The U.S. government has filed an emergency stay request to lift a recent injunction issued by a federal judge forbidding the government from violating Americans’ First Amendment rights by colluding with social media companies to censor their constitutionally protected speech.
This from beckernews.com.
In the emergency stay, the government contended that the injunction was vague and that the attorneys general could not show harm from the censorship, an argument that Judge Terry Doughty had rejected multiple times in the past.
The government argued:
Defendants respectfully request that the Court stay its July 4 preliminary injunction pending Defendant’s appeal of that order.
The Government faces irreparable harm with each day the injunction remains in effect, as the injunction’s broad scope and ambiguous terms (including a lack of clarity with respect to what the injunction does not prohibit) may be read to prevent the Government from engaging in a vast range of lawful and responsible conduct—including speaking on matters of public concern and working with social media companies on initiatives to prevent grave harm to the American people and our democratic processes.
The government added:
These immediate and ongoing harms to the Government outweigh any risk of injury to Plaintiffs if a stay is granted, and for the same reason, a stay is in the public interest.
Moreover, Defendants have shown a substantial case on the merits regarding Plaintiffs’ lack of Article III standing and failure to present evidence substantiating their First Amendment claims. Accordingly, this Court should exercise its discretion to temporarily stay the preliminary injunction during the pendency of Defendants’ Fifth Circuit appeal.
The government’s stay request thus clearly lays out that the government views its purported defense of “democracy” as trumping American citizens’ constitutionally protected rights.
The lawsuit, first filed by then Republican Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt and Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry in May, claimed White House officials colluded with or coerced Big Tech companies to “suppress disfavored speakers, viewpoints, and content” on their platforms with “dis-information,” “mis-information” and “mal-information” labels.
The injunction signifies a triumph for the state attorneys general, who allege that the Obiden Regime has sanctioned a “vast federal ‘Censorship Enterprise’” promoting tech giants to exclude politically undesirable perspectives and speakers. Conservatives who argue that the government is suppressing their speech also consider it a victory.
The attorneys general claim that such actions constitute:
[T]he most blatant infringements of the First Amendment in US history.
