Posted on 07/12/2023 1:48:09 AM PDT by Enterprise
U.S. District Judge Terry A. Doughty, acting on a lawsuit filed against the Biden administration by two states and a group of plaintiffs, said the case “arguably involves the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history.”
Court documents show that while top Biden administration officials such as Dr. Anthony Fauci sought publicly and privately to censor social media posts over COVID-19 content, the task was more extensively carried out behind the scenes by a select band of staffers.
These aides led the administration’s efforts to squelch content they opposed, mostly by pressuring social media platforms with repeated requests for content removal, deplatforming of specific users and relentless demands for access to their internal content moderation policies and practices.
The effort began almost as soon as Mr. Biden entered the White House with a Jan. 23, 2021, email from Clarke Humphrey, then the digital director for the administration’s COVID-19 response team.
Mr. Humphrey emailed Twitter officials at 1 a.m. on Mr. Biden’s third day in office and asked them to remove a tweet posted a day earlier by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that suggested, without evidence, that the death of Hank Aaron, 86, could be tied to the coronavirus vaccine.
“Hey folks — Wanted to flag the below tweet and am wondering if we can get moving on the process of having it removed ASAP,” Mr. Humphrey wrote to Twitter.
The job of policing social media appeared to fall mostly to Mr. Humphrey’s White House colleague, Rob Flaherty, who recently left the administration, reportedly to take a job in President Biden’s reelection campaign.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes-dc.newsmemory.com ...
BTTT
Thanks, O. Must be the Joisey connection from my 15 years living outside Philly off the no longer there Collingswood Circle in Camden County.
I could find no Mr. Clarke Humphrey. Perhaps the name threw people off? That’s my only guess, as I believe Clarke is normally a man’s name.
As a practical matter they are immune unless you can find a judge with the integrity and honor to remove their immunity. Good luck with that.
“what do they need “qualified immunity” for at all- if they just do their jobs, and don’t commit any illegal acts”
The idea is that, without immunity, they could be sued by just about anyone, and as government officials tend to not be able to satisfy every “customer”, this would make it impossible for them to do their jobs, and furthermore make it impossible to find anyone masochistic enough to want to work for the government.
It sounds good in theory if the immunity is removed when they misbehave and break the law. But in reality, you have to go to another government stooge to convince them to remove the immunity, and government stooges tend to stick together. So “qualified immunity” becomes nearly indistinguishable from “unqualified immunity”.
Sadly you are likely correct. Have read.about it happening but very rarely, primarily in cases involving blatant racism resulting in innocent people being imprisoned.
There is still only one good Communist.
The law? Nobody cares about the law any longer.
Time to go Batman on these jerks.
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