“The new symbiotic relationship of government and private power … is the constitutional challenge of our age.”

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“The new symbiotic relationship of government and private power … is the constitutional challenge of our age.”

Published: Wednesday, July 19th, 2023 @ 10:48 am
By: John Locke Foundation ( More Entries )

    Publisher's Note: This post appears here courtesy of the John Locke Foundation. The author of this post is Jon Guze.

    That's a line from a recent blogpost by consitutional scholar Randy Barnett. Here's another excerpt:

    Columbia Law School Professor Philip Hamburger has an important essay this weekend on the Wall Street Journal opinion page: How the Government Justifies Its Social-Media Censorship. Hamburger heads the New Civil Liberties Alliance, which is challenging the federal government's use of privately-owned social media platforms to suppress the speech of Americans. [Disclosure: I am on the NCLA Board of Advisors.]

    In Missouri v. Biden, NCLA is challenging the constitutionality of pressure that officials at the White House, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Homeland Security, the Central Intelligence Agency and other agencies have brought to bear on tech companies to suppress so-called "misinformation." Recent examples include the suppression of speech on private platforms about the Hunter Biden laptop story, the lab-leak theory of COVID-19's origins, the efficacy of mask mandates and COVID-19 lockdowns, and election integrity and the security of voting by mail.

    In his op-ed, Hamburger identifies five Supreme Court doctrines that, when combined, have facilitated the modern regime of stealthy government censorship of speech on these and other topics of which the government disapproves:

An expansive understanding of Congress's power to regulate commerce;
An overemphasis on coercion;
Misunderstanding privatized censorship;
The "government speech" doctrine; and
Qualified immunity.

poll#175

Understanding that this fragile Republic of the self-governed is in a precarious space in our nation's vast history: What is your honor bound patriotic duty in helping to sustain the continuance of these United States of America?

I will depend on my Democratic Socialist politicians to continue to march hard toward the Left to provide Diversity, Equity and Inclusion for all who think and do as they are told.

I will defend the Constitution of the United States of America, and support all elected leaders who pledge to protect and insure the continued sovereignty of this Representative Republic.

I am very concerned about maintaining my current life style without working. I was told that as long as I vote Democrat, I had nothing to worry about ... but now I worry.

296 total vote(s) What's your Opinion?

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