CDA Section 230 violates Equal Protection Clause & threatens National Security

There’s been a significant amount of handwringing over remarks made by so-called “free speech” advocates who assert that anyone can say anything online “because it’s ‘free’ speech,” and ostensibly protected by the First Amendment.

I demur.

Facebook, Instagram (owned by FB), and Twitter, which are the “Big Three” online Social Media (SoMe) corporate megaliths (that is, if Twitter survives Elon Musk, if not, then TikTok may take Twitter’s place), have increasingly come under fire in the past several years — justifiably so — for turning a blind eye to bad behavior, “speech” in particular (as writing and/or video, both mediums posted on the services), thereby, in essence, becoming purveyors of lies, complicit by their inactions, in aiding and abetting actions of bad actors, consequently harming our nation — a significant portion of which continues originating in nations hostile to American national interests.

Writing in the Global Security Review, June 10, 2019, in an article entitled “Facebook, Compromised: How Russia Manipulated U.S. Voters” — the second of a four-part series — Sophia Porotsky detailed how Russia, as a malign foreign actor, sought, and continues seeking, the downfall of the United States.

“Russian Information Warfare content on social media attempts to subvert Western democracies in five ways:

1.) Undermine public confidence in democratic government;
2.) Exacerbate internal political divisions;
3.) Erode trust in government;
4.) Push the Russian agenda in foreign populations, and;
5.) Create confusion and distrust by blurring fact and fiction.

Russian propaganda on social media can be divided into four themes:

1.) Political messages intended to foster distrust in government (e.g. allegations of voter fraud, corruption);
2.) Financial propaganda (i.e. create distrust in Western financial institutions);
3.) Social issues (e.g. ethnic tensions, police brutality), and;
4.) Doomsday-style conspiracy theories.

“Information warfare content is generated and disseminated through channels that fall into three attribution categories:

1.) White (overt);
2.) Grey (less-overt), and;
3.) Black (covert) channels.

They propagate a blend of authentic, manipulated, and fake stories and they feed off of and reinforce each other.”

Among the numerous sources cited was “Russia’s Approach to Cyber Warfare,” a paper written by Michael Connell and Sarah Vogler published March 2017 by the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA) — an 80-year, independent, nonprofit research and analysis organization dedicated to the safety and security of the nation that informs the decisions of Navy, Marine Corps and DOD leaders as the Department of the Navy’s federally funded research and development center — which stated that,

“Russia views cyber very differently than its western counterparts, from the way Russian theorists define cyberwarfare to how the Kremlin employs its cyber capabilities.” Part of that difference is that the Russians “conceptualize cyber operations within the broader framework of information warfare, a holistic concept that includes computer network operations, electronic warfare, psychological operations, and information operations.”

And as part of their overall operations in that realm, not only does Russia “employ cyber as a conventional force enabler,” they integrate cybercriminals, hacktivists, and other nefariously malign non-state actors into their overall operations scheme, a practice also undertaken by “China, Iran, North Korea, and other cyber adversaries.”

That information is further borne out by the writings of Professor Dr. Mark Galeotti, PhD, who in June 2022 was recently banned from travel to Russia, wrote an OpEd in the independent news journal The Moscow Times, published December 22, 2017, that, “It is hard to sustain a serious claim that NATO tanks are about to surge eastwards – though some of the Kremlin’s more fanciful propagandists do try – but the virtues of the “secret battlefield” of intelligence work is that it is precisely covert.”

Dr. Galeotti is an internationally-recognized expert in security politics, intelligence services and criminality of modern Russia, is a Senior Non-Resident Fellow of the Institute of International Relations Prague, an Associate Fellow at the Council on Geostrategy, Honorary Professor at the UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies, Honorary Professor at University College London, and Executive Director and principal in Mayak Intelligence, a London-based consultancy specializing in, and primarily focusing upon understanding organized and transnational crime, war, politics and history in Russia. Dr. Galieotti is also a contributing member of the Network of Experts of the independent civil-society organization Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland.

The root cause of such problems, wrote David J. Smith in “How Russia Harnesses Cyber Warfare,” published in Defense Dossier, American Foreign Policy Council (August 2012: Issue 4), 9,” is inherently based in, and the natural outcome of,

Citizens United Ruling Violates Equal Protection Clause

Nick Hanauer, a multi-billionaire about whom few have likely heard, authored a highly publicized article not too long ago warning about wealth inequity. Increasingly, the wealthy are realizing that a strategy of cutting taxes upon the wealthy and their corporations is not a recipe for American success, precisely for the reason that it adversely affects economic infrastructure, and jobs, among other damages.

However, one needn’t be wealthy to realize and understand that money, and the unreasonable desire for it known as avarice (an extreme form of greed), and the unwieldy power that accompanies it, are corrupting influences in any nation, and particularly in our United States because of SCOTUS ruling in the 2010 Citizens United v Federal Election Commission decision which

Answering @chrkirk: Electoral College’s Voting Problems Violates Equal Protection Clause

How Much Is Your Vote Worth?
From: New York Times Op-Chart November 2, 2008
This map shows each state re-sized in proportion to the relative influence of the individual voters who live there. The numbers indicate the total delegates to the Electoral College from each state, and how many eligible voters a single delegate from each state represents.
Source: The United States Election Project at George Mason University.

Having read the article How Powerful Is Your Vote? by Chris Kirk several times, I still disagree with it. The article’s premise is that by using the Electoral College (EC) system, the votes cast in less populated states are somehow “more powerful” than those in more populated states. To posit such an assertion is to demonstrate a wholesale lack of understanding of the system. That is not to say the EC system is perfect, nor that changes to it are not needed; rather, it only acknowledges the author’s fundamentally deep misunderstanding of the manner in which the system is established, and a virtually wholesale ignorance of the Constitution.

Apparently, as evidenced by the graphic seen herein, others are similarly misguided. However, one would expect more from George Mason University. Much more, in fact. However, to understand – as I mention later – the bias is strictly and exclusively from including 2 Senators in the number of Electors. Dr. Mark Newman, PhD, who is the Anatol Rapoport Distinguished University Professor of Physics in the Department of Physics and Center for the Study of Complex Systems at the University of Michigan correctly writes that “The electors are apportioned among the states roughly according to population, as measured by the census, but with a small but deliberate bias in favor of less populous states.”

According to the Constitution in Article II, Section 1, Clause 2 & 3, Electoral Votes in each state are equal to