In this episode, we’re talking again about the coercive power of the Administrative State and its serious threat to our constitutional freedoms.

No other development in contemporary American law denies more rights to more Americans.

Joining me to discuss is Mark Chenoweth, Executive Director, and Jenin Younes, Litigation Counsel for the New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA) a public interest litigation and pro bono advocacy law firm.

In the past two years, measures taken to deal with Covid have resulted in extraordinary losses of freedom in the West – in fact, all over the world – driven by government mandates and lockdowns. Now that it’s clear that we’re no longer in the throes of a pandemic, what next?

Joe Biden has mandated that businesses with more than 100 employees require every worker to be vaccinated or face weekly testing. It’s estimated this will impact over 80 million people or almost two thirds of the country’s workforce. 

Setting aside his dictatorial and offensive tone, does Joe Biden really have the power to do this or is it that under the guise of “keeping us safe,” federal state and local governments have trampled our constitutional rights with draconian regulations and emergency orders with arbitrary executive decrees?

Is this right and lawful? Well, we now have a test case to find out.

In a first-of-its-kind First Amendment lawsuit against the federal government, attorneys Jenin Younes and John Vecchione of the New Civil Liberties Alliance, argue that the government acted wrongfully when it “directed social media platforms, including Twitter, to censor alleged “misinformation” about COVID-19.”

The censorship regime has been widespread and relentless. Our argument here is that the companies, as private actors, have a right to do that, but that the government does not have a right to coerce private actors to do what the government wants them to do.

On June 28th 2021, George Mason University announced its reopening policy related to the COVID-19 for the fall 2021 semester. The policy required all unvaccinated students and staff members – including those who can demonstrate natural immunity from prior COVID-19 infections – to wear masks on campus, physically distance and undergo frequent

“America needs to come to terms with the reality and scale of the assault on free speech. Our government has established a vast system of censorship. By keeping it largely secret, it has been able to exert unconstitutional control over medical, scientific and political speech, suppressing debate over questions of great public importance. This is a shocking constitutional violation. All of us, not only the courts, need to recognize what is at stake.”

On March 18, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case Murthy v. Missouri challenging whether the government can induce social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook to censor constitutionally protected free speech.