The Biden administration’s allies are now set on further suppressing the speech of dissenting Americans, which would be forbidden under the Constitution’s First Amendment if ‘technically’ carried out by the government itself.
The corporatist initiative, at least as a first step, is framed as a fight against COVID disinformation, Politico revealed in a report on Monday.
“Biden allied groups, including the Democratic National Committee, are also planning to engage fact-checkers more aggressively and work with SMS carriers to dispel misinformation about vaccines that is sent over social media and text messages,” Politico said in an alarming passage. “The goal is to ensure that people who may have difficulty getting a vaccination because of issues like transportation see those barriers lessened or removed entirely.”
“We are steadfastly committed to keeping politics out of the effort to get every American vaccinated so that we can save lives and help our economy further recover,” White House spokesperson Kevin Munoz said. “When we see deliberate efforts to spread misinformation, we view that as an impediment to the country’s public health and will not shy away from calling that out.”
The restriction of Americans’ text messages is an escalation in a bid to censor dissenting views on hot-button issues such as the 2020 election and vaccines. While social media giants have hidden behind Section 203 protections and invoked private terms of service to justify selective censorship, the mobile phone industry is subject to a different set of regulations under the Federal Communications Commission.
“The FCC is barred by law from trying to prevent the broadcast of any point of view,” the FCC website states. “The Communications Act prohibits the FCC from censoring broadcast material, in most cases, and from making any regulation that would interfere with freedom of speech. Expressions of views that do not involve a ‘clear and present danger of serious, substantive evil’ come under the protection of the Constitution, which guarantees freedom of speech and freedom of the press and prevents suppression of these expressions by the FCC.”
“According to an FCC opinion on this subject, ‘the public interest is best served by permitting free expression of views.’ This principle ensures that the most diverse and opposing opinions will be expressed, even though some may be highly offensive,” it continues.
“The FCC, however, does have enforcement responsibilities in certain limited instances,” it continues. “For example, the Courts have said that indecent material is protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution and cannot be banned entirely. It may be restricted, however, in order to avoid its broadcast when there is a reasonable risk that children may be in the audience.”
However, in 2018, the FCC voted to clarify that “wireless carriers have the authority to block unwanted or spam text messages,” Reuters reported. However, “Democrats warned the decision would allow carriers to block or censor texts that customers send.”
“The FCC voted 3-to-1 to classify text messages as an information service rather than a telecommunications service, which it said would have limited the ability of wireless carriers to combat robotexts and spam messages,” the Reuters report continued.
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said at the time the decision would allow wireless providers “to continue taking action against unwanted text messages.”
But FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, a Democrat, said the FCC’s vote means “you no longer have the final say on where your text messages go and what they said. That means your carrier now has the legal right to block your text messages and censor the very content of your messages.”
The news ironically comes as widespread, authoritative reports now link the Johnson & Johnson vaccine to a rare, but serious side called Guillain-Barré syndrome, in which your body’s immune system attacks your nerves. The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.
“U.S. health regulators are expected to warn that the Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine is linked to a very small incidence of cases of a rare neurological disorder associated with other shots,” WSJ reported.
“The U.S. Food and Drug Administration plans to add the warning language to the J&J shot’s label, after finding a handful of cases of Guillain-Barré syndrome among the millions of people who have gotten the vaccine, according to a person familiar with the matter,” the report continued.
“Guillain-Barré syndrome is a rare neurological disorder in which the immune system attacks nerves, causing temporary but potentially severe paralysis,” WSJ added. “The risk is a known one with vaccines, including some influenza vaccines and a leading shot to prevent shingles.”
The Biden administration’s actions accompany an extreme escalation of activism to prevent COVID ‘misinformation’ at a time when the pandemic is in total retreat. On Thursday, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said that critics of the Biden policy of dispatching community organizers door-to-door to check for vaccinations were doing a “disservice” to the country.
“Well, let me first say that the failure to provide accurate public health information, including the efficacy of vaccines, and the accessibility of them to people across the country, including South Carolina, is literally killing people,” Psaki said in response to criticism from South Carolina Governor McMaster.
Anthony Fauci also hit back against critics of the community organizers going door-to-door to confront Americans about their private and personal vaccination choices.
“The big misinterpretation that Fox News or whomever else is saying is that they are essentially envisioning a bunch of federal workers knocking on your door, telling you you’ve got to do something that you don’t want to do,” Fauci said on Sunday. “That’s absolutely not the case, it’s trusted messengers who are part of the community doing that – not government officials. So that’s where I think the disconnect is.”
The Politico report, ironically, also mentions Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who compared the administration’s vaccine campaign to Nazis. But it is hard to argue that Americans who are concerned about mass censorship and intimidation over their personal decisions are entirely off-base being concerned about the historical parallels.
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Jen Psaki Argues Critics of Door-to-Door Vaccination Checks are ‘Literally Killing People’
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OPINION: This article contains commentary which reflects the author's opinion.