KBJ says First Amendment “hamstrings" government

Fox News

In a debate Monday at the Supreme Court challenging the Biden administration’s alleged coordination with Big Tech to censor certain messages, one justice raised eyebrows in her comments about the government’s relationship with the First Amendment.

The case stems from a lawsuit brought by Republican-led states Missouri and Louisiana that accused high-ranking government officials of working with giant social media companies "under the guise of combating misinformation" that ultimately led to censoring speech on topics that included Hunter Biden’s laptop, COVID-19 origins and the efficacy of face masks — which the states argued was a First Amendment violation.

In nearly two hours of oral arguments, the justices debated whether the Biden administration crossed the constitutional line, and whether its outreach efforts with private companies amounted to permissible persuasion or encouragement versus illegal coercion or threats of retaliation.

"It's got these big clubs available to it, and so it's treating Facebook and these other platforms like their subordinates," Justice Samuel Alito said. But Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson took a different approach.

"Your view has the First Amendment hamstringing the federal government in significant ways in the most important time periods," she told the lawyer representing Louisiana, Missouri and private plaintiffs.

"The government actually has a duty to take steps to protect the citizens of this country... by encouraging or even pressuring platforms to take down harmful information," she said.