I figure this is headed to Bad OMNI before sundown, but I figured I would start it out here because some of us have been banned from Propaganda Village and various TSA-related social media sites by government employees in a similar manner to this court case. Sorry for the length, but there are a lot of moving parts.
Federal Judge Sides with Loudoun Commonwealth’s Attorney in First Amendment Suit. The title is somewhat misleading because the judge didn't entirely throw the Constitution in the shredder. Also, the Commonwealth's Attorney (Elected DA most everywhere else) backed off in a couple of key areas. There was also a cheap shot thrown at the plaintiff by the CA worthy of any TSA "blame the victim" tactic.
Let's start right in... I've bolded what I consider to be key points relevant to how the TSA has treated some FTers:
Loudoun County Commonwealth’s Attorney Jim Plowman (R) did not violate the First Amendment by deleting the Facebook comment of Lansdowne resident Brian Davison, U.S. District Judge James C. Cacheris ruled in late March.
Cacheris's decision brings to a close a contentious civil rights suit against Plowman, who deleted Davison's critical comment and later blocked the local resident from his official Facebook page.
Over the course of the last year, as the lawsuit unfolded, Plowman eventually restored Davison’s ability to comment. Plowman and county officials have updated a Loudoun County social media policy that used to say public officials have the right to delete comments they deemed “clearly off topic.” The revised county policy states public officials are no longer allowed to delete “off-topic” comments.
<snip>
Davison also believes that, had he not taken Loudoun’s top prosecutor to court, Plowman would have never restored his right to post on his official Facebook page.
Apparently, a lot of the litigation in this case had to do with whether or not the plaintiff's comment was "off topic" or not. This was ultimately never tested again because the County changed their policy on "off topic" comments.
Almost forgot the cheap shot:
The commonwealth's attorney also noted that Davison's suit cost the taxpayers thousands of dollars.
“It’s unfortunate because as fiscally conscious as [Davison] seems to be with government spending, he wasted tens of thousands of dollars of taxpayer money, which is a bit of an irony in this whole thing,” Plowman added.
Are you listening, Blogdad Bob? Lisa Farbstein? AskTSA? Although this case stopped short of a ban on deleting public comments because Loudoun County changed their policy, it demonstrates that at least one level of government backed off when pressed.
For further reading:
DHS Social Media Comment Policy
Loudoun County Social Media Comment Policy (Post-lawsuit)
Interestingly, Loudoun County's policy is that the moderator of a county site cannot delete a comment or ban a person by themselves. Also, Loudoun has a stated appeal process. As yu might expect, none of this internal oversight exists in the DHS and component units.