There now is a definitive list of states where officials want to be able to censor their residents, controlling what they claim is “misleading information.”
And all 23 are led by Democrats.
The list comes courtesy of constitutional expert and popular legal commentator Jonathan Turley, a renowned law professor at George Washington University who not only has testified as an expert before Congress but has represented members in court.
“For years, we have discussed the alarming shift in the Democratic party on free speech with candidates running on pledges to censor opposing views and politicians supporting blacklisting and censorship on social media,” he explained. “Many citizens oppose such efforts to restrict their rights under the First Amendment, but are unaware of the work of their representatives to limit free speech. Now, a filing in the Supreme Court supporting censorship efforts by the Biden administration has supplied a handy list of the anti-free speech states for citizens.”
The legal filing comes in the case Missouri v. Biden in which a district court judge ordered the government to stop coordinating censorship campaigns with social media companies. That ruling is on hold now while the U.S. Supreme Court considers the facts.
The district judge who originally ruled in the dispute, Terry Doughty, charged that, “The United States government seems to have assumed a role similar to an Orwellian ‘Ministry of Truth.'”
In the case, the evidence shows Biden administration officials would pick a comment they disliked, then complain to one of several foundations or organizations. Those groups then would lobby social media companies until those comments were censored.
Turley noted, “The 5th Circuit previously ruled in Missouri v. Biden that administration officials ‘likely violated’ the First Amendment and issued a preliminary injunction banning the government from communicating with social media companies to limit speech.”
He explained California “is leading the effort to get the Supreme Court to reverse a decision enjoining the government from censorship efforts. California has long sought to impose speech limits on doctors, businesses, and citizens to silence opposing viewpoints.”
But he said other Democrat-led states also have joined “this ignoble effort in signing on to the brief of California Attorney General Rob Bonta.”
He said, “The brief lauds past efforts of these states to combat ‘harmful content’ on the Internet and to protect the public from ‘misleading information’ through partnerships with social media companies.”
The list includes:
- Arizona
- Colorado
- Connecticut
- Delaware
- Hawaii
- Illinois
- Maine
- Maryland
- Massachusetts
- Michigan
- Minnesota
- Nevada
- New Jersey
- New Mexico
- New York
- Oregon
- Pennsylvania
- Rhode Island
- Vermont
- Washington
- Wisconsin
- District of Columbia