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The FBI May Have Violated First Amendment with Twitter Censorship. Will the FBI Investigate?
PJ Media ^ | 12/15/2022 | Robert Spencer

Posted on 12/15/2022 7:17:56 AM PST by SeekAndFind

For years now, Leftists have waved away freedom of speech concerns over Big Tech’s censorship of voices that dissent from the Left’s agenda. Twitter, Facebook, Google and the rest are all private companies, you see, and so they can set any speech policies they want. Now that Elon Musk has bought Twitter, that argument has been consigned to the dustbin of history, as it might suggest that Musk is free to restore the freedom of speech on his platform.

But evidence is piling up that the FBI was actively involved in getting pre-Musk Twitter to censor patriots, and it may be that the bureau really did violate the First Amendment in nudging Twitter to deep-six voices it disliked. Now the question is: who can investigate the FBI? Will the FBI investigate itself?

This is not, after all, by any means the first questionable activity of the formerly sterling and unimpeachable feds. It’s a steep descent from putting Al Capone behind bars and busting up the Mafia to participating in the frame-up of a sitting president and investigating angry parents at school board meetings as “domestic terrorists,” but that’s the ugly legacy of Merrick Garland’s FBI. In light of that, it’s no real surprise that, as Fox News reported Wednesday, “the FBI may have may have violated the First Amendment by asking Twitter to moderate certain speech, as revealed in a recent ‘Twitter Files’ release, constitutional experts tell Fox News Digital.”

Fox notes that “a Twitter Files installment released by Substack journalist Matt Taibbi last week revealed Twitter’s former head of safety, Yoel Roth, apparently attended weekly meetings with the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and the Director of National Intelligence about moderating misinformation ahead of the 2020 election.”

(Excerpt) Read more at pjmedia.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Crime/Corruption; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: censorship; fbi; firstamendment; twitter
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Oh yeah, That’s the same Department of Homeland Security that set up a Disinformation Governance Board to restrict speech even further until it was forced to retreat and deep-six the Board over First Amendment concerns.

It should be remembered that the freedom of speech is enshrined in the Constitution in the first place in order to prevent any individual or group from getting precisely the kind of control over the public discourse that the Biden administration is repeatedly trying to attain. If one group can control the parameters of the public discourse or place itself beyond criticism or scrutiny, it has a free hand to establish a tyranny, and no one can utter even the smallest murmur of protest. All the administration’s faux-high-minded concern about “misinformation” and “disinformation” is based wholly and solely upon its decision to try to sell the banning of dissenting voices to the American people under the banner of protecting them from those scourges.

1 posted on 12/15/2022 7:17:56 AM PST by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

lol.


2 posted on 12/15/2022 7:22:21 AM PST by Fido969 (45 is Superman! )
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To: SeekAndFind

The FBI will investigate itself and determine that a clerk down in data processing is guilty. They will frog march him or her (or they/them/those) down to the front door and boot them to the curb!


3 posted on 12/15/2022 7:22:25 AM PST by RoosterRedux
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To: SeekAndFind

“No controlling legal authority” means we don’t prosecute our own.


4 posted on 12/15/2022 7:22:38 AM PST by aynrandfreak (Being a Democrat means never having to say you're sorry)
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To: SeekAndFind

Did they deep-six the board, or just the particular whacko that was going to be the first leader?


5 posted on 12/15/2022 7:23:20 AM PST by BuchananBrigadeTrumpFan (If in doubt, it's probably sarcasm)
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To: SeekAndFind

The first amendment read “congress shall make no law”. This really isn’y a case of Cogress making a law. I wonder what court backing for a policeman to restrict an individual.

Also, they didn’t make the speech itself illegal, they only limited its spread.


6 posted on 12/15/2022 7:25:23 AM PST by Fido969 (45 is Superman! )
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To: SeekAndFind

Nothing will happen. The FBI already has extensive files on all Congressmen, Senators, and others who may want to look into these matters.


7 posted on 12/15/2022 7:31:45 AM PST by LLBeet
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To: SeekAndFind

“formerly sterling and unimpeachable feds.” When was that ever true? Not in my memory, which goes back pretty far at this point.


8 posted on 12/15/2022 7:32:37 AM PST by hinckley buzzard ( Resist the narrative )
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To: RoosterRedux

Durham is on it!


9 posted on 12/15/2022 7:33:02 AM PST by TiGuy22
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To: SeekAndFind

They didn’t just violate the First Amendment, they violated Federal law. Specifically 18USC242 which carries significant criminal penalties. Section 1983 claims are allowed in civil courts, too.

So even if they’re never charged criminally they’re most certainly open to damage awards in Federal civil courts.

L


10 posted on 12/15/2022 7:33:16 AM PST by Lurker (Peaceful coexistence with the Left is not possible. Stop pretending that it is.)
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To: SeekAndFind

It’s a job for a special counsel, but not under corrupt Leftist activist Garland.


11 posted on 12/15/2022 7:33:48 AM PST by 1Old Pro
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To: Fido969

They also said freedom of religion, but Congresscritters aren’t out there personally stopping schools from holding Christmas shows.


12 posted on 12/15/2022 7:35:52 AM PST by John Milner (Marching for Peace is like breathing for food.)
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To: SeekAndFind

Not “MAY HAVE”! “DID”.

The government violated the Constitution. No one will be held accountable because insane anti-Americans are in control.


13 posted on 12/15/2022 7:41:49 AM PST by I want the USA back (News media not worth camel spit. My pronouns: Who, What, I Don't Know.)
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To: SeekAndFind

“May have”?


14 posted on 12/15/2022 7:44:10 AM PST by Regulator (It's fraud, Jim)
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To: SeekAndFind

All your oversight belong to us.


15 posted on 12/15/2022 7:56:53 AM PST by Delta 21 (MAGA Republican is my pronoun.)
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To: SeekAndFind

The FBI will most likely use the Fauci Defense: “We only made RECOMENDATIONS, we had NOTHING to do with any censorship”.


16 posted on 12/15/2022 8:00:33 AM PST by Extra-Ordinary Objectives (My preferred pronouns are intuitively obvious to the most casual observer.)
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To: Delta 21
All your oversight belong to us.

LOL, All your oversight are belong to us.

17 posted on 12/15/2022 8:01:13 AM PST by 1Old Pro
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To: Extra-Ordinary Objectives
The FBI will most likely use the Fauci Defense: “We only made RECOMENDATIONS, we had NOTHING to do with any censorship”.

They literally have whole floors of lawyers concocting a gray area strategy that is "legal".

18 posted on 12/15/2022 8:02:32 AM PST by 1Old Pro
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To: 1Old Pro

19 posted on 12/15/2022 8:07:15 AM PST by Delta 21 (MAGA Republican is my pronoun.)
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To: SeekAndFind

If they did it at Twitter and Facebook (Zuckerberg on Rogan), They did it at Alphabet/Google/Youtube.


20 posted on 12/15/2022 8:11:59 AM PST by Extra-Ordinary Objectives (My preferred pronouns are intuitively obvious to the most casual observer.)
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