by Jerome R. Corsi, American Thinker:
A 2020 article published by a World Health Organization-affiliated medical doctor in Nepal gains new relevance in light of the recent disclosure that the Biden administration’s FBI worked with a Ukrainian spy agency to take down social media posts that Ukraine considered “spreading Russian disinformation.” The “woke” leftists’ ambition to censor as “disinformation” any communication they consider harmful to their neo-Marxist agenda may well be just the first step to designating as “mentally ill” any dissenter to their views who dares to exercise free speech rights under the First Amendment.
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In a 2020 article entitled “Information Disorder Syndrome and its Management,” published in the Journal of Nepal Medical Association, Nirmal Kandal, a member of the Nepal Medical Association, argued that there were three grades to the psychological disorder of sharing or developing “false information.”
- Grade 1: in which the individual “shares false information without the intent of harming others.”
- Grade 2: a moderate form of psychological disorder in which “the individual develops and shares false information with the intent of making money and political gain, but not with the intent of harming people.”
- Grade 3: a severe form “in which the individual develops and shares false information with the intent of harming others.”
Kandal suggested that “all sufferers from grade 2 and 3 levels need psycho-social counseling and sometimes require strong regulations and enforcement to control such information disorder.” As an example of the type of speech he wanted to suppress, Kandal signaled out the “anti-vaxxer movement,” whose members he believed members were rightfully arrested for warning people that the vaccines themselves could be harmful to health. If you were wondering, Kindal works in the World Health Organization’s (WHO) headquarters heading the WHO’s Evidence and Analytics for Heath Security (EHS) Unit.
At the heart of this debate is the legal theory of prior restraint on speech, a very narrow limitation on the First Amendment’s prohibition against government censorship. In light of the WHO’s speech preferences, which Democrats indicate they want to embrace, the issue is when the government can bypass the First Amendment to restrain speech and possibly persecute anticipated speech because the anticipated publication or speech is somehow unacceptably harmful.
Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357 (1927), arose when Anita Whitney, a member of the Communist Labor Party, was convicted in 1920 under the California Syndicalism Act. The act made it a felony to become a member of an organization that “organized or assembled to advocate, teach or aid and abet criminal syndicalism.” “Criminal syndicalism,” in turn, was any doctrine or precept advocating, teaching or aiding and abetting the commission of a crime, sabotage,” or other acts of terrorism for accomplishing changes in industrial ownership or “effecting any political change.” The Supreme Court upheld the conviction.
Justice Brandeis wrote a concurring opinion (joined by Justice Oliver Wendall Holmes) acknowledging that the First Amendment free speech right was not absolute. While he agreed with the decision’s outcome under the specific facts of the case, he wanted to set out very clearly the narrow parameters of prior restraint laws. To limit speech, he insisted that the danger presented must be immediate, likely, and substantial:
This Court has not yet fixed the standard by which to determine when a danger shall be deemed clear; how remote the danger may be and yet be deemed present, and what degree of evil shall be deemed sufficiently substantial to justify resort to abridgement of free speech and assembly as the means of protection.
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