I’ve given a lot of thought to this issue. As I noted in response to an earlier comment above, I think the federal government is clearly using private companies as proxies to circumvent the First Amendment; the effort is completely transparent and shameless.

I also agree that it wouldn’t be difficult to connect the dots between the Disinformation Board “flagging” problematic content and Big Tech de-platforming the offender. In a purely democratic society, I think we could count on the legal system to protect us from these kind of abuses. The problem is that many in the legal community are turning a blind eye to what’s happening now.

I have a very good friend with whom I graduated from Harvard Law. He attended Stanford undergrad, clerked for the Ninth Circuit, and worked in the U.S. Attorney’s office. The Board doesn’t trouble him because he believes “DHS is just trying to protect us from terrorism and hate speech, and as long as it respects those limits, we’ll be fine.” He doesn’t see this as a slippery slope at all; he trusts the government to do the right thing. In other words, we’re dealing with a different breed of lawyers now who are no longer watchmen standing on the tower, guarding against potential threats to our liberty, but complacent agents in the destruction of our democracy.

Keep in mind that judges are just lawyers sitting on a bench. My very real concern is that our legal community has been compromised.