“A lawsuit that blows the lid off a sprawling federal censorship regime that will shock the conscience of Americans.”
–New Civil Liberties Alliance
By: Mark Glennon*
Missouri and Louisiana attorneys general along with a number of individuals are parties to a federal lawsuit that has already produced evidence that “an army of federal bureaucrats” have been coercing social media platforms to censor free speech. Multiple federal agencies, their evidence shows, colluded with social media giants Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to censor speech, which led to the suppression of truthful information on several matters of critical national importance, including COVID-19.
If you’ve heard nothing about the lawsuit it’s because reporting on it, too, has been suppressed, which is scandalous in itself. The case is State of Missouri ex rel. Schmitt, et al. v. Biden, et al. The complaint and the main court documents are here. We will refer to it as the “Schmitt lawsuit” in this piece.
Headlines appeared recently about Facebook’s founder, Mark Zuckerberg, vaguely saying that federal authorities had maybe-sort of pressured Facebook into suppressing news about the Hunter Biden laptop.
What a distraction. That’s peanuts compared to evidence already produced in the Schmitt case. The plaintiffs have already put of record nearly a thousand pages of emails and other evidence showing multiple federal officials leaning on tech social media platforms to suppress news that the government didn’t like.
Defendants are the White House, HHS, DHS, CISA, the CDC, NIAID, the Office of the Surgeon General and more.
The New Civil Liberties Alliance, which is assisting in the lawsuit, is what the ACLU used to be – an organization devoted to protecting free speech.
The lawsuit is focused mostly on suppression by the government of evidence and expert opinions that challenged the government narrative on Covid. The private parties who are plaintiffs include Dr. Jayanta Bhattacharya, a former Professor of Medicine and current Professor of Health Policy at Stanford University School of Medicine and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and Dr. Martin Kulldorff, an epidemiologist, a biostatistician and a former Professor of Medicine at Harvard University and Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
The complaint is about more than Covid, however. It sets forth other examples of suppression of free speech, which include the Hunter Biden laptop story prior to the 2020 Presidential election and speech about election integrity and the security of voting by mail.
Though the evidence of record is already overwhelming, discovery in the lawsuit has just started. The federal court recently ordered that discovery may be expanded to include, among others, Anthony Faucci and White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.
Corporate mainstream media has ignored the lawsuit. Press coverage of the lawsuit has been limited to conservative outlets like Fox, The Federalist and Reason.
Ultimately, what may be more important are the parties not subject to the litigation, namely, much of the press.
If there were a legal theory to include them, Exhibit A on the complaint would most be the Illinois media.
They presumably were not directly pressured by federal bureaucrats, but most Illinois media kow-tow to government narrative at least as sheepishly as social media platforms. On the primary subject of the lawsuit, Covid, you will be hard-pressed to find a word of Illinois reporting about any number of bona fide challenges to government narrative.
More alarming is Illinois media’s near total suppression of multiple scandals associated with Hunter Biden and his emails. Those scandals include President Biden’s participation in Hunter’s international influence peddling, multiple crimes by Hunter that have gone unpunished and President Biden’s lie that he knew nothing about Hunter’s business activity.
Most frightening of all is the national security establishment’s participation in the lies by attempting to claim that Hunter’s laptop was part of a Russian conspiracy.
The Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times are among the worst offenders. The Tribune hasn’t covered Hunter or his laptop scandals since October 2020 when it was peddling the discredited story about a Russian conspiracy. Same for the Sun-Times and many others.
In 1783, the complaint in the Schmitt lawsuit starts out saying, George Washington warned that if “the Freedom of Speech may be taken away,” then “dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep, to the slaughter.”
That’s an entirely appropriate introduction to the lawsuit. Democracy is fiction when the government suppresses free speech in the ways that plain evidence now shows have become routine.
Why hasn’t Attorney General Kwame Raoul joined this lawsuit? That’s a silly, rhetorical question. If you don’t know why, start paying attention to what’s become of your nation.
*Mark Glennon is founder of Wirepoints.
Audio and summary 
If this bill passes, say goodbye to local control over all Illinois parks and expect to see open drug and alcohol use, needles, no sanitation and fire hazards, but no ordinary park users.
Here’s the deal: Bailey is a super-long shot at best. But there is the chance to squirrel away Democratic voters from Kwame to Devore to win the AG’s office. You need to convince moderate Dem voters that the best way to keep your Dem creds but send a message about the Safe-T Act is to vote for Devore. If thousands of Biden voters to vote for O’Brien over Foxx, the same can happen here.
That will fix Illinois. Maybe I should move back.
Does Kwame even want to win? Serious question.
Never expect Illinois to do the right thing. Never expect Wirepoints to pack your bags and drive you to a better state. Never expect a better future. Never.
I’ve come to the sad conclusion that a significant portion of the electorate *wants* to be lied to by the (D)’s, because they so desperately want to believe everything is fine…
*What I don’t know can’t hurt me* is their mantra…
They don’t want to grow up & take care of themselves…
They desire to live in their parents home & have the *adulting* done for them…
They willingly give up more & more rights & liberties for the illusion of *security*, to a state rife with corruption & evil intent…
Joey, I think that’s exactly right. How else to explain the incessant lying and hypocrisy, which some of them even admit to? We are now in in a nation where they lie, we know they are lying, they know we know they are lying, but it goes on. We can only hope that it has to collapse under the weight of its own absurdity.
I can explain exactly what is going on! Democrats: Yes WE CAN! JZ: I’ve come to the sad conclusion that a significant portion of the electorate *wants* to be lied to by the (D)’s, because they so desperately want to believe everything is fine… MG: Joey, I think that’s exactly right… Does anyone else see the problem? The first step to fighting back is candid research. You both are making decisions based on weaponized anecdotal evidence and you both acknowledge that the media only tells one side of the story! Think before making comments! What were Hillary’s chances of winning… Read more »
A logic algorithm might be devised as such: Premise: the set of units of *you* and *those such as you* are exploited and damaged by the set of units of *not you/such as you*. *you* seeks survival of policies dictated by *not you*. *you* have survival-level economic needs (for sufficient monies to live until death without expecting equitable survival conditions to be offered by *not you*). *you* have survival-level physical needs (for safety from violence, and access to food/water/clean air/urgent medical attention). *you* define the conditions which you demand (*your* ‘rights’ to force others to perform or not perform in… Read more »
Well that actually happened to the wokesters paradise formally called the Soviet Union.
Unfortunately, it took 73 years.
I think you’ve hit the nail right there. A lot of this younger generation are the main proponents of this stifling government. Not all of them, thankfully. So important to expose this censorship now, before it becomes the norm. Shame on our so called “ journalists “.
Because they’d rather suffer under these laws than have even one Republican claim a victory. Their political ideology is their identity and they lack agency. Not only are they not getting off the train, they refuse to look out the window.
Kwame Raoul’s silence on this issue is yet another reason he should be voted out and replaced with Tom DeVore. DeVore pulls no punches and will not hesitate to join this lawsuit.