Senator Amy Klobuchar is an attorney, and doesn’t understand the First Amendment
Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar is a graduate of Yale University and the University of Chicago Law School who was a partner at not one — but two law firms in Minneapolis, before getting elected as the Hennepin County Attorney back in 1998.
And yet, the prosecutor-turned-senator is saying some pretty dumb things when it comes to the First Amendment, with respect to her aspirations to craft a law that would strip social media companies from Section 230 protections if their “algorithms” push content that promulgates “misinformation related to vaccines”.
On August 17th, 2021, an interview with Senator Klobuchar was published on the news site Fast Company, where she discussed this bill she’d like to see come to fruition, where social media companies would lose Section 230 protections in the event their “algorithms” spread alleged misinformation about vaccines.
Senator Klobuchar stated during the interview:
“Why I like this bill is it’s narrowly tailored for misinformation related to vaccines in a public health emergency, so it’s very targeted on what’s happening now.”
“When something gets really popular because it has a lot of likes or shares [the algorithms] expand it even more. And the way I look at this is, [social networks] argue First Amendment.”
And this is where Senator Klobuchar, who is an attorney that served as a prosecutor, makes the dumbest of statements in the realm of legal takes:
“Well, yeah, there are First Amendment protections to say what you think, but I don’t think that covers them endangering lives. There isn’t a First Amendment protection for someone yelling fire in a theater, and there shouldn’t be First Amendment protections for a sound system that amplified that over and over and over again and scared people even more. That’s what their algorithms are.”
So, this is why this is such a stupid legal take, especially coming from an attorney and public official.
When Senator Klobuchar made the retarded statement of, “There isn’t a First Amendment protection for someone yelling fire in a theater,” she was spreading…misinformation.
She’s making reference to Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.’s opinion in the United States Supreme Court case of Schenck v. United States, which is from 1919.
What the problem is with making that reference to a 1919 SCOTUS decision regarding “yelling fire in a theater” is that there is another SCOTUS decision from 1969, Brandenburg v. Ohio, which doused the proverbial flames of “yelling fire in a theater”.
More specifically, the scope of unprotected speech was more narrowly defined in that 1969 case to speech that was likely to incite imminent, lawless action — also known as, a riot.
What makes Senator Klobuchar’s legal take all the more dumb when proclaiming, “There isn’t a First Amendment protection for someone yelling fire in a theater,” is that Brandenburg v. Ohio was crafted in 1969 and she was born in 1960; and it’s painfully obvious she didn’t start law school before turning 9-years-old.
Of course, she is at least getting poked fun at online for her stupidity.
A senator who is a lawyer (which as a senator, is also adorned with the ability to help craft law) doesn’t even understand case law that was being taught when she was in law school.
Furthermore, anyone who wants to strip Section 230 protections for the spread of alleged “misinformation” is someone that needs to be booted from the Senate as quickly as possible.
Because in today’s world, what is being heralded as “misinformation” regarding vaccines typically lives in the realm of people professing their unsavory experiences with previous vaccines in general, declaring their concerns of being vaccinated for COVID, noting that they’re not among the populace at risk for COVID, or simply amplifying legitimate adverse reactions that are medically documented that happen to reach large audiences.
Senator Klobuchar needs to drink a giant glass of Shut The Fuck Up and quit boasting “misinformation” about case law that was settled over 50 years ago and trying to limit voices online that present alternative viewpoints or express unpopular facts or opinions.
