it seems Facebook was more polite than that, instead just ignoring the random government bureaucrat when it suited them
also, in American courts, it is the actual harm that matters. No harm, no standing, no court case.
Traditionally, yes, although that didn't stop SCOTUS from ruling last week in a case in which the plaintiff experienced no harm (not to mention admitted to perjury).
> When Smith's suit was filed at the federal district court in 2016, she had not begun designing websites, nor had she received any requests to design a wedding website for a same-sex couple. In 2017, her lawyers ADF filed an affidavit from Smith stating that she had received such a request several days after the initial filing, and appended a copy of the request. Smith never responded to the request, and has stated that she feared she would violate Colorado's law if she were to do so. However, the name, email, and phone number on the online form belong to a man who has long been married to a woman, and who stated that he never submitted such a request, as reported by The New Republic on June 29, 2023, a day before the Supreme Court's decision was released.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/sham-customer...
> That narrative was thrown into question last week after The New Republic published an article on Stewart, who denied ever having reached out to Smith. It quoted him saying he was a web designer who has been married to a woman for years.
> “I wouldn’t want anybody to … make me a wedding website?” the man identified only as Stewart told the magazine. “I’m married, I have a child — I’m not really sure where that came from? But somebody’s using false information in a Supreme Court filing document.”
Perjury is probably a stretch, and it's unlikely to affect the ruling any.
> A Colorado web designer who the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Friday could refuse to make wedding websites for gay couples cited a request from a man who says he never asked to work with her.
A pre-emptive request backed up by a fake customer does not equal standing (in a sane court but SCOTUS left sanity behind a couple of justice appointments ago.)
If I'm reading this right, the plaintiffs felt harmed because their information they might have received was effectively censored. Not all of the sources were, but enough of them were removed that would have been published without the government's intervention.
To this specific topic, could you clarify your position? Do you think the same is applicable to a police officer or an IRS agent?
The specific thing that made me think your statement was contradictory was police. The left was demanding police to be accountable seemingly five minutes ago. For most police departments, I think they went too far in saying the whole system was corrupt. I think there's at least an argument to be made about the extent of the Biden administration's involvement, but certainly you think the person doing the coercion should be punished, right?
It seems to me that any case of a "random bureaucrat" attempting to coerce a citizen or company outside of their civil mandate should be punished to the maximum extent of the law. If there isn't a criminal punishment already for this, one should be created and applied retroactively because it should be common sense.
in the case of a police officer, our current society is one in which police officers can and often do immediately assault and/or shoot and/or kill you for doing or being something they don't like, regardless of whether you're right or wrong, and they can do so with little question and no internal criticism or retribution or punishment, which is an entirely different issue in and of itself
the same is obviously not true of Steve who works at the IRS. Steve would be tried for murder. So would Flaherty.
