Tag: lawsuits

Biden administration officials are subpoenaed over Big Tech censorship collusion

The suspected collusion between Big Tech and Big Government is nothing new, but now the issue is playing out in court: in May, a lawsuit filed at the US District Court for the Western District Court of Louisiana seeks to prove that such inappropriate ties in fact exist.

The plaintiffs are the states of Missouri and Louisiana while President Biden and senior figures from his White House – including Dr. Anthony Fauci – are named as defendants. The allegation is that the collusion to suppress speech happened specifically around topics like Covid and election security, and that this was done with the pretense of fighting “misinformation.”

The legal process is now in the discovery phase and those who must respond to discovery requests and present documents and information relevant to the case are Fauci and the institution he heads, the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), as well as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and its head, Jen Easterly, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

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Biden Administration is sued over DHS social media surveillance allegations

The Oversight Project, run by conservative think tank Heritage, has sued the Biden administration over surveillance of people through social media.

The lawsuit demands the release of documents related to the DHS’ contract with Babel Street, a Virginia-based company that provides surveillance and data mining technologies.

We obtained a copy of the lawsuit for you here.

The DHS has a contract with Babel Street to provide Babel X, a tool that scrapes data from smartphone apps and online sources. According to a report on Heritage’s website, government agencies “can aggregate and search that data by any number of keywords and in many languages.”

Speaking to The Washington Post in 2017, the company’s founder Jeff Chapman said: “There are billions of smartphones on the planet. All you have to do is listen to them.”

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Pfizer Asks Court to Dismiss Whistleblower Lawsuit Because Government Was Aware of Fraud

A lawsuit filed by whistleblower Brook Jackson alleging Pfizer and two of its contractors manipulated data and committed other acts of fraud during Pfizer’s COVID-19 clinical trials is paused following a motion by the defendants to dismiss the case.

In an interview with The Defender, Jackson’s lawyer said Pfizer argued the lawsuit, which was filed under the False Claims Act, should be dismissed because the U.S. government knew of the wrongdoings in the clinical trials but continued to do business with the vaccine maker.

Under the False Claims Act, whistleblowers can be rewarded for confidentially disclosing fraud that results in a financial loss to the federal government.

However, a 2016 U.S. Supreme Court decision that expanded the scope of a legal principle known as “materiality” resulted in a series of federal court decisions in which fraud cases brought under the False Claims Act were dismissed.

As interpreted by the Supreme Court, if the government continued paying a contractor despite the contractor’s fraudulent activity, the fraud was not considered “material” to the contract.

Pfizer is a federal contractor because it signed multiple contracts with the U.S. government to provide COVID-19 vaccines and Paxlovid, a pill used to treat the virus.

“Pfizer claims they can get away with fraud as long as the government would write them a check despite knowing about the fraud,” attorney Robert Barnes said.

The other two defendants in the case are Ventavia Research Group, which conducted vaccine trials on behalf of Pfizer, and ICON PLC, also a Pfizer contractor.

In an attempt to strengthen the False Claims Act’s anti-retaliation provisions and install new safeguards against industry-level blacklisting of whistleblowers seeking employment, Congress in July 2021 introduced the False Claims Amendments Act of 2021.

In December 2021, Pfizer hired a well-connected lobbyist, Hazen Marshall, and the law firm Williams & Jensen to lobby against the bill.

Pfizer previously was heavily fined in connection with the False Claims Act. As part of a 2009 settlement, the company paid $2.3 billion in fines — the largest healthcare fraud settlement in the history of the U.S. Department of Justice — stemming from allegations of illegal marketing of off-label products not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

“Pfizer, one of the most criminally fined drug companies in the world, wants to weaken the laws that hold them accountable,” Barnes told The Defender.

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Facebook blocks links to website detailing how users can get class action settlement payout from Facebook

Facebook is blocking links to the official class action claims page for a lawsuit settlement for users affected by privacy concerns. The page helps users receive their payout from Facebook and Facebook is marketing the page as “spam” or “abusive,” which prevents people from learning about how to claim.

“If you are a person who, between April 22, 2010, and September 26, 2011, inclusive, were a Facebook User in the United States who visited non-Facebook websites that displayed the Facebook Like button, you may be eligible for a payment from a Class Action Settlement,” the website reads.

Reclaim The Net was alerted to the censorship by a reader and was able to confirm with David Strait, a partner at the DiCello Levitt Gutzler law firm, a party litigating the case, that fbinternettrackingsettlement.com is the official page for users to see if they’re eligible for a claim.

When users on Facebook Messenger try to share the link with someone, they’re greeted with a message saying, “(#368) The action attempted has been deemed abusive or is otherwise disallowed,” hindering the sharing of the claim information.

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ATF Shuts Down Gunmaker After Suit By Anti-Gun Group

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) revoked a Nevada firearm manufacturer’s license following litigation from an anti-gun organization and two states challenging the agency’s decision to reinstate the gunmaker’s license, multiple outlets reported.

“ATF hereby reports that, on March 24, 2022, it sent JA Industries a notice of revocation of its firearms license,” a March 30 letter from the ATF said. The letter came after a lawsuit brought by the city of Kansas City, Missouri, and the state of Illinois as well as Everytown for Gun Safety, a gun-control group partly founded by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and other mayors, challenged the ATF’s decision to grant a license to JA Industries, USA Today reported. 

The company, originally known as Jimenez Arms, made affordable handguns until filing for bankruptcy in 2020 on the heels of a lawsuit in which Kansas City claimed it was a public nuisance due to its alleged contribution to firearms trafficking, Newsweek reported. It later reincorporated as JA Industries and was reissued its license by the ATF.

Everytown then followed up with a 2021 lawsuit against the ATF over its decision to grant the license to JA Industries, claiming that due to its alleged violations of the Gun Control Act, the gunmaker was ineligible to be licensed.

“I think this is an undisputed important step toward shutting down a manufacturer that flouted federal law and facilitated gun trafficking,” John Feinblatt, president of Everytown, told USA Today. “It shouldn’t have taken three lawsuits to get ATF to do its job. I can only hope this marks a beginning of a new era at ATF where it starts to serve as a watchdog of the American people rather than a lapdog to the gun industry.”

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FBI’s Operation to Infiltrate Right-Wing Extremist Groups Lies at Center of Transparency Lawsuit

An FBI right-wing infiltration operation tangled in allegations of witness tampering, evidence suppression, and connections to the Oklahoma City bombing has been exposed through one man’s unprecedented Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the U.S. government.

And the case isn’t over yet.

Utah attorney Jesse Trentadue’s 2006 FOIA lawsuit against the FBI and CIA for Oklahoma City bombing records is indeed still an open matter, having been sealed and litigated behind closed doors since 2015 over witness tampering allegations.

Trentadue’s case is unprecedented, according to Judicial Watch. It’s rare for a FOIA case to go to trial and even rarer for one to entail allegations as serious as witness tampering, according to Judicial Watch senior investigator Sean Dunagan.

“We’re one of the largest FOIA litigants in this country, and we’ve never been involved in anything that involves that degree of alleged misconduct by the [FBI],” Dunagan said. “It’s astounding.”

Trentadue declined to comment on the sealed aspects of the case, including when the litigation might conclude. However, he did agree to an interview about the events leading up to 2015. He also provided The Epoch Times with access to a trove of court documents, transcripts, and other records that show details about the federal government’s domestic counterterrorism operations.

His records describe an FBI program known as Patriot Conspiracy (PATCON)—a secret operation to infiltrate right-wing and domestic extremist groups.

PATCON has been in the public record for years, described in detail by historian Wendy Painting’s 2016 doctoral thesis-turned-book “Aberration in the Heartland of the Real.” But PATCON has received little media attention outside of the late journalist Will Grigg. Other journalists have attempted to cover PATCON, only to run into censorship issues.

The reasons for the alleged attempts to suppress PATCON are clear, according to Trentadue.

“The FBI’s real objective in PATCON had been to infiltrate and to incite these fringe groups to violence,” he said.

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Unconstitutional? CA bill would permit citizens to enforce weapons ban, sue gunmakers

In an attempt to skirt the U.S. Constitution and challenge the Supreme Court, a new bill in California would allow private citizens to go after gun makers in the same way Texas lets them target abortion providers.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) proposed Friday letting private citizens in his state sue gun makers to stop them from selling assault weapons, comparing the bill to one in Texas that lets its residents sue abortion providers to stop the procedures.

At a news conference in Del Mar, Newsom said he thought the Texas law was wrong and that the Supreme Court’s decision in December to let it stay in effect while it goes through appeal was “absurd” and “outrageous”:

“But they opened up the door. They set the tone, tenor, the rules. And either we can be on the defense complaining about it or we can play by those rules. We are going to play by those rules.

“We’ll see how principled the U.S. Supreme Court is.”

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Bob Saget’s family files lawsuit to block release of records from his death investigation

The family of Bob Saget has filed a lawsuit to block the release of records from the investigation of his sudden death, court documents show.

The comedian and actor, who was most famous for his role as Danny Tanner in the sitcom “Full House,” was found dead in his Florida hotel room on Jan. 9, authorities said. Saget, 65, died from head trauma, his family said last week. The chief medical examiner for Orange and Osceola counties said that the manner of death was an accident.

On Tuesday, Saget’s wife, Kelly Rizzo, and three daughters filed a lawsuit against the medical examiner’s office and the Orange County sheriff seeking injunctive relief to prevent the release of any records — including photographs, video and audio recordings, and “statutorily protected autopsy information” — related to his death.

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Prince Andrew to settle sex abuse case, donate to charity

 Britain’s Prince Andrew has agreed to settle a lawsuit filed by Virginia Giuffre, who said she was sexually trafficked to the British royal by the financier Jeffrey Epstein when she was 17.

The deal described in a court filing Tuesday in New York avoids a trial that would have brought further embarrassment to the monarchy. It calls for the prince to make a substantial donation to the charity of his accuser while saying he never meant to malign her character.

Attorney David Boies, who represents Giuffre, informed the judge presiding over the case in New York that a settlement in principle has been reached and lawyers on both sides will request a dismissal of the lawsuit within a month.

A lawyer for Andrew did not immediately return a message seeking comment.

The letter signed by Boies said all lawyers were asking the judge to suspend all deadlines and put the case on hold.

Giuffre sued Andrew in August. The American accused the British royal of sexually abusing her while she traveled with financier Jeffrey Epstein.

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Biden’s FCC Pick Reached Favorable Legal Settlement With TV Networks Just One Day After Her Nomination

Just one day after President Joe Biden nominated Gigi Sohn to the federal agency that oversees television networks, her nonprofit secured a favorable legal settlement with those same networks that reduced her financial liability by more than $30 million.

According to a confidential settlement revealed by Bloomberg Law, Sohn’s now-defunct nonprofit, Locast, agreed to pay a number of top broadcasters $700,000 after it illegally streamed their programming. That amount is a mere fraction of the $32 million Locast was initially ordered to pay. Sohn, who served as one of the nonprofit’s three directors, signed the agreement one day after Biden announced her nomination to the Federal Communications Commission, which regulates the same networks she settled with.

Sohn’s settlement with the likes of ABC, CBS, and Fox has impeded her confirmation process. During a December hearing, Republican senators Roger Wicker (Miss.) and Roy Blunt (Mo.) expressed concern over the lawsuit, with Blunt asking Sohn if the ordeal would impact her “dealings with the very same local broadcasters that sued” Locast. Last week, Wicker called for a second hearing on Sohn’s confirmation due in part to the “timing of this settlement in relation to her nomination.”

“The possibility of the nominee’s future financial liability to a number of companies regulated by the FCC, and the timing of this settlement in relation to her nomination, demands a full discussion by the committee to ensure that there is a clear understanding of the ability for this nominee to act without any cloud of ethical doubt,” Wicker said. “The committee needs to hold a new hearing on this matter to provide the nominee an opportunity to fully address these concerns.”

While Bloomberg Law wrote that Sohn’s settlement “appears to undercut” Wicker’s “stated reason for opposing her nomination,” others aren’t so sure. American Commitment president Phil Kerpen questioned both the timing and terms of the settlement, arguing that it raises new ethics questions.

“How does this eliminate criticism? The terms of the deal are incredibly favorable to her,” Kerpen told the Washington Free Beacon. “How could anyone say that she can now objectively vote on anything involving any of the big broadcast networks that just basically let her company off the hook?”

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