The Department of Justice (DOJ) has asked the U.S. Supreme Court for a stay against an appeals court’s order limiting the Biden administration’s communication with Big Tech companies over free speech concerns.
U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar said on Thursday that the Supreme Court should keep the limit order until the higher court has decided whether to hear the case.
“This application concerns an unprecedented injunction installing the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana as the superintendent of the Executive Branch’s communications with and about social-media platforms — including senior White House officials’ speech addressing some of the most salient public issues of the day,” Prelogar wrote in her filing.
Justice Samuel Alito, who handles emergency requests from the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, approved a brief pause of the injunction until September 22 to allow the opposing counsel to respond to the government’s request. The decision is not an indication of Alito’s potential vote should the Supreme Court finally decide to hear the case.
This comes after U.S. District Judge Terry A. Doughty has denied the Biden administration’s request to stay a ruling that places limits on government communications with social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.
Two attorney generals from Louisiana and Missouri filed a lawsuit in July, alleging that the DOJ is putting pressure on social media companies to remove posts or suspend user accounts that question the efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccines or the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.
“Although this Preliminary Injunction involves numerous agencies, it is not as broad as it appears,” Doughty, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump, wrote in his ruling at the time.
“It only prohibits something the Defendants have no legal right to do—contacting social media companies for the purpose of urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner, the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech posted on social-media platforms,” he continued.
The DOJ argued in its Thursday filing that the appeals court imposed “unprecedented limits” on the federal agencies’ ability to address matters of public concern, prevent threats to national security and relay information, calling the court’s findings “startling.”
“If allowed to take effect, the injunction would impose grave and irreparable harms on the government and the public,” Prelogar wrote.
