Back in 2017, when Trump was running amok on social media, he was sued by seven people he had blocked on his Twitter account, who claimed Trump was in violation of the First Amendment. A series of lower courts agreed with the plaintiffs. The case eventually reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which Trump’s lawyers argued “should have the final word on where to draw the line between the President’s personal decisions and official conduct.” But the plaintiffs’ attorneys countered with the argument that “the president’s personal Twitter account ‘functions as an official source of news and information about the government, and as a forum for speech by, to, and about the President,’” and thus the public had a right to access that account.
At any rate, after Trump lost the 2020 Presidential election, the Court rendered the case “moot,” with Clarence Thomas suggesting that the justices “will soon have no choice but to address how our legal doctrines apply to highly concentrated, privately owned information infrastructure such as digital platforms.” Thomas’s prediction soon came true, in the 2022 case of O’Connor-Ratcliff v. Garner. Michelle O’Connor-Ratcliff and T.J. Zane were both members of a school board who blocked Christopher and Kimberly Garnier, who had criticized them on Facebook and Twitter. The Garniers sued, on First Amendment grounds, and that case also traveled up to the U.S. Supreme Court, which will hear it sometime in 2024.
SCOTUS analysts believe that the Court is “split,” but the fact that the issue is recurring with greater frequency probably means the Justices will have to weigh in. The central point seems clear: do I, as an elected official, have to allow any and all to have access to my social media accounts? Or am I, as a citizen, accorded the same right you are as a private citizen—to block certain individuals?
Pamela Price, the current District Attorney of Alameda County, is no doubt watching this case closely. Until about three weeks ago, her Twitter account was open, meaning that I could see everything on it, even though I wasn’t following her. Then, suddenly, without explanation, overnight Price’s account went private. If you try to access it now, you get this message:
These Tweets are protected.
Only approved followers can see @PPriceCares’s Tweets. To request access, click Follow.
So Madame District Attorney is doing the very thing that is getting other elected officials sued: cutting off access to all members of the public, even though our dollars are paying her salary, and presumably also for the computers and other devices she uses.
Doesn’t it seem desperate for Price to try to hide what she’s saying on Twitter? What does she have to hide? Or is this just a little bit of vengeance for those whom she perceives to be her enemies? Look, I live in Alameda County, I pay my taxes, and I have a right to scroll through Pamela Price’s tweets. If she doesn’t like the public scrutiny she attracts, then she’s free to resign her job and go back to being Private Citizen Pamela. But as long as she’s enjoying the fruits of public office, she has no right to have secret conversations with only her “followers” while shutting the rest of us out. When Price pledged “to increase transparency in the Alameda County DA’s office,” she lied.
Steve Heimoff