For Google now to pretend Biden twisted their arm is pretty rich. They'd better have a verifiable paper trail to prove that, if they expect anyone with a memory five years long to believe it.
For Google now to pretend Biden twisted their arm is pretty rich. They'd better have a verifiable paper trail to prove that, if they expect anyone with a memory five years long to believe it.
The Twitter files showed direct communications from the administration asking them ban specific users like Alex Berenson, Dr. Martin Kulldorff, and Dr. Andrew Bostom: https://cbsaustin.com/news/nation-world/twitter-files-10th-i...
Meta submitted direct communications from the administration pressuring them to ban people as part of a congressional investigation: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/8/27/did-bidens-white-ho...
It would be more surprising if they left Google alone.
US money wasn't supposed to be used to fund that kind of research. So people violated policy and evaded detection until the leak happened. How? Who? Would different audit controls have helped?
The was a cover-up after the fact. Again, how did it work and who was involved? What could have made it less effective?
The lab accident itself is the least interesting part, it's all the bureaucratic stuff that really matters. For boring generic bureaucratic-effectiveness reasons, not any "someone tried to do a bioweapon" silliness.
What the Biden admin did was not acceptable, and even at the time I got plenty of heat from HN for thinking that it was a sketchy loophole for the government to use, that it was against the spirit of the law.
I'm trying to emphasize the distinction because the companys' self-serving language is going to be abused to claim that the current admin - that has just threatened to sue a TV channel for bringing back a show they tried to threaten the channel into getting rid of - is actually a defender of free speech.
The Executive Branch may only take actions that the Constitution allows (same as the Legislative). These are called the Enumerated Powers. Some of them are simple, like requiring the President to give a State of the Union Address. Others are more complex, like allowing the Executive Branch to negotiate treaties. But it then says “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” So anything not in the Executive Branch’s enumerated powers is illegal for them to do.
Of course, one of their enumerated powers is to execute any law passed by the Legislature. That is quite open–ended, because Congress can pass any kind of law that they want, right? Well, no. The First Amendment specifically says “Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.” So we know that there is no law authorizing the the Executive Branch from censoring speech or the press. Thus, the actions of the Biden Administration were illegal. They were explicitly forbidden from taking those actions by the Constitution, and they did it anyway.