We have been discussing the growing amount of evidence of government censorship efforts using third party organizations as well as direct agency action. One source of funding for such effort was the State Department and its Global Engagement Center, or GEC. Now, litigation brought by Missouri and Louisiana shows that State Department officials pushed companies to get onboard with blacklisting efforts. Despite such evidence of direct government censorship efforts, Democratic members continue to oppose attempts to expose the full scope of such government programs and grants. Witnesses who testified about the dangers of such censorship efforts were even denounced as “Putin lovers” and apologists for insurrectionists and racists by leading Democrats.
The latest evidence involves the site LinkedIn, an employment-focused social media site. The concern is that the effort to enlist LinkedIn could reflect an effort to target blacklisted individuals. The company’s “connect to opportunity” takes on a more menacing meaning when used as part of a blacklisting system.
I previously wrote that the congressionally created, federally funded National Endowment for Democracy (NED) supported blacklisting efforts at the British-based Global Disinformation Index (GDI). The index was widely ridiculed for targeting ten conservative and libertarian sites as the most dangerous sources of disinformation; it sought to persuade advertisers to withdraw support for those sites, while listing their most liberal counterparts as among the most trustworthy.
Shortly after my column posted in The Hill, the NED wrote to me to say that it was discontinuing support for the GDI. Microsoft also was forced into retreat after it was shown to be pushing the GDI’s biased blacklist.
Then we learned of additional funding through the State Department’s GEC.
We also know of backchannel communications with the CDC and other agencies.
Now, there is reported evidence that an official at the State Department sent an email to the networking platform LinkedIn advertising the so-called “disinfo cloud,” a GEC-funded project to identify “disinformation” online. While it is now reportedly shutdown, it was advertised as a “one-stop shop” to “identify and then test tools that counter propaganda and disinformation.”
GEC senior advisor Samaruddin Stewart asked for a meeting in February 2020 and said that he was “building relationships with technology companies” as part of the State Department’s efforts at “countering disinformation.” He later sought to get LinkedIn to use the Disinfo Cloud to “assist with identifying, understanding, and addressing disinformation.”
The push to enlist LinkedIn is chilling. This is a site where millions post their resumes and backgrounds for employment purposes. The effort to get the company to filter such postings through its Disinfo Cloud could result in individual blacklisting with government support. If someone has an account on LinkedIn who was flagged as a purveyor of “disinformation” by the State Department, the suggestion is that the company should take steps to remove or take other action with regard to that person. In other words, LinkedIn could be used as the business end of blacklisting.
In earlier columns, I noted that the Biden administration may have played us for chumps. As we celebrated the demise of the infamous Disinformation Governing Board with its “Disinformation Nanny,” the Biden administration never disclosed a larger censorship program, including the use of up to 80 FBI agents.
We now know that this effort extended far beyond Twitter. However, the Democratic leadership has opposed any investigations for years. They have even refused to accept the email evidence. When I testified on the Twitter Files, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) criticized me for offering “legal opinions” without actually working at Twitter. As I have noted, it is like saying that a witness should not discuss the contents of the Pentagon Papers unless he worked at the Pentagon. It was particularly bizarre because I was asked about the content of the Twitter Files. The content — like the content of the Pentagon Papers — are “facts.” The implication of those facts are opinions.
Members like Wasserman Schultz will likely continue to refuse to acknowledge these new emails. However, the public has repeatedly shown in polls that they want transparency on the censorship efforts.
The outreach to LinkedIn is particularly concerning and the House should explore what the State Department was suggesting that the company should do with those individuals or groups targeted as disinformers. For many, Linkedin is a chance to “connect to opportunity” but, for the government, it could offer a more menacing opportunity to connect blacklists to the blacklisted.
There is much we still do not know about these efforts, including the liaison with LinkedIn. Once again, however, the Democratic opposition to investigating the scope of such censorship efforts is telling and troubling. If these campaigns against disinformation are so noble as suggested by Democratic members, they should not oppose full transparency on all programs and grants. The reality is that these efforts raise serious legal and constitutional questions of what I have called “censorship by surrogate.”
The government has sought to achieve indirectly what it cannot do directly in the blacklisting and censorship efforts. These efforts can create a type of agency relationship with social media companies that triggers constitutional protections. The First Amendment only extends to government actions, but that can encompass the work of agents of the government. Even if such agency relationships are not sufficiently established, the efforts undermine free speech values in our country. In either case, we need a full investigation and full transparency on these programs and grants.
ATS is having another meltdown. You can tell that because some of his replies, in anger, don’t appear on the blog. He is self deleting.
ATS writes: “There’s literally *nothing* in your post of substance other than your willingness to call those who don’t agree with you Stalinist. Tell me one specific thing about leftist thought that’s Stalinist…
I’ll wait.”
Censorship.
The response didn’t pop up so it probably was deleted because of ATS’s hissy fit.
Anonymous has asked how are those on the left like Stalin. Lets see. Leftist Senators and Representatives on the left calling for more censorship. A Presidential administration forming a truth commission. The use of the law enforcement agencies to threaten people with opposing views. The tentacles of the government reaching into every source of information that it wants to control. Sounds pretty Stalinistic to me.
Reading through comments. Understanding the reality of the average American IQ of 98 (+/- 10). Gah.
Turley,
LinkedIn has been censoring content for a very long time.
The interesting thing is that on LI, people are self-censoring because they don’t want to offend potential employers.
Its interesting to see that most of the BS in posts are not identified because everyone wants to praise everyone and be a cheerleader.
Its funny to see people attempt to defend bad ideas even when several people who are experts in the field tell them its bad and why its bad.
-G
Darren,
I posted a comment ~ 10:45 AM Eastern Time where I quoted from the Federalist Papers #1 and #2, (Alexander Hamilton and John Jay) with text HTML encoded links. It was a reply to Professor Turley’s article, thus on topic. Please check the WordPress comments trap and free it from its tentacles. If you see any coding errors or banned words in my comment, feel free to edit at your discretion.
Thanks
I recently watched the 1998 movie “Enemy of the State.” The screenwriters were on to something, though I imagine they could not have dreamed up (in their wildest imaginations) what is happening now. In the post-9/11 world, the level of subversion, manipulation, propaganda, spying on U.S. Citizens (as well as every part of the world) and intrusion into privacy is stunning. Someone needs to make a sequel to this movie, though it would be impossible as much of the Hollywood movie industry has fully embraced the act of Kool-Aid drinking. The premise of the movies is that malefactors within the government have too much power and will stop at nothing to employ these techniques to achieve their mission, goals and objectives. “Hold my beer!”
A recent term emerged during the lockdown, “Doom Scrolling.” When a person brings up various news sites, they scroll through one disastrous news headline after another. We are living in an age where much of the information is incomplete, warped and false. The job of the consumer in this era of time is to sift through the barrage and try to piece together some form of truth. Meanwhile, while we are chasing after frivolous stories, the activists are fervently and tirelessly working to tear down our civilization and our way of life.
So long as we are ruled by the largest bureaucracy in human history, too large to be controlled by any elected official of any party, this will only continue and intensify. The only solution is to dismantle the Federal Government lock, stock and barrel, until the are too weak to have any influence in people’s lives whatsoever.
If anyone thinks an election going their way will fix any of the problems today, they are living in a fantasy world.
Government works best when it’s closer to the people.
LinkedIn “should take steps to remove or take other action with regard to that person.” (JT)
So the Biden Stalinists censor dissenters. Then those Stalinists destroy a person’s ability to make a living.
The Left is no longer “liberal.” It is Stalinist.
(P.S. Thank you for sharing, in 3, 2, 1 . . ., that you are on the Left, but . . . Fellow travelers are the flotsam of a movement.)
“The Left is no longer “liberal.” It is Stalinist.”
Absolutely, Sam. That is why when talking about ATS I frequently use the word Stalinist. Other leftists on the blog don’t even know who Stalin was. The knowledge the leftists on this blog have regarding democracy, republic, dictatorship, and fascism is appalling.
ATS’s mindset is so Stalinist like that no matter how many times he reads about these things, he twists them in his head.
Those we place in trust at the US Government, that uses disinformation as a normal practice, are worried that Americans might discern the real truth from what real people have to say.
I think it has clearly been determined from these suits and many other revelations not discussed here that the Biden administration has engaged in massive disinformation, suppression of news and individuals right to speak. No action is taken to stop funding of colleges and universities that engage in forms of speech suppression and alternate viewpoints. And they have allowed the release of AI instruments that can make this even worse. We have the professor’s experience with Chat Gpt and now a mayor in Australia is suing the Chat Gpt people because of smear campaign using an AI. Multiple false charges were lodged against this mayor in the news when all were readily thwarted and proven wrong by simply searching the internet without AI.
The exposure of this massive effort begs the question, who is running it. It’s easy to say the “Biden Administration” but does anyone really think that Senile old mad in coordinating all this. I don’t think so.
This will make electing anyone else very difficult. Especially with the “bought dogs” Of the mainstream media
Who simply won’t even report the entirety of the news. The question is what are we going to do about it.
The only legitimate form is votes but what comes after that when the votes fail and this whole organization just burrows deeper into the body politic and then requires direct intervention. That is something that I really don’t like to contemplate.
The Orange man can make a lot of noise but he is not the one to rip this system out. It hardly skipped a beat even when he was in power.. His grasp is too superficial. This needs someone and some party that is totally relentless. Something Republicans are not known for.
What you say might all be true, but Trump is our best bet. He has had four years to think about it.
To bring down the leftist tyranny, a complete victory for Republicans that want change has to occur. The first step is the bureaucracy, and as we see, the bureaucracy is firmly entrenched, likely more powerful than any President.
I think DeSantis may be a better bet.
Daniel, you might be right but there is no way to know.
I love DeSantis. He is my man. I hope Trump wins and is followed by DeSantis for 8 more years, but I don’t think that he will be better than Trump. Aren’t the Republicans lucky? They have two strong candidates and a bunch more in the wings. The Dems have Biden, mentally incompetent and Kamela who will laugh as the nuclear bombs fall.
DeSantis resisted the Federal public health virus patrol at great political risk and is taking on the DEI corporate and educational establishment. He is more focused and disciplined than Trump, and adept at countering fake news. The biggest open question is whether he will take on the foreign policy blob.
Daniel, that is all true and more. However, the cesspool of our bureaucracy in the federal government is quite different and he will not have the same support he has in Florida. He is also not as well known nationally.
No matter which one runs we will see the same lies, the same cheating and the same attempt to use the media, Hollywood and academia and the federal bureaucracy.
Presently the left wants the two of them to destroy each other and wants to create division on the right. I’m not going to help them.
All good points, GEB! To be fair, the Orange Man was under continuous assault throughout his campaign and his administration. I believe that you are correct in stating that the current president isn’t coordinating all of this. He seems to be more like a bit player in the pre-designed and metastasizing administrative state. The three-letter agencies have way too much power – and that’s likely a function of the fact that Congress is so dysfunctional. I am open to your additional suggestions for removing this malignancy.
Professor Turley refers to a State Department proposal to LinkedIn in February 2020. Trump was then President and Pompeo Secretary of State. So the rot goes very deep.
A thorough investigation is needed to identify the source of these censorship efforts and then, following the adoption of Schedule F by the next Republican President, the Federal bureaucracy needs to be restructured root and branch.
In the meantime, let’s hope Missouri v Biden results in an injunction to end all Government efforts to influence the content of online platforms.
The Biden Administration’s quiet maneuver around the little National Endowment for Democracy speed bump illustrates just how determined the new-age Democratic communists are to get their way. They would reach out to Home Depot, the Red Cross, or Applebee’s if they thought it would help their “disinformation” efforts. There are no limits. They need to be excised for the cancer they are. Thank you, Jonathn, for an excellent article.
It seems Turley is a bit behind the curve. These claims of “proof of government censorship” have been largely dismissed as hyperbole. Matt Taibbi was exposed as a shoddy journalist recently by Medhi Hassan in a brilliant interview showing exactly why Matt’s “expose” with the Twitter files was largely a farce.
Turley is conflating many different things in order to produce a false narrative about what is really going on knowing his readers are going to be too lazy and too ignorant to understand the issue. We already know Turley is only interested in feeding his gullible readers what keeps them on his blog. It’s the same business strategy that Fox News employs with it’s viewers. Feed them BS that keeps them coming. It’s good for business.
https://youtu.be/a597e6Wv_xg
This is nothing more than the same attempt to portray a false narrative about what is going on. Furthermore, Turley is silent on Twitter censoring Matt Taibbi. Elon no longer considers him a reliable disseminator of his twitter files narrative. Medhi Hassan sure made quick work of debunking the Matt’s sloppy journalism.
The Fox News Dominion case will soon get underway and surely Turley would be hard pressed not to write about it, unless he’s contractually obligated to stay silent on the issue. Jury selection starts this tomorrow.
You should wait until the drugs wear off before you post
Shoddy Journalist…LOL. Nice try Swamp Suckler.
https://youtu.be/8hPpMKgjz6I
It was at the point when Mehdi Hasan said, “Does the FBI have a far too cozy relationship with social media companies? Yes, I agree.” that I thought the discussion might be worthwhile. It seemed for a moment that at least one talking head at MSNBC would agree that censorship by surrogate is not hyperbole and that congressional democrats ought to be concerned enough with that coziness to take seriously an investigation into it. But as with everything else we get on partisan cable television talk shows, this one too took a quick deep dive into all the gotcha gamesmanship that goes on when persons are left having to talk over one another. The interview was anything but “brilliant.” It was instead yet another base example of all the hostility and resentfulness we have come to experience and endure daily.
Ron A. Hoffman, Hassan was fact checking Taibbi in real time. These were not gotcha questions. Hassan used Taibbi’s own tweets which showed he was presenting false claims which he admitted were “mistakes”.
Hassan as well as many on the left do agree the FBI has a cozy relationship with social media, however that doesn’t mean that everything the right alleges about that relationship is true. The right uses that close relationship to insinuate false claims and create narratives that feed into the paranoia they’ve created within their base and exploiting it for political gain.
Hassan pointed out clearly how misleading Taibbi’s claims were and he wasn’t the only one pointing them out.
It was anything but “clear.” There is much of what Taibbi has to offer that makes the left uncomfortable. Hassan would have been a better person and journalist to have engaged it all. At least more than what his sullen and gullible viewers have come to expect.
I should take this time to point out something you should know and have appreciation for. With Turley as one who is under an employment contract with FOX News it would not be appropriate nor should it be expected of him to comment on the Dominion lawsuit so long as it is in litigation. But for your grudge and malevolence for all things Turley, I’m reasonably confident you would have cut him some slack on that one.
No Hassan had spent a great deal of effort finding nitts – many of which were false in Taibbi’s reporting,
only to spay out machine gun fashion a long string of attacks that Neither Taibbi not anyone else could have prepared for, nor did Hassan provide Taibbi with adequate opportunity to respond.
How is it that you think Taibbi is actually supposed to deal with a long list of claims that are mostly claims of typos is a long list of tweets
in an on air interview.
Do you want me to start attacking Typos in your posts 2 months ago ?
The only person Hassan succeeded in diminishing was himself.
All his points have subsequently been addressed. typo’s corrected, actual errors corrected.
Nothing undermines the substance of Taibbi’s reporting – it could not possibly.
Taibbi’s reporting is corroborated by MANY sources.
Hassan’s machine gun attacks did not alter that.
Correct like you there are lots of left wing nuts with their heads in the sand.
Regardless of typos over acronyms
The US government – starting with Obama funded private groups to amplify Social Media censorship of viewpoints that the left did not like.
Further the FBI directly involved itself in the same nonsense, as did myriads of other alphabet agencies.
In fact in 2021 Biden WH officials within a few days of the innauguration overtly threatened social media companies that pushed back against their censorship demands.
None of this is secret anymore. It is not confined to Twitter. We have evidence from multiple sources confirming all of this.
It would be nice if those of you on the left would make up your mind.
The idiotic arguement
“we did not censor,
you did not prove it
and even if you did
it would not be wrong”
Does not fly.
Actually Hassan defamed Taibbi.
While Hassan sprayed Taibbi with a shotgun full of claims – nearly all of which proved FALSE.
There were minor errors in Taibbi’s reporting.
Hassan correctly noted that Taibbi misreported CISA for CIS – an easy error to make. But falsely assumed which one he was refering to and then made innumerable false claims based on that false assumption.
With a few typos corrected and a few minor errors corrected there was nothing wrong with Taibbi’s reported.
Hassan has STILL not corrected his false and defamatory claims regarding Taibbi.
Nor has he corrected the his own errors in making false assumptions regarding what Taibbi reported.
Svelaz,
There was nothing consequential wrong with Taibis reporting.
There was alot wrong with Hassan’s long list of false claims that he provided Taibbi with no oportunity to address.
But even if Taibbi had been outed as a bald faced liar – like WaPo and NYT on the Collusion Delusion.
He is far from the only source of information.
Weis has reported the same thing. As Has Shellneberger, As has Glenn Greenwald.
Absent the “spin” the testimony of Twitter execs confirms it.
Internal documents made public – confirm it.
As well as lawsuits in several states confirm not only the govenrment coercion of Twitter, but of Fackbook and the rest of Social Media.
EVen Honest Democrats – like Rho Kahanna are deeply disturbed by what you are trying to pretend away.
The collusion Delusion was a hoax,
While US government collusion to influence the 2020 election was real.
With respect to Fox, why are you fixating on a meritless lawsuit that will inevitably be tossed out
it is merely a question of when.
If Rachel Maddow can say that OAN is “litterally state funded Russian Propaganda” a claim that was trivial proven false, but was protected because it was “opinion”.
Then Fox can claim DVS rigged the election.
I would further note that you are an idiot.
How exactly is it that you expect the news to ever work if it can only report things that are proven beyond a reasonable doubt before reporting ?
There have been many collusion delusion defamation lawsuits. Papadoulis, Trump, Carter Page have all sued.
They were all unarguably defamed.
The reporting was unarguably false.
They all lost.
This is a stupid losing case. It is almost indistinguishable from the Famous Times V. Sullivan lawsuit that established the modern standard for defamation.
“The general proposition that freedom of expression upon public questions is secured by the First Amendment has long been settled by our decisions. The constitutional safeguard, we have said, “was fashioned to assure unfettered interchange of ideas for the bringing about of political and social changes desired by the people.” … “[I]t is a prized American privilege to speak one’s mind, although not always with perfect taste, on all public institutions.” … The First Amendment, said Judge Learned Hand, “presupposes that right conclusions are more likely to be gathered out of a multitude of tongues, than through any kind of authoritative selection. To many, this is, and always will be, folly; but we have staked upon it our all.”
— Sullivan, 376 U.S.
Dear Prof Turley,
It is better to have ‘weaponized congress’ and not need it, than to need a weaponized congress and not have it.
*#ImpeachBidenNow .. . before he kills us all.
Now fascists like Svelaz, or should I just say Democrat operatives like Svelaz, will say that preventing someone from showcasing their resume’ on a job site if said person once said that Dylan Mulvaney is a guy playing a girl is a good thing. Anonymous will tell us that if you once said that the vaccine isn’t working or that the laptop is real then you should be banned from finding a job.
Then these two thorns in the side of all Turley readers will say that Turley is a right winger, Fox should be banned and that Biden is doing a heck of a job.
Hullbobby, nice to know you we are in your thoughts all the time. FYI twitter censored Matt Taibbi. Oops. Looks like the “free speech absolutist” Elon Musk can’t handle criticism. Bummer.
Try English next time Svelaz and Twitter didn’t censor Taibbi, they are having an issue about where his writings can and should appear. It is a business issue, not a censorious issue…and you knw that.
Svelaz, I hope that if you have a kid in his or her 20s that you will see their resume’s banned for saying that the laptop was real. Of course you never actually address the issue at hand because you are just an operative for the Democrats. Why would a Democrat operative complain about Democrat operatives silencing Republicans? Svelaz, you are in the machine for Biden, Pelosi, Schumer et al and it is because of people like you that our 401ks are failing, our money can’t buy groceries, China is threatening WWIII, our border is open, drugs kill 100,000 a year and Russia is in Ukraine. Good job Democrat!
“Try English next time Svelaz and Twitter didn’t censor Taibbi, they are having an issue about where his writings can and should appear. It is a business issue, not a censorious issue…and you knw that.”
LOL!! Nope. Twitter censored Taibbi’s substack links to his articles. It’s censorship. They don’t like his sloppy writing and the fact that he couldn’t criticize Elon for doing what he criticized others of, censorship. You should try sticking to reality once in a while.
All censorship is a business issue with private companies. You don’t want to admit that twitter actually censored Taibbi after being exposed by Medhi Hassan for being a sloppy and disingenuous reporter. Taibbi was forced to admit he made a lot of false claims regarding the twitter files.
“Svelaz, I hope that if you have a kid in his or her 20s that you will see their resume’s banned for saying that the laptop was real. Of course you never actually address the issue at hand because you are just an operative for the Democrats.”
LOL!!! I see you have been gullible enough to buy into the fantasy that Turley spoon fed you. There is no need to address the issue because there IS no issue. Turley is making it into an issue to feed YOUR gullible mind into believing there is some sinister plot by government to censor specific individuals. Clearly nuance and context are not your forte. That’s exactly why Turley loves readers like you. Because you’re easy to convince. Do you realize that you sound like a headline from those cheap tabloids at the check-out stand. The vampire baby is real in your mind isn’t it?
It’s censorship. They don’t like his sloppy writing and the fact that he couldn’t criticize Elon,
He says with no evidence. Just a constant stream of lies.
Iowan2, I posted the link to the interview which shows Taibbi made false claims regarding the twitter files. Plus he was eventually censored by Twitter because Taibbi was linking his own work to substack which for some reason twitter didn’t like. So Taibbi quit twitter in disgust for being censored. It’s all there. All it takes is a b it of research using google. Here,
“After Matt Taibbi Leaves Twitter, Elon Musk ‘Shadow Bans’ All Of Taibbi’s Tweets, Including The Twitter Files”
https://www.techdirt.com/2023/04/10/after-matt-taibbi-leaves-twitter-elon-musk-shadow-bans-all-of-taibbis-tweets-including-the-twitter-files/
You won’t see Turley defending Taibbi against twitter’s censorship. Well we?
No the Interview shows Hassan hachine gunning lots and lots of claims most of which are inconsequential, and pretty much none of which he provided Taibbi any oportunity to address.
All off these have subsequently been addressed.
Taibbi has corrected the few actual typo’s that he made.
None of which alter the substance of his reporting.
I would further note that Hassan actually lied repeatedly in his attacks.
And that the correctiion of Typo’s actually makes Taibbi’s reporting even more damning not less.
Regardless. Taibbi is corroborated by a long long long list of other sources, raw data,
documents from lawsuits against social media. other journalists, and the admissions of twitter executives.
Finally to the tiny extent that Hassan attacked the SUBSTANCE of Taibbi’s reporting – he was WRONG
Svelaz, your ability to do anything beyond the shallowest of thinking is non existant.
There is plenty of public information on the conflict.
The actual conflict is between Substack and Twitter – Taibbi has jumped into the middle of it as someone who uses both sites.
It is a business conflict not a censorship one.
There are conflicting claims regarding Twitter and Substack.
Musk has admitted that Twitter is making it harder for Substack to leverage Twitter resources.
But the claims that substack (not taibbi) is being censored on Twitter do not appear to be true.
None of Taibbi’s posts have been censored. Taibbi has not been blocked.
He is not even being throttled.
On his own Taibbi anounced that he was leaving Twitter.
But he did not leave – he is still posting.
We have been through the claims against Taibbi – They are mostly spurious, Taibbi has corrected the few inconsequential errors,
Regardless other source as well as raw data, court documents and testimoney and even absent spin the testimony of twitter excec confirms Taibbi’s reporting
of government censorship.
One of the errors Hassan fixated on – when corrected actually makes the problem WORSE.
I would also refer you to the recent disasterous interview of Musk by the BBC where for an hour Musk decimated the reporter questioning him about this and other issues.
Musk did an excellent job of addressing your shallow and self contradictory understanding of free speech and censorship in great detail.
Finally – as with all your posts – you make losts of vague assertions – but you provide no evidence,
You wasted a whole paragraph criticizing HullBobby.
A paragraph in which the only thing that is clear is your animus. There is not a single fact or argument,
just lots of childish insults.
I follow @mtaibbi on Twitter. he is still on twitter posting constantly.
He has not been cancelled, or censored.
Taibbi and Musk are having a spat over the fact that Substack is adding competing features and stealing information from Twitter.
Musk blocked SUBSTACKS ability to steal Twitter data. He did not block or censor Taibbi.
Even Taibbi’s tweets criticizing Musk are still up.
If this is your idea of censorship ….
Please Sir, can I have more.
Use LinkedIN and find Yourself: “NOT ECONOMICALLY VIABLE”
All this public information is used AGAINST YOU…that is obvious. Sad people can’t figure it out!
Proposed by John Stuart Mill in On Liberty, The Harm Principle suggests that:
“The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any Member of a Civilized Community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others”
This is what Our Government has forgotten and perverted.
That is the actual foundation of criminal law with one exception.
Government is barred from the use of Criminal law as preventative – a priori.
I.e. You can not charge people with crimes to prevent harm.
Only to punish ACTUAL harms.
Aside from the deterent effect of law, I am absolutely opposed to all preventive – a priori – law. and regulation.
You pushish Acts after the fact that have caused actual harm.
Not before the fact where you fear harm.
Trump almost won in 2020 despite widespread censorship of information that would help Trump and information that would hurt Biden. Since then, Old Twitter has been largely dismantled while government censorship on the other platforms has been exposed. Combine those positive developments with the fact that Biden has allowed millions of illegal immigrants to flood across our southern border, has caused massive price increases in food, transportation, and housing, has us on the verge of a deep recession, has corrupted our schools with woke nonsense, has allowed street crime to skyrocket, and has gotten us into a war, and Trump has a very good chance of winning in 2024.
They still cheat better. So don’t get your hopes up yet. And look back on what happened (or didn’t) with the midterms. Hope springs eternal, but I remain concerned that the Dems will maintain their grip on power and continue to run the executive branch like an unconstitutional legislative branch of government and the DOJ like the Stasi.