A federal appeals court Tuesday barred the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) from coordinating with social media companies to censor election-related speech.
A three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans ruled the CISA "used its frequent interactions with social media platforms to push them to adopt more restrictive policies on election-related speech," The Washington Post reported.
The decision revises an order issued by the court in September in Missouri v. Biden that narrowed a lower court's injunction by spelling out how government officials can communicate with social media platforms without violating the First Amendment.
Tuesday's decision bars CISA, its director Jen Easterly and other top agency officials from taking actions that "coerce or significantly encourage" tech companies to remove or reduce the spread of posts, the Post reported. It also clears the way for the Supreme Court to decide whether to take the case, after the Justice Department asked the justices to put the 5th Circuit ruling on hold.
The panel of Edith Brown Clement, Jennifer Walker Elrod, and Don Willett – the first two were appointed by George W. Bush and Willet was appointed by former President Donald Trump – ruled the CISA served as the "primary facilitator" of the FBI's interactions with social media companies, the Post reported. The panel alleged the agency worked closely with the FBI to "push the platforms to change their moderation policies to cover 'hack-and-leak' content."
"CISA is the 'nerve center' of the vast censorship enterprise, the very entity that worked with the FBI to silence the Hunter Biden laptop story," Republican Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey posted Tuesday on X. Bailey and Republican Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry were the principles behind the filing of Missouri v. Biden.
"When it comes to defending the Constitution, Missouri doesn't back down," Bailey wrote in another post. "[President] Joe Biden has promised to appeal to the United States Supreme Court. We look forward to defending your First Amendment rights at the nation's highest court."