I remember in 1975 when a high court found that then-prime minister of India Indira Gandhi had interfered unlawfully in an election. The ruling disqualified her from holding office. In response, she declared a state of emergency, suspended democracy, censored the opposition press and government critics, and threw her political opponents in jail. I remember the shock of these events and our family’s collective relief that we were in the U.S., where it was unimaginable that such things could happen.
When I was 19, I became an American citizen. It was one of the happiest days of my young life. The immigration officer gave me a civics test, including a question about the First Amendment. It was an easy test because I knew it in my heart. The American civic religion has the right to free speech as the core of its liturgy. I never imagined that there would come a time when an American government would think of violating this right, or that I would be its target.
Unfortunately, during the pandemic, the American government violated my free speech rights and those of my scientist colleagues for questioning the federal government’s pandemic policies. … On Friday, at long last, the Fifth Circuit Court ruled that we were not imagining it—that the Biden administration did indeed strong-arm social media companies into doing its bidding.
[The suppression of dissent, and especially of scientific skepticism over government policies, was one of the worst outcomes of the pandemic. However, it had its roots in the Russia-collusion hoax and the attempts to silence critics pointing out its obvious flaws. This action by the Fifth Circuit is a good first step toward dismantling these censorship mechanisms, but until Congress takes the First Amendment both more seriously and literally, it will remain an uphill battle for liberty. — Ed]
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