(WatchDogReport.org) – Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has baffled social media users with her comments on the First Amendment. Jackson was hearing the Murthy v. Missouri case, which is challenging the alleged coordination of President Joe Biden’s government with Silicon Valley companies to censor messages.
The case is rooted in a Republican-led lawsuit that accused officials in the Biden administration of collaborating with social media sites and Big Tech or under the pretense of fighting misinformation. The states leading the lawsuit, Missouri and Louisiana, claimed this was a violation of the First Amendment that resulted in censorship on topics such as the 2020 health crisis and Hunter Biden’s laptop.
What shocked commentators was Jackson’s apparent suggestion that such violations are justified. She expressed her “concern” that the lawyer representing the two states wanted to use the First Amendment to “hamstring the federal government” during crucial time periods. An OutKick writer joked on X (formerly Twitter) how “encouraging” it was to witness Supreme Court Justices showing a lack of understanding of the First Amendment.
Republican North Carolina Representative Dan Bishop called Jackson’s comments “chilling” on X. Jackson previously attacked a Supreme Court ruling on Affirmative Action in 2023, criticizing the majority for attempting to end racism by not taking race into consideration. The court invalidated the admission policies of Harvard and the University of North Carolina, which it ruled violated the 14th Amendment.
Jackson went on to argue that the government had a duty to pressure platforms to remove “harmful information,” attempting to justify such measures on the grounds that the First Amendment was operating in “threatening circumstances.” Republican California Representative Bill Essayli stressed that it was “literally the point” of the Bill of Rights that the government’s powers derive from and are subservient to the rights of the people.
Republican Attorney General for Missouri Andrew Bailey commented that it was indeed a hamstring and that the purpose of the First Amendment was to protect the American people from the federal government. He accused the Biden administration of ignoring the First Amendment and “weaponizing” federal authority to silence voices.
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