President Joe Biden’s sole contribution to the Supreme Court — Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson — made headlines during her confirmation hearing when she failed to define the word “woman.”
On Monday, she made headlines again — this time because during oral arguments in the social media censorship case Murthy v. Missouri, she voiced concerns over the fact that the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was doing exactly what it was designed to do: restraining the federal government.
WATCH:
KBJ doubles down: “My biggest concern is that your view has the First Amendment hamstringing the government in significant ways.”
That is, quite literally, the entire point of the First Amendment—of the entire Bill of Rights. pic.twitter.com/gWMCaHDG1W
— System Update (@SystemUpdate_) March 18, 2024
Speaking to Louisiana Solicitor General Benjamin Aguiñaga, Jackson said, “My biggest concern is that your view has the First Amendment hamstringing the government in significant ways in the most important time periods.”
She went on to suggest that she believed there were occasions when government should have the power — and, in fact, had a duty — to dictate what could and could not be posted on social media, and she “worried” that a strict reading of the First Amendment could threaten to rein that in.
“You seem to be suggesting that that duty cannot manifest itself in the government encouraging or even pressuring platforms to take down harmful information. So, can you help me?” Jackson continued. “Because I’m really worried about that because you’ve got the First Amendment operating in an environment of threatening circumstances, from the government’s perspective, and you’re saying that the government can’t interact with the source of those problems.”
“Our position is not that the government can’t interact with the platforms there. They can and they should in certain circumstances like that, that present such dangerous issues for society and especially young people. But the way they do that has to be in compliance with the First Amendment. And I think that means they can give them all the true information that the platform needs and ask to amplify that,” Aguiñaga replied.
Jackson was not quite finished, however, and she argued that certain situations — such as the COVID pandemic — warranted the government stepping in “to ensure, for example, that the public has accurate information in the context of a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic.”
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Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) responded to Jackson’s assessment, noting that in the case of the pandemic, the information the government had suppressed had turned out to be accurate — and pointing out that her chief complaint about the First Amendment appeared to be that it was working as the Founders had intended it to.
“She said you’ve got the First Amendment ‘hamstringing the government.’ Well, that’s what it’s supposed to do, for goodness sake. It was literally one of the craziest things I’ve ever seen, that you could have a Supreme Court Justice say that in the oral argument made no sense to me,” Jordan said. “That is frightening because if she really believes that, that is scary where we are heading. Understand what took place here. This was censorship by surrogate. This was big government telling big tech to take down speech that they disagreed with, and it was the most fundamental kind of speech. It was political speech.”
Jim Jordan Rips Ketanji Brown Jackson's Concern about the First Amendment: "Hamstringing the Government"@Jim_Jordan: "She said you've got the First Amendment 'hamstringing the government.' Well, that's what it's supposed to do, for goodness sake. It was literally one of the… pic.twitter.com/OhqA0vXKon
— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) March 18, 2024