NCLA Defeats Motion to Dismiss, Wins Expedited Discovery in Suit Alleging State Dept. Censorship
07 Mayo 2024 - 7:38PM
Today, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas
denied nearly all of the government’s motion to dismiss NCLA’s
lawsuit, The Daily Wire, The Federalist, Texas v. State Dept.,
which alleges massive violations of free speech and press rights.
The Court also granted NCLA’s request for expedited discovery and
rejected the government’s request to transfer venue to the U.S.
District Court for the District of Columbia.
In ruling in favor of NCLA’s clients, The Daily
Wire and The Federalist, the Court’s opinion quoted the First
Amendment: “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of
speech, or of the press[.]” As the Court stressed, this provision
enshrines “[o]ur profound national commitment to the free exchange
of ideas.” The U.S. State Department has funded the development,
testing, and marketing of censorship technology used to suppress
First Amendment-protected speech by media outlets whose viewpoint
the government disfavors, including The Daily Wire and The
Federalist. NCLA looks forward to revealing the true depth of this
egregious censorship regime via expedited discovery, and to
stopping the State Department from abridging Americans’ civil
liberties.
The State Department uses its Global Engagement
Center (“GEC”) to finance the development and promotion of
censorship technology and enterprises, including working with third
parties like NewsGuard and the Global Disinformation Index, both of
which blacklist American news organizations. These
government-funded and government-promoted censorship technologies
and enterprises target media outlets that oppose the government’s
narrative, including The Daily Wire and The Federalist, suppressing
their readership by demoting and labeling their stories as risky or
unreliable, which deprives them of advertising.
The State Department’s censorship regime
violates the First Amendment rights of The Daily Wire, The
Federalist, numerous similar outlets, and their readers. NCLA’s
clients are very likely to succeed in their First Amendment claims.
When this practice was first disclosed in 2023 at the State
Department’s National Endowment for Democracy, NED’s board
immediately shuttered that unconstitutional program. NCLA is also
pursuing injunctive relief to halt this scheme which continues to
irreparably harm the affected media outlets. Expedited discovery
will enable our clients to win a preliminary injunction enjoining
Defendants’ unconstitutional and ultra vires conduct.
The State of Texas has joined NCLA in bringing
this lawsuit, recognizing that the State Department and its GEC
lack authority to fund and market censorship technologies for use
against domestic targets and that doing so interferes with its
sovereign interest in enforcing Texas law. A preliminary injunction
should put a stop to this infringement on Texas’s sovereign
interests.
NCLA released the following
statements:
“The First Amendment forbids the State
Department’s suppression of Americans’ rights to free speech and a
free press. Federal law confines the State Department to foreign
affairs, so it may not use taxpayer dollars to fund, promote, and
deploy government tools and technology to blacklist disfavored
domestic press. NCLA looks forward to expedited discovery on this
unlawful weaponization of government resources and power.”—
Peggy Little, Senior Litigation Counsel, NCLA
“The State Department and its Global Engagement
Center lost sight of the Constitution’s foundational principles,
executing a secretive censorship scheme that funded, tested, and
promoted technologies that demonetize American media outlets and
silence the speech of ordinary Americans. The expedited discovery
ordered today will allow NCLA to bring to light the government’s
unconstitutional conduct—and put a halt to it.”— Margot
Cleveland, Of Counsel, NCLA
For more information visit the case page
here.
ABOUT NCLA
NCLA is a nonpartisan, nonprofit civil rights
group founded by prominent legal scholar Philip Hamburger to
protect constitutional freedoms from violations by the
Administrative State. NCLA’s public-interest litigation and other
pro bono advocacy strive to tame the unlawful power of state and
federal agencies and to foster a new civil liberties movement that
will help restore Americans’ fundamental rights.###
Ruslan Moldovanov
New Civil Liberties Alliance
202-869-5237
ruslan.moldovanov@ncla.legal