Legal Filing Defends Douglass Mackey’s Free Speech Rights

If you’re tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. America First Legal (AFL) in collaboration with Boyden Gray PLLC, has submitted a legal brief to the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, staunchly defending the free speech rights of Douglass Mackey. Douglass Mackey, a once well-known creator of memes on Twitter, was sentenced to seven months in prison. The conviction marked a dramatic escalation in how free speech is being handled in the United States. Rendered in the New York criminal court, Mackey was declared guilty of perpetrating a “conspiracy against rights.” Mackey, who operated under the alias Ricky Vaughn, had made and shared memes critical of Hillary Clinton during the 2016 Presidential race. His memes humorously suggested that Clinton supporters cast their ballots through text messages – a patently invalid method of voting. The filing challenges the actions of the Biden Administration’s Department of Justice (DOJ), which has been accused of selectively prosecuting Mackey under the Ku Klux Klan Act for his internet postings of satirical memes. We obtained a copy of the filing for you here. This case has ignited concerns over free speech, especially in the context of political discourse and satire. AFL’s brief emphasizes that misleading or inaccurate speech about elections and political rivals, particularly satirical in nature, has been a staple in democratic societies. They argue that the government’s interpretation of Section 241 of the Ku Klux Klan Act in this case overreaches its historical and…Legal Filing Defends Douglass Mackey’s Free Speech Rights