Freedom of Speech? Maybe.

It was fitting that last week’s scathing opinion by Federal Judge Terry A. Doughty was issued on July 4th, our nation’s birthday. Doughty’s decision upheld the free speech principles of the First Amendment to our Constitution and enjoined our government from further censorship. The Biden Administration requested a stay of the judge’s order, which he promptly denied. Though the case will likely be months or years through the appeals process*, it is nonetheless a victory for the People of the United States that gives me hope we might actually prevail over the profoundly illiberal and un-American actions by our government during the Covid debacle.

The case is Missouri v. Biden, in which the Attorneys General of Missouri and Louisiana along with several private citizens sued the Biden Administration and a litany of executive branch officials and agencies for their unconstitutional collusion with and coercion of social media companies to censor Americans’ freedom of speech.

In my recent piece “The Covid Reckoning, Part 1”, I described the government as attempting to set up a real-life “Ministry of Truth” patterned after the one in George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984. Judge Doughty used the same reference in his rebuke of the Biden Administration. 

On cue, and in just two of what will likely be many Orwellian attempts by partisan media outlets to reframe the government’s abuses in a positive light, a Washington Post reporter described it as mere “coordination” rather than censorship and a New York Times piece attempts to smear the judge writing: “And it is being overseen by Judge Terry A. Doughty, who was appointed by President Donald J. Trump and has previously expressed little skepticism about debunked claims from vaccine skeptics. In one previous case, Judge Doughty accepted as fact the claim that “Covid-19 vaccines do not prevent transmission of the disease.”

That “debunked claim” is, in fact, true.

In just one example of the type of “coordination” taking place between the government and social media companies, Rob Flaherty, former Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of Digital Strategy sent this email message to his contact at Facebook when the social media giant apparently failed to meet his expectations to censor, “demote”, or “mitigate” the reach of posts the Biden Administration didn’t like: 

“Are you guys [expletive] serious? I want an answer on what happened here and I want it today.” (Page 23 of the opinion)

Looking at the lengthy list of executive branch agencies and employees named as defendants in the lawsuit, the even lengthier descriptions of their abuses of power, and their admitted determination to continue those abuses, Judge Doughty’s preliminary injunction to prohibit the government from engaging in similar conduct is both warranted and welcome. 

In The Covid Reckoning, Part 1, I detailed just a small snippet of the mis-, dis-, and mal-information that emanated not from private citizens or foreign agents working against the People of the United States but from agents and actors of our own government.

They were objectively wrong about virtually every major pandemic policy or recommendation and used the power of government to prevent Americans from challenging them. 

The First Amendment is first for a reason. Its protections aren’t the Peoples’ reward for good behavior; they are our bulwark so that we can hold government accountable to us. Its protection of the press is to assure its members have access to the information needed to assure that accountability. It’s disappointing so many of them let their partisanship overrule their Constitutional privileges. 

Judge Doughty’s opinion and injunction are welcome developments in the battle for a true reckoning of the abject disaster that was our country’s response to the Covid pandemic. I am hopeful that this case will be a key turning point in the reckoning we need. The First Amendment helps to assure that the objective evidence will allow the People, rather than the government or “experts,” to decide what is true.

Note: This is the original text of my submission to The Dispatch

* On the day an edited version of my OpEd was published, a three judge panel of the Fifth Circuit stayed Judge Doughty’s order while the case works through the appeals process.