From Life Site News
The Defender by Dr. Suzanne Burdick
The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit heard oral arguments in the landmark censorship case brought by Kennedy et al. v. Biden et al.
Kim Mack Rosenberg, general counsel for Children’s Health Defense (CHD), told The Defender that the hearing focused on two things. First, the Fifth Circuit will consider whether to uphold a lower court’s August ruling that two of the three plaintiffs, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and CHD, have legal standing to sue. are.
Second, consider whether to uphold a Louisiana court injunction that prohibits the Biden administration from working with social media companies to censor Kennedy and CHD’s social media posts until the lawsuit is resolved. are.
The lawsuit, filed by Kennedy, CHD, and news consumer Connie Sampognaro, is a lawsuit filed by President Joe Biden, Dr. Anthony Fauci, other government officials and federal agencies to force the nation’s three largest social media It alleges that it carried out an “organized and coordinated campaign” against the government. Corporations censor constitutionally protected speech.
At an Oct. 8 hearing, Jed Rubenfeld, a Yale law professor and plaintiffs’ attorney, told the judge that the district court called this “the most extensive attack on free speech in the history of this country.” It would be shocking if there were no plaintiffs in the country.” I stand to challenge it. ”
Standing is a legal doctrine that requires a plaintiff to be able to show that he or she has suffered a direct and specific injury that can be resolved in court.
The issue of blocking another related government censorship case, Marcy v. Missouri. Plaintiff in Marcy v. Missouri, State of Missouri and State of Arkansas, Dr. Jay Bhattacharyya, Martin Kulldorff, Aaron Keliaty, Gateway Pundit’s Jim Hoft, and health activist Jill Hines link the censorship they experience on social media to government action. He argued that there is a high possibility that it will be censored in the future. In June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the plaintiffs had no standing to sue.
The Murthy – Originally from Missouri, etc. v. Biden et al. – and the Kennedy v. Biden cases were combined because they shared common legal and factual issues. This allows us to share processes such as finding evidence. However, they continued to be tried separately and adjudicated separately.
Mac Rosenberg said the plaintiffs in Kennedy v. Biden are much more likely to prove successful than the plaintiffs in Marcy v. Missouri.
With the Marcy v. Missouri Supreme Court decision at the forefront of the issue of standing, the plaintiffs in our case have clearly articulated their position more than adequately to meet the requirements the Supreme Court laid out in June’s Marcy case. I believe it has been proven.
Mac Rosenberg said there is clear evidence that Plaintiff Kennedy and CHD were, and continue to be, the specific targets of censorship. “CHD in particular continues to be deplatformed from major social media sites with no end in sight.”
She said the facts “indicate that Judge Doty’s injunction was appropriate given the circumstances and the government’s continued actions.”
The legal battle has been going on for more than a year.
Tuesday’s hearing will focus on online news aggregators and social media companies, primarily Facebook, YouTube and Twitter (now known as X).
The lawsuit was filed on March 24, 2023 in the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana.
The lawsuit alleges that key Biden administration officials and federal agencies violated the plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights by censoring online speech unfavorable to the government.
“The federal government’s censorship campaign has repeatedly and systematically targeted constitutionally protected speech based on its content and viewpoint, and has been highly successful,” the complaint says.
Nearly a year later, U.S. District Judge Terry Doty ruled that key Biden administration officials and government agencies should not force or substantially limit social media platforms to suppress or censor online content, including protected free speech. A preliminary injunction was issued prohibiting the promotion.
However, Doughty stayed the injunction until the U.S. Supreme Court issued a similar injunction in Marcy v. Missouri.
Following the Supreme Court’s June 26 decision in Murthy v. Missouri in favor of the Biden administration, Judge Doughty on July 9 announced two cases by Biden administration lawyers seeking to vacate preliminary injunctions. The petition was dismissed.
Less than 24 hours later, lawyers for the Biden administration filed an emergency motion with the Fifth Circuit seeking to block the injunction.
On July 25, the Fifth Circuit remanded the case to the Louisiana District Court to determine whether Kennedy, CHD and Sampognaro have standing to sue. The Fifth Circuit also stayed the injunction while the district court reconsidered the case.
On August 20, the district court granted leave to the plaintiffs to sue and ruled that Kennedy and CHD were correct. Doughty concluded that plaintiff Sampognaro was ineligible.
Lawyers disagree on whether the plaintiff has standing.
At Tuesday’s hearing, U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) attorney Daniel Tenney, arguing on behalf of the defendants, said the Marcy v. Missouri decision “eliminates” the plaintiffs’ theory of why they should prevail. Ta.
Mr. Rubenfeld disagreed, saying the plaintiffs in Kennedy v. Biden differed in important ways from the plaintiffs in Murthy. First, unlike the Murthy plaintiffs, the Kennedy v. Biden plaintiffs have a “specific finding of causation” that “the government defendants, through intimidation, caused the deplatforming and censorship they suffered.” It means there is clear evidence.
Second, the plaintiffs in Kennedy v. Biden have evidence of ongoing injuries, not just past injuries.
The CHD deplatforming that happened a few years ago is exactly the same today, and the situation has not changed since then. In other words, it is the government defendants who are directly responsible for the injuries that CHD is currently suffering.
“Third, there is concrete evidence that a favorable decision in this court would significantly increase the likelihood that plaintiffs would receive relief,” Rubenfeld said.
“That’s the established test for salvageability,” he said. Remedibility means that the injuries claimed by the plaintiff are likely to be remedied if the court grants the relief the plaintiff seeks.
At this point, Rubenfeld said, there is no chance that CHD will be bailed out. “CHD has been filing lawsuits against Facebook for years. They haven’t restored them.”
If the Fifth Circuit ruled that Facebook’s actions were likely unconstitutional and would likely become unconstitutional if Facebook continued to do so, “[Facebook’s]incentives would change and… CHD) is more likely to be cured.”
Plaintiffs’ lawyers said in their brief that Sampognaro, who is potentially immunocompromised, needs access to accurate information about his coronavirus infection and possible treatments, but censorship has prevented that access. He argued that he had a so-called “right to listen” because of the fact that .
Tenney asked the court to continue blocking the district court’s injunction. Rubenfeld argued that the injunction was necessary because U.S. government agencies are “ongoing” trying to influence social media platforms and “suppress speech that is considered misinformation.”
He added, “But we’ve seen time and time again that what they call misinformation often doesn’t turn out to be misinformation, it turns out to be protected speech. .”
The Justice Department declined the Defender’s request for comment on the Oct. 8 allegations.
This article was originally published by The Defender – Children’s Health Defense News & Views website under the Creative Commons License CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
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