LA County Parents’ Free Speech Win Has National import

In a major win for the basic American right of freedom of speech that could have national implications, a Los Angeles County Judge has ruled a civil trial against County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer’s draconian and censorious health department will move forward to trial in two weeks.

At issue is the legality of a July, 2022 decision by Ferrer to cut off the comments sections on department websites, thereby leaving the public unable to discuss – on a taxpayer funded forum – pandemic policy and her department’s subsequent convincing of Twitter (X) to dump the account of a local parents’ group (the group that sued) opposed to her policies.

Tuesday, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge William Fahey dismissed a county motion for summary judgment to throw out the case brought by attorney Julie Hamill on behalf of the Alliance of Los Angeles County Parents.

Fahey ruled that significant issues of fact remain at stake, including whether or not the health department closed public comments specifically to quash criticism – something it cannot do – and if the department connived – through its DC connections – to have the Alliance tossed off Twitter (this was pre-Musk ownership.)

“I’m just thrilled to deliver a win to the people of Los Angeles County,” Attorney Hamill said.  “ I cannot wait to cross examine Ferrer in open court. The people deserve nothing less.”

Important, beyond the fact that the case will move forward is one of the reasons why it will move forward – the ongoing federal censorship case known as Missouri V. Biden.

In that case, a number of private plaintiffs and states’ attorneys general claim that the federal government illegally pressured social media firms and others to remove, block, and or defame content that did not follow the official COVID pandemic narrative.  Plaintiffs in that case have won two victories so far, with a district federal judge ruling the Biden administration most likely violated the First Amendment of the constitution – freedom of speech, specifically – by pressuring the companies to censor speech it disagreed with.

And just today, the appellate court in that case expanded its partial previous agreement with the district judge and expanded its inunction against the administration to add another specific government agency – the truly Orwellian Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency – to the list of government offices that must immediately cease attempting to influence and pressure social media outlets.

Further rulings on the matter by the United States Supreme Court could come within the next two weeks, about the time the time the trial of the case – which can be seen as a local version of Missouri V. Biden – against Ferrer’s department will begin.

In his ruling today against the county, Judge Fahey wrote:

Because the “deprivation of First Amendment rights, even for a short period is sufficient to establish irreparable injury,” the Fifth Circuit approved a preliminary injunction as to the FBI, the CDC and a number of named federal officials. 

Further, injunctive relief was held to be proper even though the government officials claimed that they had stopped all challenged conduct. The Fifth Circuit held that the trial court “was right to be skeptical of the officials’ claims.” 

This Court concludes that the Biden case is well reasoned, highly persuasive and should be applied here. In doing so, it cannot be concluded as a matter of law that defendants’ actions did not amount to coercion of and/or significant encouragement to X (Twitter) to suspend Alliance’s Alt Account. Such a determination can only be made following a trial based on the evidence and the reasonable inferences to be drawn therefrom. 

Accordingly, good cause having been shown, 

IT IS ORDERED that defendants’ Motion for Summary Judgment is Denied.

“Missouri V. Biden is massive,” Hamill said.  “It sets a standard for all government officials – you cannot private entities to censor citizens, regardless of how big your agency is.”

Two of the private plaintiffs in Missouri v. Biden –  Dr. Jay Bhattacharya of Stanford and Dr. Aaron Kheriaty of the Ethics and Public Policy Center – were thrilled by the news their case is already having impacts nationwide.

“This is a warning shot across the bow of any government agency that would try to censor the public,” Bhattacharya said. 

Kheriaty agreed.

“I think it’s great that court rulings in our case are already influencing analogous case,” Kheriaty said.  What happened in Los Angeles  is exactly what happened at the national level “and they can’t play around with that,” Kheriaty added.

Both Bhattacharya and Kheriaty personally know the sting of aggressive government censorship. Bhattacharya was specifically targeted for (successful, to an extent) vilification by none other than Dr. Anthony Fauci for helping craft the Great Barrington Declaration, a demand by a number of experts to re-think pandemic policies and focus on targeted protection of the most vulnerable rather than a wholesale societal shutdown.

Kheriaty was fired from his position at UC Irvine for suing the school over its vaccine mandate policies and both were subject to extensive interference on and outright bans  – most likely caused by the federal government – by various social media companies.

The Alliance case stems from the criticism faced by Ferrer’s department over the possibility of a new mask mandate in July of last year. The public posted critical notes about it on department social media platforms, shortly after which the comments sections were turned off.

After the Alliance filed suit, the department’s communications chief – Brett Morrow – allegedly reached out to the then chief of staff of Congressman Adam Schiff’s office for help in getting Twitter (now X) to block the Alliance account, which it did.

The trial is scheduled to begin October 16.

Maybe Ferrer should have taken the settlement offer of a payment of $10,000 and a re-opening of public comments – but she said no four times.