in government for 50 years and he is worth over 15 million???? Doesn’t that seem wrong? How about seeing Pelosi’s tax returns? Worth over 100 million and has been in government forever.
Biden’s tax returns are already public: https://www.taxnotes.com/presidential-tax-returns
Biden’s wealth was largely earned while he was out of office: https://www.forbes.com/sites/michelatindera/2020/10/22/how-the-bidens-earned-167-million-after-leaving-the-white-house/
By all means, encourage Congress to require all members to release their tax returns. Judges and Justices too.
I concur with that opinion.
Me, too.
Requests made to Twitter were made by both Democrats and Republicans. What we should consider to be most important are what requests were honored. When requests were made by Democrats the response by Twitter was “Handled”. The FBI knew that the Hunter laptop story was coming down because the FBI had the laptop and because they wiretapped Giuliani’s means of communication. The FBI aided the Democratic party in its election attempts by spying on the Trump Campaign. Somehow the FBI had the laptop for ten months but didn’t bother to verify its contents before they told Twitter that it was just Russian disinformation coming down the pike. To make sure that things went their way they planted a mole at Twitter by the name of James Bake. If this sounds all to nefarious to be real you should keep in mind the nefarious nature of the RussiaGate hoax. Spycraft is in their nature. Morality is not.
Ethics (i.e. a philosophy of relativity) is their religion (i.e. behavioral protocol). Morality is aborted in wicked and toxic solutions. Law is followed when politically congruent (“=”, convenient).
The silver lining to the Twitter debacle, however, is that ex-employee Zola Benedictine has already scored a new job continuing to work for the FBI.
“My new gig is so much like my old job at Twitter, it’s insane,” said Benedictine from her cubicle in the FBI’s San Francisco office. “The pay is competitive, plus I get fun new job perks like infiltration training. Who knew infiltrating your own citizens would be so fulfilling?”
https://babylonbee.com/news/ex-twitter-employee-scores-new-job-continuing-to-work-for-fbi
Every parent should strongly warn their children that the internet is an unsafe technology and likely can never be made safe. One can be penalized for doing wrong by some government bureaucrats.
Years ago, internet companies (ie: email, social media, cable TV searches, etc) kept records somewhere between 3-8 years. Today they probably keep them longer than that. Some federal agencies are trying to create a system of “dossiers” on every citizen (not just criminal suspects) for life. They are building those databases right now.
What that means and the danger to every user: if a crisis or national tragedy happens, Twitter, Facebook, email providers, etc. voluntarily turn over all those records to government agencies (regardless of any federal law).
Immediately, the last 8 years of everything you posted is open to government agencies. So let’s say a January 6 happens, investigators go back at least years. You may have said something, in the wrong way, perceived the wrong way by government bureaucrats.
If you are going to engage in political speech, everyone should be careful how and what you say. The 21st Century is the Wild West when it comes to government agencies. They do what they want to, judges won’t protect you either.
Believe the Left when they warn you
“You take on the intelligence community they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you,”
– Chuck Schumer
I don’t believe it can be emphasized enough that while JT is a constitutional scholar and legal expert, his blog posts primarily focus on what the government should be doing and not what the allows them to do. This is the tug-of-war we see on this blog every day. On one side there is condemnation of government power being used to threaten or outright infringe the rights of our citizens (Whigs). And on the other side there is a defense of these government actions based on existing law (Tories). It’s suicidal to be so ignorant of the fundamental purpose for government. Bastiat describes this latter group:
But, unfortunately, law by no means confines itself to its proper functions. And when it has exceeded its proper functions, it has not done so merely in some inconsequential and debatable matters. The law has gone further than this; it has acted in direct opposition to its own purpose. The law has been used to destroy its own objective: It has been applied to annihilating the justice that it was supposed to maintain; to limiting and destroying rights which its real purpose was to respect. The law has placed the collective force at the disposal of the unscrupulous who wish, without risk, to exploit the person, liberty, and property of others. It has converted plunder into a right, in order to protect plunder. And it has converted lawful defense into a crime, in order to punish lawful defense.
http://bastiat.org/en/the_law.html
Next we will learn that FBI undercover plants were behind the January 6th staged break ins…just like we all knew anyway.
“For years, media figures have denied Twitter was engaging in censorship, blacklisting, shadow banning and other techniques targeting conservatives. The release of the files have shattered those denials.”
When that happens, the media moves onto step 2 in the Clintonista handbook: They declare it OLD NEWS, “Which it is, if you think about it,” said Biden’s press secretary.
“So, if it’s old, does that mean that you don’t have to answer questions about it?” I would ask if I were a reporter.
How does this “old news” tactic work? How is it that no one asks follow up questions? How is it that we don’t demand that our representatives, and paid public officials, answer questions about their performance?
I made a comment on this site two days ago, – that I did not believe government “coercion” (against Twitter/SM) was necessary. I’m not sure why some comments here reflect the need for “coercion” on the part of the government (to hold the government culpable for colluding with SM to censor speech). As I previously opined in my comments on this blog, I do not see this as requisite to a finding.
It took me a while to find the case that I was trying to recall in my head, but I found the SCOTUS case I was thinking of, to wit:
“…a State normally can be held responsible for a private decision only when it has exercised coercive power OR [emphasis mine] has provided such significant encouragement, either overt or covert, that the choice must in law be deemed to be that of the State.”. Blum v. Yaretsky, 457 U.S. at 1004 (quoting Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison Co., 419 U.S. 345, 351 (1974).
The “or” in the above excerpt is what I was thinking of. I believe this provides some wiggle room for a finding that the federal government colluded with, and provided “significant encouragement,” to Twitter and others to engage in censorship/viewpoint discrimination.
Lin,
Very interesting.
Thank you for bringing that up and for your assessment.
If an American lies to the FBI, it’s a felony. If the FBI lies to Americans, it’s legal.
The Axis of Evil: China, Russia and America
If the FBI lies? Are you suggesting the FBI sometimes tells the truth?
(I must mention caveat: that the alleged conduct/action be generally one traditionally “associated with sovereignty.” Censorship is not, -indeed, censorship by government is prohibited (notwithstanding exceptions). Perhaps this is why the good professor refers to conduct “by proxy” as to conduct normally NOT permitted by Gov’t, i.e., not traditionally associated with sovereignty.
But I say the reverse is still potentially viable, in the same way that the Bakke decision acknowledged “reverse discrimination” (protecting a white/Caucasian medical school applicant from).
Handing candy to a Baby is not coercion or encouragement…..it I pure nature at work.
Same goes for the Government to hand Social Media and the Establishment Media blessing to further their Leftist Agenda by doing the Government’s bidding.
No one can steal your honor and integrity….it cannot be bought…..but it sure as hell can be given away and once gone can never be retrieved.
Lin, that’s the point most of the critics of the “Twitter/government cooperation” are getting wrong. They are assuming it’s illegal or constitutional based on what other pundits and “experts” are telling them when the FBI and the other government agencies are doing exactly the limit of what the law allows them to do. It DOES look suspicious and outright wrong, BUT legally and constitutionally it’s allowable.
My take is this, and this is my view. This whole cooperation and “collusion” idea being discussed largely by right leaning media and pundits is largely an exploitation of the grey lines and blurred lines between government and private entities. The Federalist makes points out correctly that the FBI is certainly threading a needle in the case of Twitter and censorship of certain accounts and information. It’s very easy to exploit these extreme legal boundaries and grey areas to manipulate the public into believing a narrative they want to create in order to keep animosity towards the “left” and those who don’t see things their way. A lot of emotional trigger words are used such as “massive government censorship” or “FBI censorship of conservative views”, etc. all those phrases and terms are designed to trigger a negative emotional response for those who they seek to exploit for political or monetary gain. OR just to get as many readers or views because it’s the easiest way. Because, lets be honest here. Real honest legal analysis and reporting of such events according to facts is BORING and uninteresting. In journalism it’s the headline that grabs your attention first and being a little loose with the facts or using some literary true but sensationalist wording is what will get people to read your articles or columns. What better way to get a consistent viewership and reaction, right?
Don’t get me wrong, the left is just as guilty of this too. In some ways they are worse and I freely admit that. But here’s the problem in my view. Once you have done that you have already “tainted” your viewers to an idea that is factually wrong. Regardless of whether it comes from the left or right. It’s the need to keep that idea alive and sow division that gains you readers, political clout, and profit. This is why sometimes, sometimes, it’s beneficial to censor certain content. It may not be right or moral, BUT….there ARE times when it’s necessary. The right does this on a regular basis when it comes to news about Trump or any Republican that has some embarrassing news or even criminal behavior. The “refuse to cover it” as Turley accuses the left of doing when it comes to the Hunter Biden “scandal”. Would you consider that a fair assessment?
The only constant here is the hypocrisy. It’s what the left points to which Turley or others on the right characterize as an “attack on free speech”. When Elon Musk banned accounts for mocking him he immediately got criticized, not because the left believed it was wrong for him to do it, he was perfectly allowed to do that, it was because of the hypocritical nature of his actions.
” It DOES look suspicious and outright wrong, BUT legally and constitutionally it’s allowable.”
Republican congress committees will be setting up the same line of communication with twitter and the other socials targeting people they want information from.
All is good.
if they meet the legal and constitutional requirements it’s perfectly fine.
Constitutional scholars may want to ignore “constitutional construction” (using past precedents for future law) but isn’t this the elephant in the room nobody wants to deal with?
Without the legally required “constitutional amendment process” America still hasn’t addressed the unconstitutional “War on Drugs” and “War on a Tactic” after 9/11.
We fundamentally amended the U.S. Constitution illegally. The language of the 4th Amendment is extremely clear in it’s wording – it never allowed a “Bush Preemption Doctrine” to subvert 4th Amendment law.
Don’t we first have to correct this false-foundation first? The Bill of Rights, articles and amendments were designed to “restrain” government authority – it’s authority government doesn’t have. Since at least the “War on Drugs” constitutional restraints on authority have been “optional if convenient”. No agency is actually being restrained. Few judges hold them accountable for violating their Oath of Office.
Don’t we have to deal with this? Bureaucrats may actually like it since they can blame it on practices from the 1960’s and 1970’s.
Based on the reasoning of the J6 Committee, is the MSM guilty of a crime by ignoring this story?
Stasi had nothing on these guys. Who wants to light the bonfire at DOJ? As evidenced by the Portland Federal Courthouse, the Feds won’t care.
To say that “as many as 80 agents reportedly were committed to this effort” minimizes the probable extent of “the effort”. It is no great leap to presume that there were hordes of additional agents working the other social media giants, as well as print and broadcast media. To think that the FBI would prod and push Twitter but not the New York Times would be naive. Legacy media cannot report on this story because they are almost certainly co-conspirators. It would expose them to liability.
Under the “Citizens United” ruling, by the U.S. Supreme Court, isn’t Twitter and Facebook “corporate-persons” with constitutional rights.
Wouldn’t Twitter be able to appoint a Special Prosecutor citing Title 18 US Code 245 or 42 USC 1983 (statutes defining constitutional rights) against federal agencies violating 1st Amendment rights?
A government agency coercing a “corporate-person” to censor is clearly illegal under the federal criminal code.
That is one of the more fascinating things about the #twitterFiles and the “mainstream” press blockout of this story. The story IS NOT PARTISAN. It fascinating how the hatred of one individual, Trump, has led these people to discard their principles, integrity, curiosity or concern over protecting the constitution. These members of the DOJ, FBI, other agencies and including members of the diplomatic, core feel they are in charge and the elected officials are just their PR firms, front, so they can do what they want.
Remember when they called all of this conspiracy theories, and that there would have to be an awful lot of people involved to pull this off…and somebody would squeal if that were true? Well, guess what? We were NOT wrong, and there WERE an AWFUL lot of Partisan people who hated Trump enough to NOT let the outsider in. They were out to get the duly elected President, because they didn’t approve. The Obama administration was involved and KNEW the FBI was spying on him since 2015. They are still spying on him, and his supporters. It isn’t a conspiracy theory,….our government is corrupt and there seems to be nothing we can do about it. They are the people the Founders were afraid of. They destroyed a great country…just to stop the truth from coming out about how corrupt they all are.
The FBI and our entire intelligence community are too broken to fix. We need to start over completely by drastically cutting their budgets and their power. A good way to start would be to have independent auditors thoroughly review the agencies, with no restrictions on access to documents. Of course, I don’t expect this to happen. Aless ambitious start would be to declassify and release all the documents related to Kennedy’s assassination.
Democrat senator demands FBI explain how often it hacks Americans
“Wyden asked the FBI how many operations it has carried out using hacking and how many were authorized by the courts.”
https://justthenews.com/government/congress/democrat-senator-demands-fbi-explain-how-often-it-hacks-americans
progressive “news” is giving progressives what they want and need to remain blissfully willfully ignorant. No news is good news about the Twitter files. It is time to stop treating progressives as intelligent.
Progressive leaders treat their own people as morons. That is literally the message of the twitter files.
The NY Post story was heard in great detail by most conservatives in the country.
The conspirators in this effort to censor the truth did not and at this time can not prevent those sources not kowtowing to progressives from offering the truth.
The entire purpose was to keep progressives from learning the truth
Despite the ranting of the left about democracy, for the left voters are supposed to be lead, spoon fed, They serve one purpose – to vote the correct way to acheive power. To accomplish that they must be kept stupid.
And that is the real story of the twitter files.
For those of you on the left – your betters on the left hate you. They think you are stupid. They think you are too stupid to be allowed to know the truth.
“ Progressive leaders treat their own people as morons. That is literally the message of the twitter files.”
False.
They are treating everyone to the facts. It’s the right who are exploiting their gullible base with conspiracy theories, rumors, and outright lies. It’s easier to keep your base scared and ignorant by peddling conspiracy theories and obfuscation of the facts.
John you have made it clear that you only want certain voters to have the privilege. Not just anyone. You want to limit voters to those who “deserve to be voters” instead of anyone which is not what a representative republic form of government is. It’s what authoritarian governments rely on. China has voters too. All of them are only members of the party.
You don’t want just any voter to have that right. Only those deemed “worthy”.
No Svelaz you DEPRIVED your voters of the TRUTH. That is precisely what this is all about.
You lied and you censored the Truth.
The right’s “conspiracy theory” about the Biden’s is Truth.
You are hiding the TRUTH from voters.
You are hiding the FACTS.
There is no place in the entire Twitter files that is about providing voters with FACTS.
There is no place in the entire Twitter files that is not about censoring what is TRUE.
Deflection. If your misrepresentation of what I have said was true – that would not alter the fact that YOU are hiding the truth, facts from voters.
What I have said is that if you want voting to more accurately reflect the will of the people – their values and the strength of their values,
you must do what markets do when people “vote” -0 because that is what free markets are people voting for what they want and need.
To accurately measure a value and its strenght, there must be a cost to voting. The lower that cost the less accurately you will gauge the strength of voters convictions. The higher within reason the more accurately.
I make no judgement on who “deserves to vote”. I allow voters to do that for themselves.
If you are willing to get up off a couch and get to a polling place to vote, then you consider voting important enough you are more likely to make wise choices.
I would note YOU have made the exact same argument with regard to the AZ election.
You said that those voters who had problems in Maricopa county could have gone to other polling places.
While that is not actually true, once a voter logged into get a ballot printed they could not go elsewhere.
However some voters were turned away by the lines and problems and those voters could have gone elsewhere if they cared enough.
You have not only explicitly accepted my argument – you have used it.
There is no difference between saying it is OK if voters leave long lines and do not vote, and it is OK if people are not able to vote by mail.
You have explicitly accepted that inconvenience to the voter is NOT illegal voter supression.
Massive deflection.
The FBI lied to twitter in order to get them to censor a story they knew to be truthful.
The FBI request for censorship was not only outside of any legitimate FBI domain.
It had no legitimate purpose.
The purpose of this censorship was to rig the outcome of an election.
There is no way that is ever legitimate government action.
“Progressive leaders treat their own people as morons. That is literally the message of the twitter files.”
Great comment.
“The entire purpose was to keep progressives from learning the truth”
With Svelaz, they are batting 1,000
“For those of you on the left – your betters on the left hate you. They think you are stupid. They think you are too stupid to be allowed to know the truth.”
Svelaz, read this statement closely. The left hates you and wants you Stupid. Members on the blog find you immoral and Stupid, but they would like to make you moral and smart.
Even the Federalist points out the key distinction about the legality of what the FBI is doing,
“ Here it is necessary to understand the current state of First Amendment jurisprudence, which holds that when the government seeks the private censorship of speech, “what matters is the distinction between attempts to convince and attempts to coerce,” and “a public-official defendant who threatens to employ coercive state power to stifle protected speech violates a plaintiff’s First Amendment rights.” Conversely, a mere request does not trigger the Constitution.
Notice, then, the care the FBI used in its communications with Twitter: The FBI focused not on the government’s interest in censoring the speech, but on the Twitter accounts the FBI said it believed were “violating your terms of service.” The agents used the same or similar boilerplate language in the emails Taibbi published on Friday. Those same emails also ended with the caveat that the information provided by the FBI is “for any action or inaction deem[ed] appropriate within Twitter policy.”
https://thefederalist.com/2022/12/19/6-huge-takeaways-from-the-sixth-dump-of-twitter-files/
Turley doesn’t dwell in that particular caveat because it undermines his overall narrative which is to enrage his gullible readers into thinking the government was specifically targeting them because they are conservative, libertarian, or Trump supporters. The biggest reason why most of those accounts have been targeted lies largely on the fact that the vast majority of these accounts shared information that was largely disseminated by foreign actors intent on influencing our election and the electorate into thinking Trump won or that there is “massive election fraud”. Many wouldn’t hesitate to use that lack of trust THEY sowed in order to undermine our democratic process. THAT is what the FBI, DHS and ODNI are tasked with limiting or preventing WITHIN legally allowable methods such as warning social media networks of possible accounts or actors pursuing such influence by misinformation. It’s a legitimate part of their jobs.
Turley and right-wing media is constantly pushing the narrative that this is deliberate government censorship by portraying it in the darkest light possible using trigger words like “proxy censorship”, “censorship by surrogate”, or “anti-free speech”.
All these files show that the government is toeing a very fine line and it is taking great pains to avoid violating the constitution. What seems to be the gripe for folks like Turley and those on the right is that they can’t really claim what they are doing is truly illegal. It’s just close enough to insinuate that it is with some tweaking and mincing of words to enrage their gullible readers into believing that it is indeed illegal.
They WANT their base to believe it because it serves their purpose of making government as the enemy, evil, and sinister entity that it is. What is truly funny is that private industry gets far more private information and intrudes into people’s lives than government does and that is when people stupidly and willingly give away their rights when they agree to the miriad of TOS in every app they have on their phones.
First the federalist is wrong.
Second their requirement are met.
Next all requests of government are attempts to coerce.
https://imgs.search.brave.com/GxBNYPSBe3bBzkgyciK4eX0V0R5hWlq3nX_i5qhLatY/rs:fit:1200:852:1/g:ce/aHR0cHM6Ly8zLmJw/LmJsb2dzcG90LmNv/bS8tQWs1eFhfV2VY/aGsvV1E5b1lrNzV1/VkkvQUFBQUFBQUFT/WkEvQWFmRHhDYUc4/YjBCang2QUMxaDR3/N3lneHZ0Zk1Zd3VR/Q0xjQi9zMTYwMC9S/b25hbGQtUmVhZ2Fu/LS1JbS1mcm9tLXRo/ZS1nb3Zlcm5tZW50/LWFuZC1pbS1oZXJl/LXRvLWhlbHAtUXVv/dGVzLTEuanBn
SCOTUS doesn’t agree with you that “all requests of government are attempts to coerce.” Their opinions matter legally. Yours do not.
progressives in congress threaten regulation, progressives in the fbi recommends censorship. Twitter and other SM companies do what the fbi recommends.
classic mafia shakedown
SCOTUS doesn’t agree with your analysis of SCOTUS agreeing with you
I am sure that SCOTUS does nto agree with me on much of anything.
But history, morality, philosophy, reality and experience do.
That said – Most of those like you who want to constantly claim to know what Judges or SCOTUS do say, are virtually always wrong.
So since you have claimed that SCOTUS disagrees with me – provide the caselaw to prove that.
Whitney v. California, 274 U. S. 357
“Those who won our independence believed that the final end of the State was to make men free to develop their faculties; and that in its government the deliberative forces should prevail over the arbitrary. They valued liberty both as an end and as a means. They believed liberty to be the secret of happiness and courage to be the secret of liberty. They believed that freedom to think as you will and to speak as you think are means indispensable to the discovery and spread of political truth; that without free speech and assembly discussion would be futile; that with them, discussion affords ordinarily adequate protection against the dissemination of noxious doctrine; that the greatest menace to freedom is an inert people; that public discussion is a political duty; and that this should be a fundamental principle of the American government.
Those who won our independence by revolution were not cowards. They did not fear political change. They did not exalt order at the cost of liberty. To courageous, self-reliant men, with confidence in the power of free and fearless reasoning applied through the processes of popular government, no danger flowing from speech can be deemed clear and present, unless the incidence of the evil apprehended is so imminent that it may befall before there is opportunity for full discussion. If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence.”
Pruneyard Shopping Center v. Robins, establishes that private space can be a public forum.
We have cases headed to SCOTUS right now that expand Pruneyard to Social Media.
Without addressing my argument that Twitter is acting as a Government Agent SCOTUS could easily and likely will find that Social Media is a digital public forum and that states can restrict private censorship of that forum.
Given the Twitter Files – do you really want to bet that SCOTUS is going to find that Twitter with the FBI pushing at its back is free to censor as it pleases.
There is a saying that bad facts make bad law. It is also true that good facts make good law.
SCOTUS has many ways of deciding that the social media censorship that the twitter files prove occured is not constitutional.
I would bet heavily that one way or the other they will find that what occured was not constitutional.
If you think otherwise – provide a supreme court precident.
When I ask you to back up your claims with evidence, you refuse. As ye sow, so ye shall reap.
You can find the argument why a poster who has established a record of credibility need not provide cites.
and why an anonymous poster must support every claim.
Or think of it this way – my FICO score is over 800. People can trust me.
Your FICO score as an anonymous poster is 0. No one should trust you.
If you do not like that – pick a pseudonym and build a reputation for integrity.
I am not hostile to anonymity. I am hostile to giving anonymous posts more credibility than they have earned.
You can have that opinion, but you do not get to dictate anyone else’s opinions.
All opinions are not equal.
You can be of the opinion that earning a good FICO score should not be a prerequiste to getting a loan.
But you would be wrong.
Everyone does not judge people by the same criteria.
But lenders who do not pay attention to a persons financial reputation go broke.
People who do not pay attention to the indicators of credibility make poor decisions.
What I have said is an opinion – it is a guide to measuring credibility.
One that in the real world works.
You may use whatever stupid way you wish
Don’t expect it to work.
Lots of things are relative or opinions. That does not make them equal.
You can hold the opinon that you can borrow as much as you want and not pay it back.
Not likely to work out.
You can have the opinion that you can speak anonymously and concurrently have credibility.
Not likely to work out.
I would note that you dictate all the time.
I would also suggest that you might want to look at a large body of case law regarding police stops.
While the caselaw has created a multi-tiered scheme regarding what the police can and can not do at each step,
A fundimental premise at even the lowest level is that when the police ask, they are not asking, they are commanding.
“ A fundimental premise at even the lowest level is that when the police ask, they are not asking, they are commanding.”
Wrong. You are leaving out the context in which that was applied. Courts have made it quite clear what the distinction is. Asking being a command is entirely dependent on the context of what they are asking. That does not apply with Twitter and the FBI. You’re trying to apply that concept as broadly as possible which I find it funny since you are all about narrow interpretations and precise applications of the law. Until it doesn’t benefit your argument.
Asking is not a command and it’s only true when the proper context is evident. It does not meet that definition with the FBI and twitter.
The context is law enforcement FBI is law enforcement. – though it is applied in all instance of government agents, building inspectors, regulators
Actually the context is provided in the myriads of court decisions. FBI/Twitter is not a context. Law enforcement asking is.
Asking is always commanding when government does it.
You keep throwing out these naked and unsupported assertions.
As I noted there is lots of caselaw on this.
You are speaking off the top of your head.
And it is not much of a head.
John B. Say, really? That is your argument? A meme?
Sigh.
The definition of “coercion” is quite specific. Even in legal terms. The Federalist correctly pointed out that the Government IS threading the needle with Twitter. For very specific reasons. To stay out of constitutional prohibitions on censorship and they are successfully doing that. YOU don’t like it because they are so close to the line and not really breaking the law despite you WANTING it to be that they are committing a grave violation.
Even the Federalist concedes this fine point that while it may look like they are doing something wrong and they may yet depending one more evidence showing that, they are not doing anything illegal or unconstitutional. This is the kind of thing that Turley would argue if he were to be their defense attorney. Turley LOVES those kinds of caveats when he makes a legal argument.
You don’t articulate or show anything that supports your argument. Meaning you don’t have a real argument for your claims.
Please read the federalist article much more carefully – your conclusion is wishful thinking,
And even after the author does not reach your conclusion, he then cites Eugene Volukh one of the more renowned constitutional and free speech lawyers saying that in this context asking is enough.
When you cherry pick the very few bits of an article that appear to say what you want and offer them as reflecting the whole article, that is LYING.
But that should not suprise anyone – You LIED to your own voters to win an election. Worse silenced those telling the truth.
Neither you nor those involved are moral.
“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
John Adams
Svelaz, you ignore the article by Eugene Volokh cited in the Federalist piece. Volokh makes two points:
1. Implicit threats are sufficient; and
2. Mere encouragement may be held to be sufficient, as it is in other areas.
Volokh notes “Generally speaking, courts have said “yes, that’s [i.e., government requests are] fine,” so long as the government speech doesn’t coerce the intermediaries by threatening prosecution, lawsuit, or various forms of retaliation. … On the other hand, where courts find that the government speech implicitly threatened retaliation, rather than simply exhorting or encouraging third parties to block speech, that’s unconstitutional.” There is no evidence that the FBI implicitly threatened retaliation here. Volokh has not written about the “Twitter files” and presumably doesn’t find them that interesting legally.
100+ @anonynous 11:27 am post.
In a long diatribe you ignore the obvious completely.
The result of this conspiracy to suppress alleged misinformation was the suppression of the truth.
Was the forced silencing of people speaking truth.
was the deprivation of the truth to citizens and voters.
Your argument fails miserably because you did not accomplish what you claim to be a legitimate purpose – supressing misinformation.
You failed and supressed the truth.
I have told you repeatedly – you are immoral. That is because you act immorally.
There is no exception to the moral and statutory law prohibiting murder for murdering bad people.
One of the many reasons for this is that you could be wrong.
If you murder someone who is a bad person – you are still a murderer.
If you murder someone you beleive is bad and end up killing someone who is good – you are still a murderer.
Morality is about what you do, not the alleged goodness of your heart.
wash away your incredibly bad attempts to normalize immorality and what occured is clear.
The FBI, Democrats, the Media, Social Media, The DNC, the Biden campaign, the CIA, DHS, ….
All worked together to deprive voters of the truth.
Further they all worked together for a specific purpose – to assure that Trump did not win the 2020 election.
The theme of all the requests is not “disinformation” – it is protect Biden.
Everyone was working towards the same end – to rig the 2020 election.
For all your wishful thinking about some benevolent government operatives merely seeking to protect Truth,
That is not what they did. Suppressing Truth is worse than lying.
Truth is subjective. Your “truth” is not what others may deem the real truth. Facts in evidence don’t support what you call “truth”.
“ Your argument fails miserably because you did not accomplish what you claim to be a legitimate purpose – supressing misinformation.
You failed and supressed the truth.
I have told you repeatedly – you are immoral. That is because you act immorally.”
Nope. Suppressing misinformation has a legitimate purpose if it prevents harm. Past attempts with harm in regards to elections have been shown to be a real threat. Russians DID interfere with our election in 2016 using social media. As a result of that government agencies have a legitimate purpose to counter that by informing and referring certain information to SM and let SM determine what to do with it. That is legal and constitutionally permissible.
As it has been pointed out to you by multiple people. The facts in evidence do not support what you think of as “truth”. You are certainly entitled to that opinion, unfortunately reality does not support your assertions.
Your “truth” is not what others may deem the real truth. Facts in evidence don’t support what you call “truth”.
There is no such thing as your truth, my truth, their truth, our truth. That is the releventism crap liberal teach.
The FBI had Hunters laptop for a year, before the FBI created the lie that it was Russia disinformation. Verifying the contents was done in 24 hours, and 11 months, 364 days, and 23 hours later, the FBI found not a single bit of Russian disinformation.
The FBI censored the truth.
The Great Barringtion Declaration was at worse an opinion, but history has proven it to be more accurate than the Government Narrative.
Neither of those things violated the twitter user agreement.
The banning of Trump did not violate the twitter user agreement.
The govt was using twitter as a proxy to silence the truth, and prop up Governmant Propaganda, The govt violated the 1st amendment of the constitution.
“Truth is subjective.”
This stupid trope.
You really need more familiarity with the actual foundations of the nonsense that you spew.
You are trying badly to address epistemology – the science of knowledge.
Truth is not subjective, it is probabilistic.
Values are subjective.
If I say the moon will orbit the earth tomorow – that is not 100% true. It is 99.999999999% true.
The world could come to an end.
The standard for a harm prevention argument is incredibly high. You can not merely claim – I seek to prevent harm.
The FBI had the HB laptop for almost a year. They were priming SM, because they knew Guiliani had it too.
The charges that FBI files against Guiliani were a pretext to spy on him – which they were doing, they were likely also spying on NY Post, but that is not established yet. The Guilinai spying is. The FBI knew to withing 24hrs when the NY Post story was going to drop.
They KNEW there was not russian interferance. They KNEW the NY Post story was not hacked, leaked or russian disinformation.
They KNEW it was authentic.
The only arguable “harm” was the harm to the FBI of the re-election of Trump.
And that is why the FBI’s actions are themselves HARM, they are a soft coup against the united states.
They are a deliberate effort to interfere in constitutional authority.
The federal government may censor the departure times and routes of ships during a war.
It may not do so during peacetime.
I would further note that the FBI’s actions here are DIRECTLY in violation of the Pentagon papers SCOTUS decision.
DOJ sought to stop the Times and WaPo from continuing to publish the Pentagon papers.
They made the same Harm arguments you are making.
They made further arguments that the publication aided our enemies.
DOJ was merely trying to stop publication of what had not yet been published.
The government LOST.
Your actions are both immoral, illegal, and unconstitutional.
Get over it.
The FBI head of Counter intelligence has testified before Congress that there was no russian interferance in the 2020. Election.
BTW there was actually no interferance in 2016 either. There were a few stupid adds that no one saw, mostly after the election.
NEXT I would note that the latest batch of twitter files documents US DoD interferance in other countries.
Further the FBI had the HB HD almost a year prior to the NY Post story. They knew it was authentic.
They knew it was not hacked.
They knew it was not leaked.
They knew it was not russian disinformation
The twitter files themself document that the FBI had no information supporting claims of Russian interferance.
You can not censor all truth in the hope of thwarting mythical russian disinformation.
“Truth is subjective.”
Ain’t that the truth.
It has nothing to do with immorality. Falling back with arguments about morality is a means to avoid the facts in evidence. That is all you have.
You have lost the arguments on the facts.
You have lost the argument on morality.
You only have to lose one. You lost both.
Government is a necessary evil. That is inherent in its nature.
Government is FORCE – always.
We have government because a few people will initiate force against others to get what they want and the only means of constraining that is force. That is the legitmate and dangerous purpose of govenrment.
https://imgs.search.brave.com/GxBNYPSBe3bBzkgyciK4eX0V0R5hWlq3nX_i5qhLatY/rs:fit:1200:852:1/g:ce/aHR0cHM6Ly8zLmJw/LmJsb2dzcG90LmNv/bS8tQWs1eFhfV2VY/aGsvV1E5b1lrNzV1/VkkvQUFBQUFBQUFT/WkEvQWFmRHhDYUc4/YjBCang2QUMxaDR3/N3lneHZ0Zk1Zd3VR/Q0xjQi9zMTYwMC9S/b25hbGQtUmVhZ2Fu/LS1JbS1mcm9tLXRo/ZS1nb3Zlcm5tZW50/LWFuZC1pbS1oZXJl/LXRvLWhlbHAtUXVv/dGVzLTEuanBn
SCOTUS doesn’t agree with you that “Government is FORCE – always.” Replace “always” with “sometimes” and you’ll have a true claim.
Nope, This is not a question of SCOTUS.
Government is ALWAYS force. That is a tautology.
If you wish to claim that SCOTUS has not always fully grasped that or more accurately considered that, because justices are not stupid and this is NOT something obscure.
The distinction between government and private is FORCE.
Just about the only time Government is not Force is when it is too lazy to do its job.
Government is always force, and every single thing government does requires justification because it is force.
https://fee.org/articles/government-is-force/
“ Government is a necessary evil. That is inherent in its nature.”
Nope. Government is a construct necessary to maintain order in a society. It’s a natural outcome for a need for a society. It’s not “force”. It’s not EVIL. It’s even part of religious doctrine the only difference is it is more authoritarian and dictatorial than the libertarian vision which is more anarchistic.
Order is maintained by force or threat of force.
If that was not true, government would not be necessary.
For what purpose does government gather information on us ?
It does not do so to better provide for our needs. Government gathers information on us to determine if we are up to no good, so that it can use force against us.
For what purpose does private industry gather information on us ?
Does it seek to send us to jail ? Is you bank blackmailing you over your purchases ?
No, private industry gathers information on us so as to figure out how to offer us what we want or need.
My concern about the information private industry gathers is not what they will do with it,
but that they are obligated to share that information with govenrment without my permission of knowledge and that government will use that information to use force against me. To restrict my freedom, take my property or take my life.
That is the purpose of governement – to use force to punish people. We hope that as best as possible government punishes only those who have used force against others.
“ For what purpose does government gather information on us ?
It does not do so to better provide for our needs.
Wrong. I does do so to provide for our needs. It needs data, metrics based on economic, social, environmental, etc. to provide infrastructure, social programs, safety nets, rules, and regulations, etc.
“ Government gathers information on us to determine if we are up to no good, so that it can use force against us.‘
No. It gathers information to determine mostly what was explained above, but also to determine if some have been adhering to the rules set by government which WE authorized. Law enforcement is a function of that and that is why we have constitutional rights such as the 4th, 5th, 1st, amendments,
“ For what purpose does private industry gather information on us ?”
To sell the data. To improve marketing strategies, focus pricing and product distribution, etc. Government uses similar information to determine where public resources are needed, like FEMA, and state aid.
“ My concern about the information private industry gathers is not what they will do with it,
but that they are obligated to share that information with govenrment without my permission of knowledge and that government will use that information to use force against me. To restrict my freedom, take my property or take my life.”
They are NOT obligated to share the information, but that does not mean they can willingly share it if they have specific policies telling everyone that they do and many companies DO have those notices in their TOS. The very ones a LOT of people stupidly agree to when they sign up to a social media platform.
You CAN in writing tell any company you do not wish to share private information with third parties with the exception of legal warrants.
“ That is the purpose of governement – to use force to punish people. We hope that as best as possible government punishes only those who have used force against others.”
False.
That is not the only purpose of government. It is to hold others accountable for breaking rules and regulations that harm others in the process. Your arguments seem more of an emotional response than a logical one. It seems like you would be much better off living out in the wilderness of Alaska free from government intrusion and free to sustain yourself as you see fit. Their are a lot folks that happily live their lives according to libertarian ideals in those s places. In large structured societies like in the lower 48 that is rarely possible. Not impossible, but still possible in rare cases.
Your arguments seem more of an emotional response than a logical one
The argument is nothing but thousands of years of history. But you have no historical knowledge to recognize the facts.
As you noted before the purpose of government is to provide order.
Not only do we provide for our own needs, We Must provide for our own needs.
There is no other way. Government produces nothing.
Well said!
Serious question for constitutional attorneys:
Why didn’t a panel of judges for the federal 9th Circuit Court of Appeals appoint a “Special Prosecutor” to investigate abuses of the federal “Material Witness Statute” in “Al Kidd v. Ashcroft”?
In this case an Attorney General of the United States literally kidnapped U.S. citizens with no probable cause of any crime or any wrongdoing whatsoever. There were also likely torture crimes committed.
A panel of federal judges said it essentially overturned more than 200 years of 4th Amendment law. It was not within the constitutional authority of an Attorney General. None of the Bush attorneys were even disbarred from practicing law.
Why no investigation by a Special Prosecutor?
Federal government is a loose canon.