House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) sent a series of letters on Tuesday, seeking to stay current on the FBI and U.S. Justice Department officials’ efforts to communicate with and potentially sway the behavior of major technology companies like Google and Facebook.
In a July 2023 ruling, U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty ruled that the plaintiffs in Missouri v. Biden were “likely to succeed on the merits” of their arguments that Biden administration officials used their government authority to silence opposing political views. Judge Doughty granted an injunction, momentarily blocking several federal agencies from contacting technology platforms in efforts to induce those private firms to censor or suppress content containing constitutionally protected speech.
Judge Doughty’s injunction was upheld at the appellate court level, but the U.S. Supreme Court lifted it last fall while the court considered arguments in the case.
The Supreme Court’s decision to stay the injunction allows federal agencies to resume contact with social media and internet search firms. Mr. Jordan said an FBI spokesperson had informed him on March 20 that the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF) had resumed communicating with major social media and technology companies regarding alleged foreign influence campaigns.
While federal agents are allowed to once again contact technology platforms about the content appearing on their sites and search engines, Mr. Jordan appears intent on keeping tabs on how those contacts play out.
On Tuesday, Mr. Jordan sent letters to Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray, asking them to turn over records of their contacts with Alphabet (which owns the Google search engine), Meta (which owns Facebook, Instagram, and Threads), X (formerly known as Twitter), Microsoft, Apple, Reddit, and Yahoo, on a continuing basis.
The Republican congressman said the FBI and DOJ should provide records for each interaction with the listed technology companies “but no later than two weeks after each DOJ or FBI meeting with social media and technology companies takes place.”
Mr. Jordan, as the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, issued subpoenas to the same technology executives last February. In his latest letters, the Republican congressman insisted those subpoenas were open-ended and required the covered technology companies, as well as the DOJ and FBI, to continue providing these records continuously.
NTD News reached out to the FBI and DOJ for comment but both government entities declined to comment on the matter.
Biden Admin Insists Big Tech Contacts Not ‘Coercive’
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments last month in the ongoing litigation over the Biden administration’s contacts with major technology platforms. The Biden administration has argued in the case, now known as Murthy v. Missouri, that various federal officials contacting technology firms about potential disinformation has a legitimate function of government and has not involved a direct violation of people’s free speech rights.Arguing the Biden administration’s case, Principal Deputy U.S. Solicitor General Brian Fletcher argued the allegations that the administration unduly influenced technology firms to censor and suppress constitutionally protected speech comes down to the distinction between persuasion and coercion.
Mr. Fletcher said government officials “may not use coercive threats to suppress speech” but were legally safe to continue “informing, persuading, or criticizing private speakers.”
Justice Samuel Alito pushed back on Mr. Fletcher’s line of argument during the March 18 hearing, noting a power imbalance in the interactions as the federal government has the authority to regulate the very same technology firms it was reaching out to with requests for censorship action. Justice Alito noted existing regulatory laws, like Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act and various antitrust laws federal actors might cite to potentially punish disfavored technology firms.
“[The Federal government has] these big clubs available to it and so it’s treating Facebook and these other platforms like their subordinates,” Justice Alito said.
Mr. Fletcher said there at times appeared to be an “unusual” level of intensity and anger directed by government officials at technology firms as they pressed for certain content moderation decisions, but said that anger stemmed from a perception by the government actors that these technology firms were publicly claiming to want to help prevent the spread of misinformation but behind the scenes were “not being transparent about the scope of the problem.”
