Powerline 12/14/2022
We know now that tech companies cooperated with government officials to suppress Americans’ freedom of speech. Was that legal? Of course! say liberals: the First Amendment doesn’t apply to private companies. (This is the first and only time when liberals accord such unfettered discretion to private industry.) But is that really the end of the story?
In yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, law professor Philip Hamburger took up the question. He concludes that a plausible case can be made that the collusion between public and private actors constituted a criminal conspiracy to deprive Americans of their civil rights. This is the relevant criminal statute:
Section 241 of Title 18 of the U.S. Code provides: “If two or more persons conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person . . . in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or because of his having so exercised the same, . . . they shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.”
How might it apply?
Because the First Amendment doesn’t bar private parties from independently suppressing speech, Section 241 would apply to tech censorship only if government officers, acting as part of a conspiracy, have violated the Constitution. … The type of suppression most clearly barred by the First Amendment was the 17th-century English censorship imposed partly through cooperative private entities—universities and the Stationers’ Company, the printers trade guild.
More:
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2022/12/will-anyone-pay-a-price-for-suppressing-freedom-of-speech.php
