From The Final Call Newspaper

Is Free Speech in jeopardy?

By Nisa Islam Muhammad, Staff Writer
- March 25, 2024

Court of Law and Justice Trial Session: Imparcial Honorable Judge Pronouncing Sentence, striking Gavel. Focus on Mallet, Hammer. Cinematic Shot of Dramatic Not Guilty Verdict. Close-up Shot.


WASHINGTON, D.C.—Did the Biden administration violate free speech rights during the pandemic when they allegedly pressured social media companies to take down content the government considered misinformation? That’s the case before the Supreme Court in Murthy v. Missouri.

According to court documents the case is about a group of social-media users (Facebook and others) and two states who allege that numerous federal officials coerced social-media platforms into censoring social-media content, in violation of the First Amendment.

Atty. Tricia Lindsay speaks at a free speech rally held outside the Supreme Court of the United States on March 18 in Washington, D.C.

They sued the government in Missouri v. Biden. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit issued a modified injunction last October banning dozens of government employees from “coerc[ing] or significantly encourag[ing] a platform’s content-moderation decisions.” The government appealed the case to the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court justices recently heard a day of testimony and arguments with each side passionately representing their point. The decision is expected in June. Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Neil Gorsuch described the case as “a coordinated campaign by high-level federal officials to suppress the expression of disfavored views on important public issues.”

 

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The government’s attorney, Brian Fletcher, argued that “[t]he government may not use coercive threats to suppress speech, but it is entitled to speak for itself by informing, persuading, or criticizing private speakers.” The government contends they coerced no one and, on the contrary, all they did was use persuasion. Mr. Fletcher said the lower courts have “mistook persuasion for coercion.”

He added that “government speech crosses the line into coercion only if, viewed objectively, it conveys a threat of adverse government action. And because no threats happened here, the Court should reverse.” The government, in short, “stay[ed] on the persuasion side of the line.” The government contends they were merely offering “information” and “advice” to their “partners” in fighting “misinformation.”

That’s not how the group suing the government saw it. Louisiana Solicitor General J. Benjamin Aguiñaga represented the plaintiffs. He argued there was “unrelenting government pressure,” contended “the government has no right to persuade platforms to violate Americans’ constitutional rights, and pressuring platforms in back rooms shielded from public view is not using the bully pulpit at all.

Activists and concerned citizens attend a free speech rally in Washington, D.C. Photos: Charlene Muhammad

That’s just being a bully.” He argued further that the plaintiffs don’t need to prove coercion to win––only encouragement and pressure. “We don’t need coercion as a theory. That’s why we led with encouragement in our . . . brief,” he explained.

Mr. Aguiñaga presented evidence that government officials such as Deputy Assistant to the President Rob Flaherty “badger[ed] the platforms 24/7,” demanding that they broaden their content restrictions and enforce them more aggressively.

Mr. Aguiñaga submitted emails that alluded to President Biden being unhappy with what the social media platforms were doing and warned that White House officials were “considering our options on what to do” if the platforms protested. The social media platforms buckled under the pressure, and consequently changed their policies as well as practices regarding content.

In emails to the Surgeon General, Dr. Vivtek Murthy, Facebook executive Nick Clegg seemed eager to pacify President Biden. Mr. Clegg explained that Facebook “adjust[ed] policies on what we’re removing;” deleted pages, groups, and accounts that offended the White House; and would “shortly be expanding our COVID policies to further reduce the spread of potentially harmful content.”

Facebook bowed. Mr. Clegg wrote in another internal email that Mr. Aguiñaga quoted, “because we were under pressure by the administration.” Mr. Clegg expressed regret about caving to that pressure, saying, “We shouldn’t have done it.”

The government’s pressure went beyond emails to platform executives to the general public when President Biden accused the platforms of “killing people” by allowing users to say things he believed would discourage Americans from being vaccinated against COVID-19.

Surgeon General Murthy took that even further by urging a “whole-of-society” effort to combat the “urgent threat to public health” posed by “health misinformation,” which he said might include “legal and regulatory measures.”

Filmmaker Del Bigtree also spoke at the gathering.

Piling on were other federal officials who explained that holding social media platforms “accountable” could entail antitrust action, new regulations or expansion of their civil liability for user-posted content.

Mr. Fletcher explained that “when thousands of Americans were still dying every week” the government felt justified with communications that included “intensity” and “anger.” However, he did acknowledge that some of the government’s communications with the platforms “is unusual.”

“[T]he First Amendment isn’t a civility code,” Mr. Fletcher explained, adding that “context matters a ton.” He dismissed claims of government coercion of the social media platform. The platforms, he explained, are “powerful, sophisticated entities” used to back-and-forth government interactions and can independently decide when to remove speech and speakers. They aren’t easily cowed.

Rally in support of Free Speech

The impact of the government’s “persuasion” to remove content they found objectionable was felt far and wide. Many in the scientific world felt the government’s action interfered with people being able to make informed consent when they were only allowed to know what the government permitted to be known.

Dozens gathered at the Supreme Court to support free speech and speak out against First Amendment violations.

 

Dr. Pierre Kory, President of FLCCC Alliance, speaks at free speech rally in Washington, D.C., on March 18.

Dr. Christina X Parks has a Ph.D. in cellular and molecular biology from the University of Michigan Medical School. She was the first speaker at the rally in support of free speech which was held March 18. She told The Final Call, “One of the lawyers just said this was the most important case on free speech in the history of all us.

The actions of the Biden administration, the Surgeon General, and the CDC, explained in Missouri v. Biden, were so egregious that they constitute the biggest threat to free speech this nation has ever experienced. They were so egregious at coercing the social media platforms to basically become arbiters of the government’s truth. If we fail at litigating this correctly and enforcing our free speech rights, we are no longer going to have a constitutional republic.”

Dozens gathered at the Supreme Court to support free speech and speak out against First Amendment violence.

“Average people were the losers because they didn’t have the information that they needed to make informed consent to know the truth about the vaccine, the truth about COVID and to know there were actually effective treatments. So, their health suffered and their family suffered.

They lost jobs, even though now we know, which I was saying from the beginning, that the vaccine didn’t prevent transmission. But at a deeper level, this is enabling tyranny because that’s what that was. If they can censor us when we’re trying to tell you the truth about these things, then they can censor anybody about anything.”

Tricia Lindsay is a civil rights attorney. She told the rally crowd, “When this whole situation started, this atrocity that I call it, it was clear, at least to me, … what was coming, the lockdowns, the mandates, go home, stay away from family members, stay away from friends.

It was a clear assault on our Constitution, a clear assault on our freedoms to assemble, to work, to move about, to travel. We had to ask permission or be limited to whose homes we could go to, when we could go outside, things of that nature. It just didn’t make sense.”

“Today we stand on the precipice of change. We stand at the crossroads between tyranny and democracy, freedom and literal slavery, dictatorship and republic, as the justices of this great U.S. Supreme Court hold in their hands. They have the ultimate power to determine the trajectory of our country, our lives, really the trajectory of our lives that can change our country.”

Del Matthew Bigtree is a television and film producer who is the CEO of the anti-vaccination group Informed Consent Action Network. He also produced the film, “Vaxxed: From Cover Up to Catastrophe.”

He told The Final Call, “We see all the studies, Cleveland Clinic, famous studies now showing us that if you get the vaccine within about 14 or 15 weeks, you’re more likely to be infected. Meaning this vaccine is helping the virus, which was something that we warned about in the High Wire very, very early on.”

“We cannot any longer depend on that television set. We know it lies to us. We can’t depend on those newspapers. We know they lied to us. I keep saying that there’s a real spiritual component to this, which is we all have to sit and get quiet and get with God and really ask ourselves, does it make sense what they’re saying to me?

We have to start trusting that God-given intuition more and trust ourselves and speak our truth. Remember that the Constitution is not designed to control us. It’s designed to control our government.”

Atty. Abdul Arif Muhammad

The Nation of Islam spoke early on COVID and the vaccine which the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan encouraged his followers to avoid at all costs. Abdul Arif Muhammad is the student general counsel for the Nation of Islam and successfully argued a case against an insurance company that tried to force Dr. Safiyya Shabazz to stop administering Ivermectin to her patients with COVID-19. They also tried to pressure her to administer the COVID-19 vaccine.

“The impact of this case, if decided in favor of the government, would be to give more power to the federal government to prescribe what exact rights people would have under the First Amendment, particularly concerning matters that the government does not agree with. It would not be limited.

It started here with the concept of the government regulating what people could say about the COVID-19 vaccine, and that they are not permitted to express disagreement with the COVID-19 vaccine or to offer their views of alternative treatments against the COVID-19 virus,” Attorney Muhammad told The Final Call.

“The government did not want anyone to express a view different from their selling point that the Covid 19 vaccine was safe and effective which has been proven to not be true. The government was allowed to condemn people who offered a different view on social media concerning the COVID-19 vaccine and said that the COVID-19 vaccine was harmful as well as offered alternative remedies,” he continued.

Atty. Muhammad explained that as early as July 2020, Minister Farrakhan told people not to take the vaccine even before the vaccine actually went on the market. Recently, in a major speech in February during the Nation’s annual Saviours’ Day convention in Detroit, Minister Farrakhan spoke again on the dangers of the COVID-19 vaccine. He told the sold-out audience, “The government put a great hit on us in a vaccine. My voice was the voice that told you, don’t take it. Don’t take it. They’re trying to kill us softly with a vaccine.”

Atty. Muhammad is very concerned about this case. “All of these things that are in the First Amendment are now in danger. The First Amendment was included in the constitution to grant to its citizens, the right to express their dissent against government actions.

If the court allows the government to use its power to impose itself on social media companies and others to say that you as a citizen don’t have the right to express a point of view different from that of the government, you could be accused by the government of engaging in misinformation,” he said.

“Further this could lead to the government ultimately saying that you are violating some statute that could be criminal in nature, that you could then be arrested for or being charged with crimes. If the court grants this power to the government, it started with COVID-19, what will be the next issue that the government will use this power to suppress free speech?”

From The Final Call Newspaper

 Global protests intensify and demands to ‘Free Palestine’ grow

By The Final Call
- March 5, 2024

Demonstrators gather outside the Israeli Embassy to demand a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip in Washington, D.C., on March 2. Protesters also commemorated the U.S. service member Aaron Bushnell who self-immolated outside the embassy. Photo: Celal Gunes/Anadolu via Getty Images


by Nisa Islam Muhammad and Charlene Muhammad

The Final Call @TheFinalCall

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Thousands gathered at the Israeli Embassy in the nation’s capital and in cities across the U.S. and abroad as part of another global day of protest to demand no invasion of Rafah, a ceasefire to end the Israeli killing spree on Palestinians and the lifting of the siege of Gaza. Rafah is in the south of the Gaza Strip which shares a border with Egypt.

An estimated 1.5 million internally displaced Palestinians taking refuge there are facing famine, and Israel has threatened a last-ditch effort to destroy Hamas with a ground invasion of Rafah.
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“Our request was for a ceasefire, but we’re 140 days in,” Hazami Baramada, told the media. She is an activist, global strategy consultant, and international public speaker.

“You have a majority of Gaza destroyed, demolished schools, infrastructure, hospitals, all civilian infrastructure is completely demolished. You have 14,000 children who’ve been killed, over 40,000 according to Euro Med (Human Rights Monitor). People have been killed, including civilian populations. There are 20-plus thousand orphans.

The numbers are so staggering and so disgusting and so inhumane that a ceasefire is no longer enough. We demand a change in the U.S. relationship with Israel. We demand accountability,” she continued. Gaza’s health ministry said the number of Palestinians killed in the war has surpassed 30,000.

“We demand answers on why the United States is constantly allowing war crimes, crimes against humanity, crimes against international law, violations of just basic human dignity to continue to happen. And the hypocrisy! You call out what’s happening in Russia and Ukraine and you’re not willing to hold the same standards to Israel and Palestine. It is atrocious. The American taxpayer dollars are not only paying for this, but our military has normalized it.”

Ms. Baramada argued that misinformation and lies are being peddled and that one of the objectives of the March 2 mass mobilization was for citizens to hold the U.S. and Israeli governments accountable for their actions.

“We can’t hold Israel accountable as individual citizens, but what we can do is expose what they’re doing. We can educate the average American and put pressure on our administration to cut the relationship, to stop unconditional aid, and to start holding Israel accountable for its war crimes.

Protesters rally in front of Los Angeles City Hall during a “Global Day of Protest” in support of Palestinians in Los Angeles, California, on March 2, 2024. (Photo by Katie McTiernan / AFP) (Photo by KATIE MCTIERNAN/AFP via Getty Images)

We have for far too long, regardless of the administration, used our political, social, and economic power to sanction what is happening, but then also to support it. We are actively part of a genocide. We are not just enabling it. We are part of the genocide and this needs to stop.”

Madge Henderson is a White American middle-class woman. After the October 7, 2023, attack by Hamas, she said she supported Israel’s right to defend itself. However, after hearing about the tens of thousands of murdered Palestinian women and children she later changed her mind. Ms. Henderson traveled with her family from Fredericksburg, Virginia, to D.C. to participate in the demonstration.

“I’m here to protest the genocide going on in Gaza. Babies (limbs) are being amputated without any anesthesia, people are starving and dying. I can’t believe my government of the United States is using my taxpayer dollars to pay for this atrocity,” she told The Final Call. “I’ve never protested anything in my life. I love all people. I grew up traveling the world with my parents. I love Palestinians and I also love Jewish people. I love Muslims. But today love is not enough. Something has to be done to stop the massacres.”

D.C. was one of more than 120 cities across the United States and dozens of others around the globe engaged in mass actions, on March 2, to protest the continued genocide in Palestine. Israel has threatened to invade Rafah on March 10 coinciding with the beginning of the Islamic Holy Month of Ramadan. More than 300 organizations supported the protests.

 

A Palestinian woman reacts after an Israeli strike on Shaheen family house in Rafah, Gaza Strip, Saturday, Feb. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Hatem Ali)

“The Palestinian people of Gaza have been faced with months of nonstop bombardment, mass killing, and forced starvation. Even as the occupation army targets various quarters of Rafah, even as it continues its relentless campaigns of annihilation in Shuja’iyya, Nuseirat, Khan Younis, and Jabalia, the colonial regime is additionally threatening to carry a full-scale ground invasion of Rafah. The world must rise up to stop this brutality,” said Jamil Madbak, of the Palestinian Youth Movement, one of the event’s organizers.

More than 50,000 marched in New York City, 15,000 in San Francisco, and many thousands more in mass actions in Los Angeles, Seattle, Chicago and many others cities. Hundreds gathered in downtown Syracuse for the “Hands Off Rafah” protest.

Event organizers included members of the Syracuse chapters of Jewish Voice for Peace and Veterans for Peace. International sites included Havana, Cuba, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Nanaimo, British Columbia (Canada), São Paulo, Brazil and Seoul, South Korea.

Despite moderate to heavy rains, thousands of activists and residents gathered for the #HandsOffRafah demonstration in downtown Los Angeles on March 2. Approximately eight hours before the ANSWER Coalition’s Global Day of Action, themed “Shut It Down For Palestine” began, at least 11 were killed and 50 wounded after an Israeli air attack on a tent housing displaced people next to the entrance of a hospital in Rafah City, according to Al Jazeera.

Palestinians pray over the bodies of their relatives killed in the Israeli bombardments of the Gaza Strip in front of the morgue to pray over them at Al Aqsa Hospital in Deir al Balah on Friday, Feb. 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Adel Hana)

Representatives from the Palestinian Youth Movement’s Los Angeles, Orange County and Inland Empire chapters participated in and coordinated the gathering. The transnational, independent, grassroots movement of young Palestinians in Palestine and those in exile worldwide exist as a result of the ongoing occupation of their homeland, organizers stated.

The only recourse to justice for their people is the dismantling of Zionism, its genocidal war machine, and its political institutions, said a LA-based Palestinian American youth activist. “Here in the U.S., we not only have a role, but an obligation, a duty to dismantle Zionism.

Our mobilizations have ruined the Occupation’s image and have left Zionism in ruins! We will continue to organize, and we won’t stop until this racist, genocidal project is defeated once and for all!” she added.

She then summarized the atrocities of the genocidal war and nearly 20-year-long siege, pointing out the bombing by Israeli forces of civilians seeking shelter along aid routes in the Gaza Strip. “Shame!” she declared.

“Shame,” roared the demonstrators, many still joining the protest in droves. They filled corners and crosswalks, sloshing through the rain and mud puddles saturating City Park, just across from City Hall. Demonstrators filled the building’s steps, up to the iron barricades protecting entry to the doorway. They nearly spanned the entire block within an hour after the protest began.

‘Genocide is happening’

Global activism against Israeli genocide on the Palestinian people has continued since the October 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel by Hamas fighters emerging from Gaza. That act killed almost 1,200 people and led to Israel’s massive military response, backed by the U.S. government. News reports state the Israeli bombardment has displaced 1.8 million of the 2.3 million Palestinians living in Gaza and turned much of the besieged territory bordering Israel, the Mediterranean Sea and Egypt into rubble and dust.

The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan addressed the conflict during his highly anticipated Saviours’ Day 2024 message, entitled, “What does Allah The Great Mahdi and The Great Messiah Have to Say About the War in the Middle East?”

The Muslim leader explained that Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had a second Nakba (catastrophe) in mind for the Palestinian people. The first Nakba on the Palestinians was in 1948 when Israel became a state. More than 700,000 Palestinians were exiled at that time and made “like vagabonds in the earth,” he said.

Mr. Netanyahu wanted to use the pain of the loss of Jewish lives to destroy the whole Palestinian community, not only in Gaza and the West Bank, but also in East Jerusalem, Minister Farrakhan charged. “It was a genocidal attack that he knew would preserve his place as a great Jewish leader,” he explained.

“Who could do to another human being what is being done to our Palestinian family and not think of a humanitarian crisis?” stated Minister Farrakhan, continuing, “Who will pay for the killing of Palestinians—men, women and children? Who will pay for the destruction of Palestinian life and culture?”

The bold leader also expressed sympathy for families who lost loved ones in the Hamas attack. He expressed support for Tal Mitnick, an 18-year-old conscript to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) who refused to serve and was sentenced to a 30-day prison term. The Minister asked Allah (God) to sear the young man’s image into his mind.

U.S. Airman Aaron Bushnell was so conflicted by the war that he went to the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C. and set himself on fire. The 25-year-old dressed in his U.S. Air Force uniform and said he would “no longer be complicit in genocide.” He shouted “Free Palestine” as he burned, until he collapsed to the ground dying hours later in the hospital. Officer Bushnell live-streamed his ultimate sacrifice, ensuring that his actions — which he described as an “extreme act of protest” — were seen worldwide.

“The decision by U.S. Airman Aaron Bushnell to set himself on fire in front of the Israeli embassy while condemning the U.S.-backed Israeli genocide being carried out against the people of Gaza was a desperate act designed to arouse public outrage. He made the ultimate personal sacrifice to end a genocide that the entire world has been witnessing for the past months,” explained Brian Becker, national director of ANSWER Coalition (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism). “This was an act of martyrdom by a U.S. service member who was outraged by the actions of a government that speaks in his name.”

“People all over the United States, in the millions, have been involved in mass actions to protest the U.S. support for Israeli genocide against the Palestinian people in recent months. People have also engaged in civil disobedience actions of many types. Many have been arrested and are facing trial, including many whose constitutional rights were violated by violent police repression.”

“The United States government and Israel are killing babies,” said Nazaro Aguero of Peru, pointing to his children who were at the Los Angeles demonstration. “We don’t want any more kids to die! Every kid deserves to live. If you touch a kid, you are not a good person. Palestine deserves to be free.”

His truck included a flatbed covered with flags of Latin America—Argentina, Chile, etc. “We want peace in the world. That’s why from everywhere we are here. Latin America stands with Palestine, always,” Mr. Aguero said.

Sarah and Affan Tareen said their liberation, safety, and dignity of life is interconnected, and they believe that the Palestinians are their brothers and sisters just as much as those of Jewish descent. They came to the L.A. gathering with their young children, ages 6 and 4. “Genocide is happening, and we cannot rest until that is stopped. We will not rest,” stated Mrs. Tareen. She said she’s outraged that U.S. dollars are being used to penetrate this war.

“I am outraged that President (Joe) Biden bypassed Congressional approval in the first place to send aid to Israel. I am angry. I feel that democracy is talked about being attacked by the Republican Party and I see it not being upheld and prioritized by the Democratic Party and I am angry at this country for not living up to its values and the principles it says that we are built on. We have a lot reckoning to do with our own past and moving forward we must change our ways,” she added.

Maaz Bajwa of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community drove from San Diego to L.A. with his children, son Isa and daughter Anisah.

“We see this as a prayer, as congregational salat. We see this as everybody praying, ‘Free, free Palestine!’ as a prayer that we’re all praying together, not just Muslims but all people of faith, who just believe in any bit of morality,” he told The Final Call.

“We have a chance, an opportunity to stop a real-live genocide from occurring, something rare in history. And our so-called elected officials and the people that are supposed to represent us continue to stand idle while this keeps going on,” said Javier Guerrero, an organizer with the ANSWER Coalition.

He noted predictions that if the impending massacre is not stopped, up to 90,000 innocent Palestinians could die, and called it “nothing short of a blood bath,” poised to be one of the worst human atrocities in world history.

Final Call Staff Writer Nisa Islam Muhammad reported from Washington, D.C. and National Correspondent Charlene Muhammad reported from Los Angeles.