Vermont Gov. Phil Scott is in hot water after his office began deleting pro-gun Facebook comments (Photo: Gov. Scott’s Facebook Page)
Gun owners in Vermont felt betrayed earlier this year when supposedly pro-gun Republican Gov. Phil Scott signed a raft of anti-gun measures designed to restrict Second Amendment rights in the Green Mountain State.
Some of those gun owners took to Scott’s Facebook page to voice their displeasure, where, according to the Vermont ACLU, they were promptly blocked. Now the ACLU has asked Gov. Scott’s office to stop deleting Facebook comments that criticize the governor’s anti-gun stance.
“We have been contacted by multiple Vermonters whose posts have been deleted and who have been blocked from your page in recent weeks, apparently because they were critical of your support for gun control legislation,” Jay Diaz, an ACLU of Vermont Staff Attorney, said in a letter on Wednesday. “As a growing number of federal courts have recognized, these practices are unconstitutional.”
Diaz explained that deleting comments and permanently blocking Facebook users is a form of viewpoint-based censorship that violates the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and Article 13 of the Vermont Constitution. He also argued that the policies regulating Gov. Scott’s page use “vague terminology that confers overly broad discretion to your office and are thus impermissible under our federal and state constitutions.”
SEE ALSO: ‘Traitorous’ Gov. Phil Scott Catches Hell While Signing Vermont Gun Control Bills
Vermont resident Jeremy McClure frequents Gov. Scott’s Facebook page, and he’s seen first-hand how the governor’s office deletes critical comments.
“Comments that I know that were deleted were comments that stated facts outside of [Gov. Scott’s] policy change,” McClure told GunsAmerica via email. “His staff tends to leave the ignorant and vulgar comments like people calling him names and a traitor but delete the ones that would make the public question why exactly he adopted this policy. Comments that talk about violating the Vermont constitution, or ones about law enforcement saying they aren’t enforceable laws also magically disappear.”
“They delete the comments trying to suppress the fact that many people, on both sides of the aisle are very unhappy with him. What’s going on is image manipulation at its finest,” McClure concluded.
Governor Scott’s Communications Director Rebecca Kelley responded on Wednesday with a statement of her own.
She argues that it is “necessary and Constitutionally permissible to have a social media policy that encourages a civil dialogue and protects commenters from being abused, harassed or exposed to hate speech.”
“Comments are only deleted when they are abusive, obscene or hateful and users are only blocked when they display a pattern of this behavior,” she continues. “Even a cursory review of the comments on the Governor’s Facebook page makes clear that dissenting, critical and even insulting comments towards the Governor are left on the page.”
Governor Scott’s office would do well to take the ACLU’s letter seriously. They’ve already sued governors in Maine, Maryland and Kentucky for similarly blocking constituents on Facebook. A federal court in New York also ruled last month that President Donald Trump violated the First Amendment when he blocked critics on Twitter.
We have a Democrat Governor in Kansas that if we didn’t have a house and senate that was not a republican super majority she would try the same thing. That is why you need to elect a majority of republicans in both houses to counteract the democrat governor stupidity but they have to be kept on a short leash. Cant trust them if you give them a congressional majority, they get that i am king attitude and act on that.
When you get a rogue RINO governor acting like this. Its time to make sure he is not reelected and take him to court.
Check out this guy’s nose. He’s a heavy drinker and probably makes most of his decisions after a number of heavy shots.
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At present too many accidents are occurring with firearms. A gun safe is truly a protective and secure storage, firearms, plus, or bullets for all guns. The gun safes are used to prevent usage of unauthorized primarily, with regard to burglary safety.
“Both oligarch and tyrant mistrust the people, and therefore deprive them of arms” – Aristotle
The Communists stifled opposing opinions . Nazis would not tolerate objections .
The British empire went out-of-its way to crush rebellion . What tyranny would
allow dissent ? How is this different from King George , Mao , Stalin , Pol Pot ,
Hitler , Chavez , Castro , ….et al ?
Same drama , same poor actors . We’ve seen this before . Wise-up !
The ” gentleman ” is a tyrant . He’ll behave as one . They all do .
Know it when one sees it . This is not that difficult .
……..The idiots in Vermont elected him, now they are stuck with him!!…..They deserve every bit of him and more of his Lefty Liberal DemocRAT Agenda!!,……Choose Wisely America!!,…
You know the old saying first the soap box, next the ballet box, and if those fail, finally the cartridge box!
In the realm of politics, politicians will do a lot of things, including go back on their promises. Like the weather all you can do is complaint; unlike the weather, what you must do is …. VOTE!