Missouri v. Biden was filed on May 5, 2022. Since it was initially filed, it has taken quite a trip through the court system. The complaint has been amended 3 times, with the most recent Amendment being to transform the case into a class suit - due to the overwhelming evidence of broad harm to the constitutional rights of all Americans. You can view the docket by using this link. Part I:
The complaint alleged that the US Government was not only threatening and coercing social media companies to censor Americans on social media, but they were also working WITH social media companies to accomplish that goal.
It alleged that topics surrounding COVID-19, the origins of COVID, the Great Barrington Declaration, election integrity concerns, the COVID shot, the Hunter Biden laptop story (and more) were under scrutiny by the White House and other government agencies - and that the government had very publicly threatened to take action against social media companies should they not act to censor viewpoints on those topics that were disfavored by the government.
The Plaintiffs in the case (the states of Missouri and Louisiana, along with several other private plaintiffs) moved for expedited discovery to be able to obtain a limited set of evidence as well as depositions of certain officials. They argued that this evidence would allow them to make the case for a temporary injunction to stop the government from infringing on the first amendment rights of Plaintiffs and their citizens.
Unlike what many have come to expect, the judge GRANTED the motion for expedited discovery and depositions. A struggle ensued between the Government and the Plaintiffs, with the government fighting against the judge in this case (Judge Terry Doughty) to stop discovery and certain plaintiffs from being deposed. They took those complaints to the 5th Circuit of Appeals and a court in Virginia - a court that *usually* is friendly to the government.
At the appellate court level, the government argued that NO ONE should have to leave their government jobs to sit for lengthy depositions in this case, but certainly not the HEAD of CISA, for example.
The appellate court wouldn't play ball with the government and remanded the case back to Louisiana with some guidance on how the judge should proceed. If memory serves me right, this happened three times.
One particularly interesting exchange came with the deposition of former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki. She made threats to social media companies from the podium. They sought to depose her about those threats. She left the office. The government said they had no responsive documents to explain her comments. So Missouri and Louisiana said, "Then we have to depose Jen Psaki."
The court agreed and ruled that now private citizen Psaki needed to testify. The government and Psaki- represented by Rhee - went to a court in Virginia to try to get THAT judge to stop the deposition.
The judge, in that case, laid into both the government and Psaki. It was so stunning I literally read the transcript of the hearing as its own video.
This went back to Louisiana after the Virginia judge said, "You won't like how I rule on this, and your argument is terrible, so I'm sending it back to the judge who SHOULD be making this decision. The judge in Louisiana again decided Psaki should be deposed IF the government didn't have any responsive docs from the press office. Somehow, those docs must've appeared.
All along the way, the government has lost- over and over again. They were also caught hiding discovery materials - the judge rapped them and ordered them to produce or else - which they did.
Another interesting tidbit - once Fauci was deposed, the government sought to seal all depositions and video - along with discovery materials arguing that the government "employees" were being threatened and harassed and faced imminent harm but couldn't produce any examples. The judge ruled against sealing anything but personal info like addresses.
So far, I've only really discussed the procedural happenings — however, what limited expedited discovery, in this case, has exposed (separate and apart from the Twitter files) is unprecedented and abhorrent.
The most widespread and troubling discovery? CISA has designated YOUR THOUGHTS part of the government's infrastructure. They call it "cognitive infrastructure."
They argue they can regulate what you think as they consider it under their purview. Here are just a few other troubling discoveries:
https://www.uncoverdc.com/2023/01/14/the-6-most-shocking-recent-revelations-of-government-censorship/
Recently the Plaintiffs filed their motion to support the temporary injunction - a hearing we have been waiting on for nearly a year because of the government's delays and obfuscations. It was 1,200 FACTS about government-coordinated censorship.
The government responded with a 1200-page monstrosity arguing they did it all - but because of foreign actors and the "safety" of the American people - lest they be exposed to harmful "misinformation." Then they asked the judge to give them another week and postpone this hearing - again, arguing they wouldn't have time to digest the Plaintiff's response to their last filing.
The judge told them he wouldn't be postponing this hearing again. A few days ago, the Plaintiffs filed their response - and it is an encyclopedia of their expedited and limited discovery so far. I want to explain why this case is NOT like any other we have seen.
This isn't what we are used to — a weak judge capitulating to the government. In fact, the judge hasn't capitulated ONCE. Neither has the appellate court, and neither has a DC court.
What is the remedy sought? Well, if the temporary injunction is granted (I am nearly certain it will be), the remedy is to bar the government from working with social media companies to flag and censor posts. They will also be barred from working through NGOs to do the same. (Here's looking at you, EIP and Stanford internet observatory, and Atlantic Council) - no FBI task force inside Facebook or Twitter, no emails back and forth about "vaccine misinfo" and how to stop it. The government has to Cease.
What follows will be a detailed breakdown of the latest filing, an answer to the government's excuses for why
A. What they did isn't really censorship (mainly that they didn't *force* the social media companies to take action)
B. Why what they did is "OK." The guise of national security and "safety" and protecting Americans from "Mis, dis, and Malinformation."
They begin with a hypothetical. They do this because the government tried to make all this behavior "Ok" by claiming that the Trump administration did the same thing.
That is an exercise in futility- the plaintiffs don't care WHAT administration did it, only that it happened, and besides- the Trump White House directed NONE of this activity.
As an added zing, they used book burning as their hypothetical- appeals directly to the left angry that we don't want pornographic books in kids' libraries.
The defendant's "Statement of Facts" is rife with "disinformation," a term they have used as a guise to trample the 1st Amendment rights of Americans…
In the very first sentence of the brief, the government filed to argue why there should NOT be a temporary injunction halting their communication and threats to social media companies- they hide behind the "Foreign" assaults on critical election infrastructure.
However, evidence obtained in this case demonstrates that the Federal government overwhelmingly targets DOMESTIC speech by American citizens.
Depositions and evidence obtained in the case prove that actors responsible for censorship admit that most of what they consider "misinformation" was DOMESTIC in nature, including from the EIP (Keep the EIP front of mind).
The Virality Project, the "medical bureaucracy" portion of the censorship apparatus, admits that for supposed COVID misinformation, the majority of the "misinformation" came from domestic actors.
An important thing to remember is this: Even though what many of us were saying about masks, the shot, COVID origins, etc., was TRUE, even if it WEREN'T, the government is forbidden from censoring. That important tenet aside, even when the FBI moved to censor "foreign" speech, it swept up hundreds of thousands of Americans and journalists— something we will explore further in a moment.
The government admits in their brief that they brought attention to posts they didn't like on social media. And Plaintiffs made the argument that if not for the government taking an active role in flagging "wrong think," no action would have been taken- as more times than not, this content DID NOT break terms of service.
They also argued that all of these agencies worked independently of one another; that there wasn't any coordination between them. As we will see, that is patently false. They didn't all simultaneously decide to act to get social platforms to ban what they didn't want you to see.
As the evidence proves, there was conspiracy behind the censorship. The White House campaign integrated with the Surgeon General, the CDC, and Census Bureau campaigns drew directly from White House pressure. NIAID and NIH censorship efforts draw from the CDC. CISA, FBI, DOJ, ODNI, and other agencies worked together, and all participate in meetings together to facilitate pressure and censorship.
CISA and the FBI worked together to censor the Biden laptop story. NIAID and NIH conspired to censor the lab leak theory and the Great Barrington Declaration. NIAID is embedded in White House censorship activities. CISA and GEC coordinate with each other and with NGOs like the Election Integrity Project-
This isn't a guess. They have the evidence. This happened.
And if you thought it stopped with just agencies, you would be wrong—high-level congressional staffers coordinated with the FBI and social media in secret meetings. The partnership between the White House and Congress gives coercive force to the censorship activities, and there are texts to prove it.
Easterly (the director of CISA) texted that CISA wanted to play a "coordinated role" so that relevant agencies could try to PREBUNK (that's a new one) and debunk trends of information to prevent the chaos that would ensue if every agency was contacting platforms on their own.
And that is what they did- CISA became the hub for many other government agencies to filter their censorship requests through— sort of a censorship "help desk," if you will. I argue that this was the reason they attempted to stand up the "Disinformation Governance Board" several months back. They needed funding and an air of "official" to go along with their already clandestine activities…
I also argue that this lawsuit is the reason they are attempting to cram through the RESTRICT Act or the "TikTok bill." It is because they need Congress to approve their actions here— this lawsuit is going to make it so they can't function.
The government argued, "But this happened before us!" It's somewhat untrue. The Trump White House had no involvement in any of this— the bureaucracy was acting on its own. In fact, there was a secret text between Collins and Fauci where Collins stated the White House would disapprove of what they were doing, and Fauci assured him that they have "more important things to worry about."
Literally, 3 days after Biden took office, the operation was flying. The White House immediately launched a pressure campaign on social media platforms to suppress supposed "COVID misinformation."
The Surgeon General launched his signature "disinformation" initiative at a Virality Project event at the Stanford Internet Observatory. And Biden himself publicly pressured platforms on July 16, 2021- one day after Psaki and Murthy did the same,
The government claims that the injuries from this censorship are "far outweighed by the government's interest in speaking and taking action to promote the public interest."
This is completely antithetical to everything America stands for. This philosophy isn't "the consent of the governed." It is the heavy-handed authoritarian bent we have become all too familiar with.
They also claimed that if the injunction is granted, it will stop the government from disseminating public health information, communicating with social media about criminal activity, and preventing them from being able to police terror attacks.
This is patently absurd. They can do this WITHOUT infringing on our GOD-GIVEN rights.
The government's first claim is that social media companies are economically incentivized to create policy that seeks to censor speech. But then the Plaintiffs went on to cite *just* 19 examples of censorship that never would have happened if the government hadn't prompted them to. I will detail a few of them next.
The brief goes on to state that the depositions from government witnesses dispute the "economic incentive" excuse. As a matter of fact, many of the witnesses testified that social platforms weren't doing *enough* to censor and needed to do more to adjust their policies. Twitter specifically said it was "being told in no uncertain terms, by the public, and by Congress, that it had a responsibility to do a better job protecting future elections."
Chan testified that pressure from Congress, the HPSCI, and SSCI - including threats of adverse legislative action - prompted social platforms to make changes, censor more, and be more "aggressive in account takedowns."
Raise your hand if this is you.
Even Psaki and the WH didn't believe the "economic incentives" theory, as she lamented that social media companies weren't doing enough to censor speech. Facebook removed 18 million pieces of COVID "misinformation." That wasn't enough for peppermint commie.
I highly recommend you take the time to read the entire 125 pages because if I threaded them all, we would be here well into tomorrow. Still, the behavior of Rob Flaherty from the White House was particularly egregious.
The Plaintiffs make sure to remind us that the 1st Amendment doesn't have a "pandemic" exception.
Biden even accused Facebook of "killing people" and the next day threatened Section 230 action on social media companies who didn't comply with their demands.
Social media companies acted in direct response to the White House calling out the "Disinformation dozen." Evidence in the case proves that they acted to deplatform those branded within 24 hours of the White House publicly identifying them.
One of the first actions the White House took was directing social platforms to REMOVE the content that insinuated that Hank Aaron died because of the vaccine... Flaherty then demanded that social media companies remove OTHER posts and people from their platforms. These weren't suggestions; they were DEMANDS.
(I would argue that removing this information directly resulted in death, not the opposite, as the government would claim. But that is my personal opinion.)
Rob Flaherty legitimately did what I have highlighted here. He cursed at, screamed at, patronized, and generally abused the execs at these companies. When they did not do what he told them, he treated them like a battered spouse and threatened them harshly—just an evil way of behaving.
Please read these. He curses at, threatens, demands, sarcastically berates, and more. A lot is detailed here. There was more. I did a deep dive in my pinned tweet.
NONE OF THIS IS ALLOWED.
Hey Tomi Lahren! You were a hot topic at the White House. They didn't like that you speak your mind and tell the truth. The same goes for @TuckerCarlson (SURPRISE!) None of this is allowed in a free country with rights enshrined in the Constitution and bestowed upon us by OUR CREATOR.
There is A LOT more to this filing. This case is of VITAL importance, and I won't stop talking about it until every American understands what our government is doing to us. Corporate Fascism is what they are participating in.
