Free Speech Upsets Powers that Be
By Sheldon Richman | The Libertarian Institute | July 14, 2023
The Biden administration, along with mainstream politicians and journalists, are really upset that U.S. District Judge Terry A. Doughty has forbidden the executive branch of the central government from communicating with social-media platforms for the purpose of censoring or otherwise suppressing constitutionally protected speech. Judge Doughty’s action came in an important free-speech lawsuit filed against the government.
He wrote in an accompanying statement:
During the COVID-19 pandemic, a period perhaps best characterized by widespread doubt and uncertainty, the United States Government seems to have assumed a role similar to an Orwellian ‘Ministry of Truth.’
So-called respectable government officials, journalists, and pundits — the alleged adults in a room — consider the judge’s temporary injunction the worse thing that could possibly happen. The headline in the “progressive” publication The American Prospect screamed in panic: “Trump Judge Effectively Names Himself President.” (That “Trump judge,” by the way, was confirmed by the Senate 98-0.)
Imagine it: agents from the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and other government agencies may not even “suggest” to Facebook, Twitter, etc., that they ought to take down or hide posts that take issue with the government’s official line about … whatever. Of course, when government officials suggest something to a private party, the suggestion may be interpreted as being accompanied by the subtle threat to retaliate legally if the suggestion is ignored. Think of protection racketeer telling a shop owner, “You have a nice place here. It would be a shame if it burned down.” Get the picture?
As we know, the government has been doing stuff like this for years, whether the matter was related to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Hunter Biden laptop, the Russia-Ukraine war, Russia’s alleged collusive 2016 election tampering, and who knows what else. According to a congressional committee, the FBI apparently even collaborated with Ukrainian intelligence to censor Americans’ frowned-on discussion of the Ukraine war on social media.
The posts that government agencies wanted suppressed included not only statements that were perhaps provably wrong — incorrect speech per se is constitutionally protected, incidentally — but also accurate information that the government simply found inconvenient, like posts and links that might make people hesitate to get the COVID-19 vaccine, wear masks, accept totalitarian social lockdowns, or trust that the coronavirus came from a Chinese market rather than a U.S.-funded lab in Wuhan, China.
Let’s remember that much of the challenge to the government’s take on the pandemic and other matters — criticism belittled as “tin-foil” conspiracy-mongering — turned out to be true. Contrary to the government’s position, the search for the truth requires the freedom to openly disagree and debate. That search abhors centralization, coercion, and the exclusion of anyone but the politically anointed “experts.” The right to free speech is a practical necessity if we are to pursue our well-being. Any step toward the paternalistic centralization of research and control of communication is not only immoral (by whatever standard you like) but also inimical to health, wealth, and other aspects of a fully human way of life.
In other words, as the judge acknowledged, the central government has gone to extraordinary lengths to control what the public can read and say on social media. It’s as if free speech were not a pillar of liberal philosophy and tradition — liberal in the older and best sense of a presumption of individual liberty in all spheres. Further, it’s as if the first restriction on government power in the Bill of Rights was not the absolute prohibition on the infringement of free speech and press. It’s a well-established principle of American law that the government may not pressure private parties to do what it itself may not constitutionally do. Yet that’s exactly what happened — repeatedly. It’s a disgrace. How can the government be trusted? It never could be.
Since the Biden administration, urged on by the power elite and the insecure establishment media, does not like being told that it may not violate our freedom of speech, it asked Judge Doughty to suspend his temporary injunction while the Justice Department appeals it. Judge Doughty said no. So the action moved to the appellate court. The Washington Post said that “The Justice Department’s filing signaled that it could seek the intervention of the Supreme Court, saying that at a minimum, the 5th Circuit should put the order on pause for 10 days to give the nation’s highest court time to consider an application for a stay.”
I sense desperation. The judge must have done something right. Remember that the injunction, alas, does not bar all government contact with social-media companies: he listed exceptions for actual criminality and national security. Only interference with constitutionally protected expression was included. I don’t remind readers of these exceptions to comfort them — the government will likely abuse the exceptions. I remind readers only to show that the order contains those exceptions. So what is the government so worried about? It says that the judge’s order is hopelessly vague and doesn’t address every possible eventuality. The answer is easy: if the choice is between vagueness in restricting government power and violating individual liberty, I know which I prefer. This is supposed to be America, isn’t it? Rights precede government.
Good people have enough to be concerned about when it comes to social media restricting their expression. Yes, they are private companies, and it’s easy to think of people who are so obnoxious that one wouldn’t want to encounter them online.
On the other hand, no one has reason to be confident that Twitter, Facebook, YouTube (Google), etc., will use that right judiciously. That you have a right to do something does not mean you should do it. Can does not imply ought. YouTube reportedly deleted Jordan Peterson’s interview with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. because it contains what it regards as — and well may be — misinformation about vaccines. Kennedy is challenging Joe Biden for the 2024 Democratic presidential nomination. One need not agree with Kennedy on vaccines (I’m inclined not to) to be uneasy about YouTube’s decision. We also can’t rule out that YouTube acted in anticipation of the government’s disapproval. Government casts a shadow over everything.
We mustn’t call on the government to manage social media through antitrust or regulation. We should favor real competition. But we should insist on a prohibition of government action, direct and indirect, to suppress speech on those platforms or anywhere else. Judge Doughty understands that. Let’s hope other judges do too.
In a Free Society…
BY DAVID THUNDER | THE FREEDOM BLOG | JULY 13, 2023
Recent years have demonstrated just how confused Western societies are about the value of freedom. So herewith a little reminder of some simple truths about what it means to live in a free society:
In a free society…
- your right to speak in public does not depend on the permission of a Ministry for Truth.
- your right to speak in public does not depend on whether or not someone feels upset or out of sorts because of your words.
- the government cannot cancel your civil rights or put you under house arrest in order to protect your health.
- the government cannot fire you, fine you, stop you from getting public transport, or exclude you from hospitality venues, just becase you refuse a medication the government thinks you really should take.
- you cannot have your bank account frozen because you participated in a protest against the government or engaged in a form of political activism that the government happens to dislike.
- you cannot be locked out of the banking system or deprived of a credit card just because your political opinions differ from those of the banking establishment
- you cannot be harassed on a daily basis because you have chosen to keep your breathing unobstructed.
- you cannot be forced by a school to expose your children to whatever type of sex education the Minister for Education has deemed, in their “wisdom,” is necessary for everyone.
- you are not frequently shouted down or “cancelled” at institutions of higher education or other public venues, by mobs who find your views disagreeable.
- you are not charged with a “hate offence” because you suggested biological men should not participate in female athletic contests.
- you are not controlled in your spending habits by a central bank technocrat who can turn your cash flow on and off with the flick of a switch.
MK expelled from Knesset for condemning Israel invasion of Jenin
MEMO | July 14, 2023
The Hadash-Ta’al list’s Chairman, Ayman Odeh, was forced out of the Knesset plenary last week during a vote on the Counterterrorism Law after condemning the Israeli attack on the Palestinian refugee camp of Jenin.
He said: “People killed in Jenin. People wounded in Tel Aviv. A killed soldier. All of their blood is because of your damned occupation. Occupation blinds you. Power blinds you. You are not only acting like occupiers, you are acting like idiots.”
His speech came just days after Israel concluded its largest military operation in Jenin in more than 20 years. At least 12 Palestinians were killed, including four children, and more than 140 were injured in the offensive, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
The raid also left a massive trail of destruction across the West Bank city, with dozens of homes, vehicles, shops and utility lines destroyed.
“Every action has a reaction. These are the rules of nature,” added Odeh. “There’s a reaction to the occupation, so there will be resistance. Resisting against occupation is legal. Occupation is illegal. Long live the Jenin! Long live the Palestinian people! Long live their resistance! Shame on you! Take me down! But the Palestinian people will continue to fight!”
In response, Almog Cohen from the far-right Otzma Yehudit Party, shouted: “The blood of those murdered is on your hands; go to Gaza. The more terrorists we kill, the better.”
It all came amidst the approval of the Counterterrorism Law, which specifies that anybody who expresses support for “terrorists” may face up to five years in prison.
Religious Zionist Party MK Zvi Sukkot introduced the bill “to stop the probability test that is required today due to the seriousness of expressing solidarity or sympathy for an act of terror or its perpetrators.”
Following MK Odeh’s criticism against the Israeli invasion of Jenin, Sukkot appealed to the Ethics Committee of the Knesset, Israel Police, and the Attorney General to open an investigation against the MK for expressing his support for the residents of Jenin.
PA troops arrest Palestinian journalist for criticizing political arrests
The Cradle | July 14, 2023
Palestinian Authority (PA) forces arrested journalist Aqil Awawdeh on 13 July after he refuted a statement from PA officials claiming there are no political arrests in the occupied West Bank.
“There is no case of arrest on the basis of political affiliation in the West Bank, and all that is being circulated about its existence are baseless rumors,” the PA statement released on Thursday reads.
Moments later, Awawdeh took to social media to refute this claim, highlighting that students and journalists are arrested regularly for supporting the resistance.
Hours after posting this video, PA troops took Awawdeh from his workplace in Ramallah under charges of “insulting the security services and leaders of Fatah.” Officials have yet to issue a statement on his arrest.
At least 54 political prisoners are currently being held in PA prisons, as the PA regularly hands over detainees directly to the Israeli army, Resistance News Network reported via Telegram.
Two years ago, Awawdeh was severely beaten inside a police station after covering a protest against the PA.
As discontent with PA rule in the occupied West Bank continues to grow exponentially, officials have maintained their grip on power by violently silencing dissent and crushing popular mobilizations.
In June 2021, Palestinian activist Nizar Banat was beaten to death by PA troops for accusing the PA of corruption and criticizing Ramallah’s security cooperation with the Israeli military. Last December, Banat’s family took the case to the International Criminal Court, accusing the PA of alleged war crimes and torture.
Last month, the repressive tactics of the PA once again made headlines following the violent arrest of student leader Abdul Majeed Hassan from his home in Ramallah.
“From the scene of the arrest, we thought that the kidnappers were Israeli undercover units since they have arrested many university students in this brutal way. Beating, dragging, undressing, and screaming were all Israeli means of arrest, but unfortunately, they were mimicked by the Palestinian security services against Abdul Majeed,” Ibrahim Bani Odeh told Middle East Eye about Hassan’s arrest.
The appropriations committee marked up their bill and the budget for the WHO remains at zero!
MERYL NASS | JULY 13, 2023
Furthermore, there is also in the bill no money for operationalizing the Pandemic Treaty unless it goes through the Senate for approval:
The War on ‘Misinformation’: Outlawing Dissident Data on the Road to Tyranny
Judge Terry A. Doughty’s Defense of the Right to be Wrong
Michael Hoffman’s Revelation of the Method | July 12, 2023
“Misinformation” [noun]: Any data that contradicts Establishment dogma
Fittingly, on Independence Day, July 4, U.S. Federal Judge Terry A. Doughty in the Western District of Louisiana, issued a preliminary injunction in the case of Missouri v. Biden, documenting and excoriating the Federal government’s abrogation of the First Amendment with regard to policing social media.
The patricians assigned exalted status as “First Amendment experts” by their cronies in the legacy media, have lied about Judge Doughty’s ruling and presume to explain it to the rest of us mere plebians in the hope that we will not read the 155 pages of his decision.
Thus, His Eminence Laurence Tribe, Carl M. Loeb University Professor of Constitutional Law Emeritus at Harvard University, together with Leah Litman, professor of law at the University of Michigan, contemptuously dismiss Justice Doughty’s decision as buncombe. They rely on their prestige to convince us of their evidence-free claim that, “The impetus behind the case is the now thoroughly debunked conspiracy theory that the government is somehow strong-arming Big Tech into censoring conservative speech and speakers in violation of the First Amendment.”
Words Intended to Trigger our Obeisance
Notice the words intended to trigger our obeisance to the anathema which Tribe and Litman have pronounced: “thoroughly debunked,” and the old reliable put-down, “conspiracy theory.”
No respectable true believer in the stature and renown of the Carl M. Loeb University Professor of Constitutional Law Emeritus will dare to think otherwise than as prescribed.
Tribe and Litman add to their pejorative-laden rant, stating, “the absurdity of different aspects of the decision…….Each step in the reasoning of the decision manages to be more outlandish than the last…”
“Absurd.” “Outlandish.”
They go further: “There is no shortage of errors in this opinion, which is trying to make the infamous ‘Twitter files’ into constitutional law. Who knows whether the equally infamous U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit will correct any of these mistakes…”
“Infamous.” “Equally infamous.”
A heretical thought occurs to the reader of Tribe and Litman’s invective: prove it. They can’t, so they don’t bother.
Ah, but there’s the rub, fellow plebe. This legal duo need not prove anything. They are famous legal scholars.
Musk’s Twitter file revelations are “infamous” and Justice Doughty is “absurd.” Therefore, predicated on their ad hominem adjudication, Tribe and Litman don’t stoop to offering a refutation because none is necessary. Their ipse dixit is sufficient. We are in the realm of the blind faith required of people by the secular religion that enforces a fundamentalist intellectual conformity which brooks no dissent.
Witness the 155 pages of Doughty’s decision dismissed without a single factual reply concerning the Federal government illegally threatening and pressuring social media which publish disfavored authors and data on the Internet.
But is misinformation really the crux of the issue? Witness the misinformation that pours forth daily from the presses of the sacrosanct New York Times. We need look no further than Michael Shear and David McCabe’s report July 5 in the Times regarding Judge Doughty’s ruling. The issue of government censorship, which concerns all civil libertarians across the political spectrum, is reduced to an “effort by conservatives to document what they contend is a liberal conspiracy.”
That’s not just misinformation, it’s a lie. Two victims of the government crackdown on social media who are plaintiffs in the case of Missouri v. Biden, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya and Dr. Martin Kulldorff, are infectious disease epidemiologists, not conservative Republican politics wonks.
The Great Barrington Declaration of October 4, 2020, criticized lockdown policies and expressed concern about the damaging physical and mental health impacts of lockdowns. Shortly after being published, the Great Barrington Declaration, which was signed and endorsed by numerous health science personnel holding a variety of political views, was censored on social media by Google, Facebook and Twitter under the threat of reprisals from the Biden administration.
Jill Hines is Co-Director of Health Freedom Louisiana, a consumer and human rights advocacy organization. Hines was censored because she advocated against the use of mask mandates for young children. Health Freedom Louisiana’s social-media page was suspended on Facebook in January 2022 for sharing a display board that contained Pfizer’s preclinical trial data. Facebook did the government’s bidding.
There are dozens of examples like these. The New York Times is misinforming its readers into believing that Missouri v. Biden is mainly an issue of Republican partisanship, with no wider significance for all liberty-loving Americans. The Times expects us to believe that Justice Doughty ruled in favor of the victims of government-inspired viewpoint censorship because, in the words of Shear and McCable, he is “favorable to right-wing lawsuits.”
The New York Times is determined to engage in misinformation by falsely characterizing the paramount issue, interdiction of freedom of the press by agents of the Federal government, as something of concern to right-wingers who see “liberal conspiracies” under every bed.
As of July 12, in almost every instance of legacy media misinformation related to the judge’s ruling that we have encountered, at no time were readers provided a link to Justice Doughty’s decision, which is published online, in order to facilitate the now out-of-fashion principle that the people should be encouraged to decide for themselves, rather than being told what to think.
Instead, the Times referred its readers to Litman and Tribe’s splenetic fulmination, in which government censorship is “content moderation,” and ensuring the Biden administration doesn’t threaten online news media if they don’t submit to their censorship orders, becomes, “a huge blow to vital government efforts to harden U.S. democracy against threats of misinformation.”
Without apprehension, we ought to call a thing by its accurate description. In their report, which appeared on New York University’s website, JustSecurity.org, we regret to say that the University of Michigan’s Litman, and Harvard’s Tribe, lied about Judge Doughty’s ruling—as follows:
“… the district court made no effort to identify circumstances where the government came even close to coercing social media companies into doing something they didn’t want to do…”
How does one parse a mendacity that is so transparently false it is beyond chutzpagh? The duo who put forth the preceding statement are insulting the intelligence of their readers on the assumption that they are too lazy to find and study Justice Doughty’s ruling—in which he clearly “identifies” the points at which the Federal government coerced social media companies into censoring scientists, activists and vital alternative information.
Judge for yourself:
Excerpts from Missouri v. Biden documenting Government Coercion of Social Media Companies
“On May 5, 2021, then-White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki (“Psaki”) publicly began pushing Facebook and other social-media platforms to censor COVID-19 misinformation. At a White House Press Conference, Psaki publicly reminded Facebook and other social-media platforms of the threat of ‘legal consequences’ if they do not censor misinformation more aggressively.
“Psaki further stated: ‘The President’s view is that the major platforms have a responsibility related to the health and safety of all Americans to stop amplifying untrustworthy content, disinformation, and misinformation, especially related to COVID-19 vaccinations and elections.’ Psaki linked the threat of a ‘robust anti-trust program’ with the White House’s censorship demand: ‘He also supports better privacy protections and a robust anti-trust program. So, his view is that there’s more that needs to be done to ensure that this type of misinformation; disinformation; damaging, sometime life-threatening information, is not going out to the American public.”
“On January 23, 2021, three days after President Biden took office, Clarke Humphrey (“Humphrey”), who at the time was the Digital Director for the COVID-19 Response Team, emailed Twitter and requested the removal of an anti-COVID-19 vaccine tweet by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.2 Humphrey sent a copy of the email to Rob Flaherty (“Flaherty”), former Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of Digital Strategy…
“On February 7, 2021, Twitter sent Flaherty a ‘Twitter’s Partner Support Portal’ for expedited review of flagging content for censorship. Twitter recommended that Flaherty designate a list of authorized White House staff to enroll in Twitter’s Partner Support Portal and explained that when authorized reporters submit a ‘ticket’ using the portal, the requests are ‘prioritized’ automatically. Twitter also stated that it had been ‘recently bombarded’ with censorship requests from the White House and would prefer to have a streamlined process. Twitter noted that ‘[i]n a given day last week for example, we had more than four different people within the White House reaching out for issues…”
“On March 15, 2021, Flaherty…demanded a report from Facebook on a recent Washington Post article that accused Facebook of allowing the spread of information leading to vaccine hesitancy…Flaherty followed up by making clear that the White House was seeking more aggressive action on ‘borderline content.”
“On March 22, 2021, Flaherty responded to this email, demanding more detailed information and a plan from Facebook to censor the spread of ‘vaccine hesitancy’ on Facebook. Flaherty also requested more information about and demanded greater censorship by Facebook of ‘sensational,’ ‘vaccine skeptical’ content.”
“On April 13, 2021, after the temporary halt of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine…Flaherty also requested that Facebook monitor ‘misinformation’ relating to the Johnson & Johnson pause and demanded from Facebook a detailed report within twenty-four hours. Facebook provided the detailed report the same day.”
“On April 14, 2021, Flaherty demanded the censorship of Fox News hosts Tucker Carlson and Tomi Lahren because the top post about vaccines that day was ‘Tucker Carlson saying vaccines don’t work and Tomi Lahren stating she won’t take a vaccine..”
“Two days later, on April 16, 2021, Flaherty demanded immediate answers from Facebook regarding the Tucker Carlson video…Facebook…gave the video a 50% demotion for seven days and stated that it would continue to demote the video.”
“…examples of posts that did not violate Facebook’s policies but would nonetheless be suppressed included content that originated from the Children’s Health Defense, a nonprofit activist group headed by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.” (Mr. Kennedy’s group was abeled by the government as one of the “Disinformation Dozen”).
“On April 21, 2021, Flaherty, Slavitt, and other HHS officials, met with Twitter officials about ‘Twitter Vaccine Misinfo Briefing.’…Twitter discovery responses indicated that during the meeting, White House officials wanted to know why Alex Berenson (“Berenson”) had not been ‘kicked off’ Twitter. Slavitt suggested Berenson was ‘the epicenter of disinfo that radiated outwards to the persuadable public.’ Berenson was suspended thereafter on July 16, 2021, and was permanently deplatformed on August 28, 2021.”
“On April 23, 2021, Flaherty sent Facebook an email including a document entitled “Facebook COVID-19 Vaccine Misinformation Brief” (“the Brief”)…The Brief recommended much more aggressive censorship of Facebook’s enforcement policies and called for progressively severe penalties.”
“From May 28, 2021, to July 10, 2021, a senior Meta (Facebook’s parent) executive reportedly copied Andrew Slavitt (‘Slavitt’), former White House Senior COVID-19 Advisor, on his emails to Surgeon General Murthy (‘Murthy’), alerting them that Meta was engaging in censorship of COVID-19 misinformation according to the White House’s ‘requests’ and indicating ‘expanded penalties’ for individual Facebook accounts that share misinformation…”
“Eric Waldo (‘Waldo’) is the Senior Advisor to the Surgeon General and was formerly Chief Engagement Officer for the Surgeon General’s office…Waldo and the Office of the Surgeon General received a briefing from the Center for Countering Digital Hate (‘CCDH’) about the “Disinformation Dozen.” The Center for Countering Digital Hate gave a presentation about the Disinformation Dozen and how they (CCDH) measured and determined that the Disinformation Dozen were primarily responsible for a significant amount of online misinformation.”
“At the July 15, 2021 press conference, Murthy described health misinformation as one of the biggest obstacles to ending the pandemic; insisted that his advisory was on an urgent public health threat; and stated that misinformation poses an imminent threat to the nation’s health and takes away the freedom to make informed decisions….Murthy also stated that people who question mask mandates and decline vaccinations are following misinformation, which results in illnesses and death. Murthy placed specific blame on social-media platforms for allowing ‘poison’ to spread and further called for an ‘all-of-society approach’ to fight health misinformation. Murthy called upon social-media platforms to operate with greater transparency and accountability, to monitor information more clearly, and to ‘consistently take action against misinformation super-spreaders on their platforms.’ Notably, Waldo agreed in his deposition that the word ‘accountable’ carries with it the threat of consequences.” (Emphasis supplied)
“…on July 20, 2021, at a White House Press Conference, White House Communications Director Kate Bedingfield (‘Bedingfield’) stated that the White House would be announcing whether social-media platforms are legally liable for misinformation spread on their platforms and examining how misinformation fits into the liability protection granted by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (which shields social-media platforms from being responsible for posts by third parties on their sites). Bedingfield further stated the administration was reviewing policies that could include amending the Communication Decency Act and that the social-media platforms ‘should be held accountable.’ The public and private pressure from the White House apparently had its intended effect. All twelve members of the ‘Disinformation Dozen’ were censored, and pages, groups, and accounts linked to the Disinformation Dozen were removed…”
“Murthy made statements on the following platforms: a December 21, 2021 podcast threatening to hold social-media platforms accountable for not censoring misinformation; a January 3, 2022 podcast with Alyssa Milano stating that ‘platformers need to step up to be accountable…”
“In addition to ‘misinformation’ regarding COVID-19, the White House also asked social-media companies to censor misinformation regarding climate change, gender discussions, abortion, and economic policy. At an Axios event entitled ‘A Conversation on Battling Misinformation,’ held on June 14, 2022, the White House National Climate Advisor Gina McCarthy (‘McCarthy’) blamed social-media companies for allowing misinformation and disinformation about climate change to spread and explicitly tied these censorship demands with threats of adverse legislation regarding the Communications Decency Act.”
“On June 16, 2022, the White House announced a new task force to target ‘general misinformation’ and disinformation campaigns targeted at women and LBGTQI individuals who are public and political figures, government and civic leaders, activists, and journalists. The June 16, 2022, Memorandum discussed the creation of a task force to reel in ‘online harassment and abuse’ and to develop programs targeting such disinformation campaigns. The Memorandum also called for the Task Force to confer with technology experts and again threatened social-media platforms with adverse legal consequences if the platforms did not censor aggressively enough.”
End quote of excerpts from Missouri v. Biden, July 4, 2023. This judicial freedom document is worthy of study and publication in its entirety.
The War on “Misinformation” — Outlawing Dissident Data on the Road to Tyranny
The question of who is qualified to arbitrate what constitutes misinformation is seldom discussed and mostly neglected, for obvious reasons. If it were deliberated, the bias of the legacy media’s anointed “misinformation experts” (Stanford Internet Observatory, Virality Project, Center for Countering Digital Hate, etc.) would be apparent, along with a larger question: why is “misinformation” supposedly lethal to the commonweal?
In the claustrophobic corridors of conformity where roost our supposed intellectual superiors, there is little historical memory of ideas once denounced as the vilest heresy having been proved right over the course of time, unless those views were on the “progressive” side of the ideological scale.
A truly non-partisan recollection of the past would lead to tolerance and judicious latitude for ideas which the 21st century consensus considers outside the limits of acceptable belief.
Error Has Rights
The precept that error has rights is as old as the Jeffersonian democracy which the Biden administration and its friends in high places, claim to defend. The battle for this principle was successfully fought in the 1780s, and again in the 1960s and ‘70s. It has since been nearly overturned in the new millennium, where it now hangs by a thread.
“Free Press” Smokescreen
The free press debate is mostly a smokescreen for an ideological conflict in which one side of the political spectrum seeks to gain an advantage over the other. Concerning censorship, the Left and the Right are often partners in slime. Trying to find an authentic Jeffersonian on either side is like searching for a Baptist in Mecca. The right of scholars who analyze flaws in the Talmud and the atrocities of the Israeli government to be free of censorship and cancellation, has zero support among most of the Republican legislators, jurists and pundits who are indignant over the suppression of their viewpoints by Biden’s bureaucrats.
In America, much of the interdiction of ideas and obstruction of free inquiry is perpetrated by private companies, and more specifically, the usury industry, which monopolizes online payment systems. In resistance to their monopoly, dissident writers are paid and sustained by readers rather than corporations, which helps to encourage the widest possible diversity of opinion, as well as independent investigative reporting which is vital to the democracy which Prof. Tribe and our would-be Overlords cynically extol with seigneurial conceit, and simultaneously thwart.
In 1789 the Catholic idea that the Blessed Virgin Mary was conceived without sin and assumed bodily into heaven was considered a depraved belief in the eyes of the majority of the Protestant population of the United States. Had it not been for the liberty of conscience enshrined in the Bill of Rights that year, those Catholic beliefs may very well have been outlawed.
234 years later, modern science has discovered that babies in the womb share the cells of their mothers: “Mothers around the world say they feel like their children are still a part of them long after they’ve given birth. As it turns out, that is literally true… Fetomaternal transfer… occurs in all pregnancies and in humans the fetal cells can persist for decades. Microchimeric fetal cells are found in various maternal tissues and organs including blood, bone marrow, skin and liver” (cf. here and here).
Consequently, the Son of God who was of one flesh with the humble Israelite girl we know as His mother Mary, shared his very tissue with her. In light of that discovery by avant-garde science, it seems far less likely that God would have allowed the body that contained within it the flesh of Jesus Christ, to rot on earth. In 1950, when Pius XII declared the bodily assumption of Mary into heaven, it seems he was prescient indeed.
Nowadays, with the desacralization of our society, where the outcome of the colosseum sports game is of infinitely greater interest than the corporeal fate of the human that served as the vessel for the incarnation of God, the once hotly disputed veracity or falsehood of the pontiff’s declaration doesn’t necessitate First Amendment protection. Other controversies however, are ablaze in the white hot fire of zealotry and the certitude that one side is right and the other is not only wrong, it has no right to be wrong. For example, disputing trans claims and COVID orthodoxies are subject to intense proscription.
The Left pretends to want libraries free of censorship. Some of them support trans books in children’s libraries because they have faith in the inherent value of that literature as drivers of transformative thinking in children, not due to any allegiance to the civil libertarian tenets of the First Amendment. Not for a minute would most Leftists countenance the introduction of holocaust denial or white supremacist books in a library under their control. For these folks “freedom of the press” is a pretext for overcoming the censorship demands of one’s adversaries while practicing it oneself.
The Right wants libraries stocked with writings by Karl Rove, Ludwig von Mises, Glenn Beck, John Bolton, Hannity and O’Reilly. A majority actively oppose the presence of books in public libraries by Noam Chomsky, Margaret Atwood, Edward Said, Alexander Cockburn, and Maureen Dowd. Like the Left, the Right mainly operates by a dual standard.
Knowledge of the history of the struggle for intellectual freedom and the life stories of John Lilburne, Michael Servetus, John Tyndale, Edmund Campion, Ignaz Semmelweis, Eugene V. Debs, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Harry Elmer Barnes, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Norman Finkelstein, are instrumental in kindling a commitment to the American Way: •rights of conscience, •the necessity of a free press, and •toleration of opinions designated as “misinformation.”
The debate turns on whether or not a free people require intervention by “expert authorities” like fallible Fauci, who filter what would otherwise be unfettered access to information.
To prove his points in the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson stated, “… let Facts be submitted to a candid world.” The Founders of our nation were unequivocal in proclaiming their confidence in the people judging for themselves, without a king, commissar or president—backed by propaganda conglomerates in New York and Hollywood— preventing them from undertaking this sacred civic responsibility and divine right.
That the interdiction of information online is termed by Lucifer’s lexicographers “a defense of democracy,” is among the most egregious evocations of doublethink since George Orwell put pen to paper.
Distilled to its first principle, the defense of democracy depends on the defense of the right to be wrong.
The New York Times, Laurence Tribe, Leah Litman, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, Bobby Kennedy Jr., Alex Berenson and Tucker Carlson, all have a right to be in error. Without that Constitutional liberty guaranteed to every individual — whether heretic or grandee — Fascism from the Right or Communism from the Left will inevitably take control and sift our nation like wheat.
“This country is planted thick with laws… And if you cut them down… do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake.” —Robert Bolt, A Man for All Seasons
FOR THE ADVANCEMENT TO KNOWLEDGE CONTRA CANCEL CULTURE
Michael Hoffman is the author of Secret Societies and Psychological Warfare (2001), The Occult Renaissance Church of Rome (2017) , Twilight Language (2021), six other books published in the United States, as well as overseas in Japanese and French translation, and 122 issues of Revisionist History® newsletter, 1997-2022. Since January, twenty-eight of his essays have been published on Substack. He is a former reporter for the New York bureau of the Associated Press. His podcast, Michael Hoffman’s Revisionist History,® is heard around the world.
Twitter: @HoffmanMichaelA
Copyright ©2023 Independent History and Research, Coeur d’Alene, Idaho 83816-0849
Targeted for Tyranny: We’re All Suspects Under the Government’s Precrime Program
By John & Nisha Whitehead | The Rutherford Institute | July 12, 2023
We’re all being targeted now.
We’re all guilty until proven innocent now.
And thanks to the 24/7 surveillance being carried out by the government’s spy network of fusion centers, we are all now sitting ducks, just waiting to be tagged, flagged, targeted, monitored, manipulated, investigated, interrogated, heckled and generally harassed by agents of the American police state.
Although these precrime programs are popping up all across the country, in small towns and big cities, they are not making us any safer but they are endangering individual freedoms.
Nationwide, there are upwards of 123 real-time crime centers (a.k.a. fusion centers), which allow local police agencies to upload and share massive amounts of surveillance data and intelligence with state and federal agencies culled from surveillance cameras, facial recognition technology, gunshot sensors, social media monitoring, drones and body cameras, and artificial intelligence-driven predictive policing algorithms.
These data fusion centers, which effectively create an electronic prison—a digital police state—from which there is no escape, are being built in partnership with big tech companies such as Microsoft, Google and Amazon, which helped to fuel the rise of police militarization and domestic surveillance.
While these latest expansions of the surveillance state are part of the Biden Administration’s efforts to combat domestic extremism through the creation of a “precrime” crime prevention agency, they have long been a pivotal part of the government’s plans for total control and dominion.
Yet this crime prevention campaign is not so much about making America safer as it is about ensuring that the government has the wherewithal to muzzle anti-government discontent, penalize anyone expressing anti-government sentiments, and preemptively nip in the bud any attempts by the populace to challenge the government’s authority or question its propaganda.
As J.D. Tuccille writes for Reason, “[A]t a time when government officials rage against ‘misinformation’ and ‘disinformation’ that is often just disagreement with whatever opinions are currently popular among the political class, fusion centers frequently scrutinize peaceful dissenting speech.”
Indeed, while the Biden Administration was recently dealt a legal blow over its attempts to urge social media companies to do more to combat so-called dis- and mis-information, these fusion centers are the unacknowledged powerhouses behind the government’s campaign to censor and retaliate against those who vocalize their disagreement and discontent with government policies.
Already, the powers-that-be are mobilizing to ensure that fusion centers have the ability to monitor and lockdown sectors of a community at a moment’s notice.
For instance, a 42,000-square-foot behemoth of a fusion center in downtown Washington is reportedly designed to “better prepare law enforcement for the next public health emergency or Jan. 6-style attack.” According to an agency spokeswoman, “Screens covering the walls of the new facility will show surveillance cameras around the city as well as social media accounts that may be monitored for threatening speech.”
It’s like a scene straight out of Steven Spielberg’s dystopian film Minority Report.
Incredibly, as the various nascent technologies employed and shared by the government and corporations alike—facial recognition, iris scanners, massive databases, behavior prediction software, and so on—are incorporated into a complex, interwoven cyber network aimed at tracking our movements, predicting our thoughts and controlling our behavior, the dystopian visions of past writers is fast becoming our reality.
What once seemed futuristic no longer occupies the realm of science fiction.
The American police state’s take on the dystopian terrors foreshadowed by George Orwell, Aldous Huxley and Phillip K. Dick have all been rolled up into one oppressive pre-crime and pre-thought crime package.
In this way, the novel 1984 has become an operation manual for an omnipresent, modern-day surveillance state in which ordinary Americans find themselves labeled domestic extremists for engaging in lawful behavior that triggers the government’s precrime sensors.
With the help of automated eyes and ears, a growing arsenal of high-tech software, hardware and techniques, government propaganda urging Americans to turn into spies and snitches, as well as social media and behavior sensing software, government agents are spinning a sticky spider-web of threat assessments, behavioral sensing warnings, flagged “words,” and “suspicious” activity reports aimed at snaring potential enemies of the state.
It’s also a setup ripe for abuse.
For instance, an investigative report by the Brennan Center found that “Over the last two decades, leaked materials have shown fusion centers tracking protestors and casting peaceful activities as potential threats. Their targets have included racial justice and environmental advocates, right-wing activists, and third-party political candidates.”
One fusion center in Maine was found to have been “illegally collecting and sharing information about Maine residents who weren’t suspected of criminal activity. They included gun purchasers, people protesting the construction of a new power transmission line, the employees of a peacebuilding summer camp for teenagers, and even people who travelled to New York City frequently.”
This is how the government is turning a nation of citizens into suspects and would-be criminals.
This transformation is being driven by the Department of Homeland Security, the massive, costly, power-hungry bureaucracy working hard to ensure that the government is all-seeing, all-knowing and all-powerful.
Yet here’s the thing: you don’t have to do anything illegal or challenge the government’s authority in order to be flagged as a suspicious character, labeled an enemy of the state and locked up like a dangerous criminal.
In fact, all you need to do is live in the United States.
It’s just a matter of time before you find yourself wrongly accused, investigated and confronted by police based on a data-driven algorithm or risk assessment culled together by a computer program run by artificial intelligence.
Before long, every household in America will be flagged as a threat and assigned a threat score.
Without having ever knowingly committed a crime or been convicted of one, you and your fellow citizens have likely been assessed for behaviors the government might consider devious, dangerous or concerning; assigned a threat score based on your associations, activities and viewpoints; and catalogued in a government database according to how you should be approached by police and other government agencies based on your particular threat level.
Combine predictive policing with surveillance, overcriminalization and precrime programs, then add in militarized police trained to shoot first and ask questions later, and as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, you’ll be lucky to escape with your life.
If you’re not scared yet, you should be.
Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His most recent books are the best-selling Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the award-winning A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, and a debut dystopian fiction novel, The Erik Blair Diaries. Whitehead can be contacted at staff@rutherford.org. Nisha Whitehead is the Executive Director of The Rutherford Institute. Information about The Rutherford Institute is available at www.rutherford.org.
‘Covid Censorship Proved to be Deadly’
BY BILL RICE, JR. | JULY 8, 2023
I wanted to make a quick post to recommend an exceptional and important essay published by The Wall Street Journal’s Opinion section.
In a brief essay (“Covid Censorship Proved to be Deadly”) author Brett Swanson shows how the Censorship Industrial Complex – or what he perfectly describes as “full spectrum censorship” – has effectively caused the unnecessary deaths (and misery) of huge numbers of world citizens.
As the essay makes clear, “truth” and “facts” have become “false narratives” or “dangerous misinformation” …. while false beliefs have become accepted as gospel/infallible truths.
Claims that are wrong, dangerous or dubious cannot be challenged.
As Swanson points out, the masses on social media quickly gleaned the speech they could not make (this shows the toxic effects of “self censorship.”)
The opinions of those who believe the “experts” might be “ignorant” were censored or not allowed to reach large numbers of people. Because of this, “falsehoods” could NOT be “dispelled.”
Swanson points out such a surreal template is the exact opposite of real science, which exists to challenge dubious claims.
A technology (the Internet) that could and should have been used to save many lives – and rebut many falsehoods – was instead used to bully and silence skeptics, who were really just trying to save lives and prevent outcomes that ultimately produced mass misery and devastating consequences for billions of world inhabitants.
The censored, bullied and demonetized skeptics are the real altruistic heroes, not the villains.
Theme fits perfectly with my next big story ….
I’m currently working on a story regarding the Covid outbreak aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier.
The true/vital lesson from this case study should have been that Covid does NOT threaten “everyone.” Per the lessons of the Roosevelt outbreak, this virus certainly doesn’t pose any real mortality risk to the young and middle aged.
But the “false narrative” quickly became that Covid threatens “everyone” … that younger adults and children were also “vulnerable.”
The truth – which would have eliminated irrational fear in most people – could NOT be disseminated as it would threaten the most important (false) narratives/initiatives.
As Swanson points out, the real goal in all of this “full spectrum censorship” is to PROTECT “authority.”
It would have constituted a “crisis” for those in authority if their pronouncements were exposed as “ignorance.”
The bottom line is that the massive and coordinated Censorship Industrial Complex was created to protect the power, wealth and continued control of those in authority.
At least The Wall Street Journal published this essay ….
… Also, The WSJ op-ed section deserves kudos for publishing this piece.
The author didn’t have the space to document the evidence of the huge spike in all-cause (non-Covid) excess deaths, but he still worked those points into his essay.
This by itself is a “win” for our side.
Shocking numbers of “vaccine” deaths/injuries and iatrogenic deaths/injuries are the giant elephants in the room in the mainstream media.
The reason most every-day citizens aren’t shocked by these scandals/truths … is that this story has been … censored. That is, this is NOT a “story.”
But at least The WSJ acknowledged this by publishing Swanson’s superlative essay.
Maybe the “news” division of the WSJ will follow-up on the author’s points and do some real journalism on these taboo topics?
Somehow I doubt this … but, still, the needle exposing the false narratives is moving in the right direction.
Judge Denies Biden Administration’s Attempt To Halt Injunction Against Censorship
By Dan Frieth | Reclaim The Net | July 11, 2023
On Monday, a federal judge from the Western District of Louisiana, Terry Doughty, upheld his ruling, preventing the Biden administration from engaging in specific types of communication with key social media entities.
The initial request to lift the ban on these interactions came from the administration on July 6th, but has now been met with refusal by Doughty. The judge had previously instituted this ban in response to a lawsuit by the Republican state attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana, who are challenging the manner in which government agencies cooperate with social media behemoths to curb the propagation of inaccurate or misleading information regarding the Covid-19 pandemic and election security.
Judge Doughty reasoned that the chances of success for the plaintiffs in the lawsuit were high, and therefore upheld his order. The judge also rejected the notion that the administration would suffer any “irreparable injury” due to the communication restrictions between government agencies and social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.
“The First Amendment free speech rights of Plaintiffs by far outweighs the Defendants’ interests,” Doughty said in his judgment.
Doughty also dismissed the administration’s assertion that his preliminary injunction issued on July 4 was too extensive. He held that the injunction was specifically designed to block only those types of collaboration with social media companies that could infringe upon users’ “protected free speech.” He further opined, “Defendant officials can be and should be trained to recognize what speech is protected and what speech is not prior to working with social-media companies to suppress or delete postings.”
While the ruling restricts certain types of interaction, it does not ban all communication between the government and social media corporations. Doughty’s injunction allows for the continuation of meetings between the government and social media companies, specifically on subjects like cyberattacks.
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Major rabbi says non-Jews are donkeys, created to serve Jews
By Khalid Amayreh, in occupied East Jerusalem | The People’s Voice | October 18, 2010
A major Jewish religious figure in Israel has likened non-Jews to donkeys and beasts of burden, saying the main reason for their very existence is to serve Jews.
Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, spiritual mentor of the religious fundamentalist party, Shas, which represents Middle Eastern Jews, reportedly said during a Sabbath homily earlier this week that “the sole purpose of non-Jews is to serve Jews.”
Yosef is considered a major religious leader in Israel who enjoys the allegiance of hundreds of thousands of followers. … continue
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