PROGRESS: U.S. Supreme Court to Hear Landmark NCLA Case Against Government Social Media Censorship.

For the second time in eight days, the U.S. Supreme Court has granted certiorari in one of NCLA’s cases. This afternoon the Court agreed to hear arguments over the Fifth Circuit’s grant of a preliminary injunction in Missouri v. Biden, a case brought on behalf of NCLA clients Drs. Jayanta Bhattacharya, Martin Kulldorff, and Aaron Kheriaty, and Ms. Jill Hines, alongside the Attorneys General of Louisiana and Missouri. The injunction would bar officials[i] from the White House, CDC, FBI, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and Surgeon General’s office from coercing or significantly encouraging social media platforms to censor constitutionally protected speech. The New Civil Liberties Alliance welcomes this opportunity to defend the First Amendment rights of our clients in the U.S. Supreme Court.

A Fifth Circuit panel last month upheld the key components of U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty’s July 4 preliminary injunction order, prohibiting named federal officials from coercing or significantly encouraging social media companies to suppress legal speech. That decision vindicated NCLA’s clients, who have been blacklisted, shadow-banned, de-boosted, throttled, and suspended on social media as part of the government’s years-long censorship campaign orchestrated by the White House, CDC, FBI, CISA, and Surgeon General—among others.

The Biden Administration’s censorship regime has successfully suppressed perspectives contradicting government-approved views on hotly disputed topics such as whether natural immunity to Covid-19 exists, the safety and efficacy of Covid-19 vaccines, the virus’s origins, and mask mandate efficacy. The vast, coordinated, and well-documented effort has silenced influential, highly qualified voices including doctors and scientists like Drs. Bhattacharya, Kulldorff and Kheriaty, as well as those like Ms. Hines who have tried to raise awareness of issues. Though the U.S. Supreme Court temporarily stayed the Fifth Circuit’s injunction today, NCLA believes the Justices are ultimately unlikely to permit the egregious First Amendment abridgements this case has exposed.

Let’s hope. Disclosure/reminder: I’m on the NCLA advisory board.