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March 28, 2024

Orland Park violating Constitution by blocking people from Twitter –

By John Kraft & Kirk Allen

On June 23, 2020

Orland Park, IL. (ECWd) –

The Village of Orland Park has taken to banning people from its Twitter page, which is a direct violation of the United States Constitution and flies in the face of recent United States Appeals Court decisions on public officials and public bodies prohibiting speech they do not like by banning certain speakers from their social media pages.

Orland Park went one step further – it denied it had any records of people banned from its Twitter account when asked to provide the records under the Freedom of Information Act. See proof of blocking (here).

We understand there is now a complaint filed with the Illinois Attorney General’s Public Access Counselor related to their denial of having any records of blocking people from their social media accounts.

This is a textbook example of why Illinois’ Freedom of Information Act needs to have criminal penalties for willful violations, and those penalties need to apply to the individual hiding records from the public.

In 2019, the United States Appeals Court for the Second Circuit in New York ruled that President Trump violated the First Amendment rights of people by banning or blocking them from reading and commenting on his Twitter account.

  • “the First Amendment does not permit a public official who utilizes a social media account for all manner of official purposes to
    exclude persons from an otherwise‐open online dialogue because they expressed views with which the official disagrees”
  • “the court held that the blocking of the Individual Plaintiffs violated the Knight Institute’s right to read the replies of the Individual Plaintiffs which they cannot post because they are blocked”
  • “Accordingly, we hold that the President violated the First Amendment when he used the blocking function to exclude the Individual Plaintiffs because of their disfavored speech”

In January of 2019, the United States Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit ruled that a County Board Supervisor in Virginia violated the First Amendment rights of a constituent by blocking him from her Facebook account. the Court of Appeals confirmed the District Court’s ruling in a unanimous decision.

We suggest the Village of Orland Park produce the requested records and apologize for banning and blocking people from its social media accounts.

 

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17 Comments
  • Stacy
    Posted at 10:47h, 24 June

    Normally I’d be against this but Orland Park is suing the Governor which I fully support! I’d imagine the people getting banned are those that are mad about the lawsuit and want things to stay shut down.

  • Laurie Braverman.
    Posted at 15:39h, 24 June

    This is outrageous. Violating the U.S. Constitution, but suing the Illinois Governor for this alleged perceived reason. All citizens should be “mad”!

  • Mimi
    Posted at 17:40h, 24 June

    Stacy..I doubt anyone really wants things to stay shut down….but let’s all be smart about opening back up!! Is being asked to wear a mask really “against our constitutional rights” ? Come on, What about -no shoes, no shirt-no service. We ARE all in this together, lets act that way.

    • Stacy
      Posted at 21:58h, 24 June

      Considering masks inhibit breathing and he has now mandated them for our children in schools, YES, I absolutely think it violates our rights. No shoes, no shirt, no service is a private business making their own rules, which they do have a right to do. In this case, it is the Government mandating them for everyone. You aren’t comparing apples to apples. The Governor has also been evading all his other lawsuits and court shopping which deprives every IL citizen of due process. Sorry, I’m not in this with anyone when Pritzker himself isn’t following his own rules.

      • Mimi
        Posted at 07:21h, 25 June

        True Stacy. Apples and oranges. Not wearing a mask could cause the spread of a potentially deadly virus, that can spread with no symptoms. I’m happy to see that stores are requiring masks and will only support those that do. Also funny….that certain arenas are making people sign waivers if they attend, not wearing masks and get the virus. Hmmm, makes ya wonder…

    • HT
      Posted at 12:03h, 26 June

      Oh, here goes the smart signaling and typical putdown again. All of a sudden, every moron can be elevated to genius level if they just simply repeat what the government tells them. No need to think, to ask questions, to learn history. Just repeat, comply, repeat, and bend over for the final push.

      We’ve seen actors and athletes starting to call people stupid for not wearing masks and not willing to obey the fake government edicts. This is from people who are overwhelmingly and mostly under- and uneducated, and many are just semi-literate.

      This reminds me of the onset of communism that I saw in my birth country, over 40 years ago. Literally w/in a few days of the commies taking over, they allowed the lower educated people to go on TV, out in public, in newspapers, to shame everyone and anyone who didn’t believe the things that the commie government broadcasted. The real teachers and intellectuals all lost their jobs, many were sent to reeducation camps. Meanwhile, the formerly uneducated mass became “teachers” and “experts” overnight.

      After about 6 months or so, everyone started to become uniformly miserable, and there weren’t anymore conflicts among the citizens. Everyone was simply too hungry, tired, and beaten down to care. Then millions decided to escape that shithole.

      And now, here I am, witnessing another potential onset of communism, with the same dynamics in the populace here as it was back there. So, each time I hear folks like you who simply call others stupid and not asking your own questions, I get chills down my spine because I fear of having to go through another iteration of communism in my lifetime. Once w/ that cancer lasts 10 lifetimes.

      God help us!

  • Matt B
    Posted at 00:02h, 25 June

    You’re Ok with this mayor suing our Governor to open sooner, even after you see what is happening in the states where they have pushed their openings? Look at Texas? Look at AZ? Even CA? Learn from example in this uncertain time. Listen to health experts and not people with political agendas.

    • HT
      Posted at 11:20h, 26 June

      Yeah, convenient to leave out Colorado, which opened earlier than anyone, and guess what, run by a democrat governor. Why is the media only talking about TX, FL, or AZ?

      How convenient that looting and toppling statues en masse haven’t “contributed” to any surge, but simply not wearing masks is.

      Maybe some of us should take a simple course in statistics or arithmetic and know that it’s not simply the increase of a particular number, but what the impact of the increase is on the total that is important.

      The country is testing so many more people everyday, so naturally, we’ll see more cases, and that’s a good thing to know. The important statistic is how many positives are from the additional tests. And if we’re smart, we’ll want to know that of all of the new positives, what are the symptoms, if any, the severity of the symptoms, and the number of deaths.

      But of course, it’s much more comfortable to sit back and let the people you like and voted for, just tell you.

      Ignorance is both bliss and dangerous.

      Wake up!

  • James
    Posted at 07:35h, 25 June

    Not only does the Village of Orland block users from Twitter, the mayor is constantly posting videos, but will not allow any comments. Doesn’t he want to hear from the people of Orland?

  • Reggi
    Posted at 08:00h, 25 June

    No, mayor isn’t interested In what his opposition thinks. He is supposed to be informing O.P. citizens about restrictions during this crisis. Instead uses his video performances to whine and complain about the hardship he’s feeling. No one likes this, but we want to live through it until a reliable vaccine is available. Mayor and his minions need to grow the f up!

  • Lyn P
    Posted at 13:42h, 25 June

    Oh dear — there are people on here who actually buy into the whole mask hoax and pandemic hoax in general. Spend a few hours on REAL informational sites and learn what you are up against. (Try questioningcovid dot com). It ain’t no VIRUS. Never was. It’s your whole life as you understood it in 2019 and prior.

    • JoeB
      Posted at 07:26h, 26 June

      Maybe the people that think this is all hoax, should volunteer at a hospital changing bedpans.

      • HT
        Posted at 11:30h, 26 June

        OR maybe believers should verify that even since the beginning of this planneddemic, NO hospitals had ever been near any capacity.

        Look how much federal funds were used to build up sham hospitals in NYC and here at McCormick, only to be taken down a month later w/o any use of them.

        Look at how none of the “models” used by these dem politicians had ever bee validated or verified by any legitimate statistical or data science professionals. Simply using the word “model” seems to make them sound smart and allowed the believers to, for maybe the first time in their lives, say that they follow science.

        Try learning simple concepts such as the Confusion Matrix, and apply the real data of this planndemic, and you’ll see how we’ve all been fooled.

        Did we forget Ebola? TB? Measles?
        Yeah, check out those graphs. And who was president when those outbreaks happened?
        Yeah, of course the media wouldn’t dare mention that wonder boy false messiah and his fumbling vp of theirs as being asleep through those events.

    • PK
      Posted at 20:54h, 29 June

      Hocus pocus! I’m a stupified information consumer that doesn’t know alt. But you do, eh. Good grief.

  • Dr. Brilliant
    Posted at 16:45h, 25 June

    Dear Lyn,
    I really hope you don’t come down with this horrible virus, but you are obviously inconsiderate of others. Go on and believe in hoaxes And go mask free, but please stay inside. You don’t have the right to infect others and I am very certain with your inability to understand what’s going on all around you in this world, you are or will be infected.

    • HT
      Posted at 11:47h, 26 June

      Wow, how brilliant, of course, a Dr must be brilliant, right?

      If you truly believe that all of a sudden, these politicians have started caring for our health, and that there are no other infectious diseases deadlier than this planndemic, you should start looking to buy a bubble suit and live in it.

      There are so many other weird, silly, and stupid things that you believers have started doing since you’ve been scared out of your wits, that most likely have put yourselves at much higher risk of death and injury than from getting this typical flu virus.

      – I’m driving along a busy street, and some masked idiots just jumped out from the curb to avoid oncoming pedestrians, while totally clueless that thousands of pounds of metal at 30+ mph are just right behind them.
      – Sheeps sitting in the park bench with masks on, and make their dogs wear masks. Go to Lincoln Park, and see who the mugging targets are. It’s always these scared, weaklings that the “protesters” target when the need a phone or a bike.
      – Not paying attention and staying alert of who stand next to them all masked up. Go to Chicago’s Wicker park in the evenings and see the masked crazies next to the weak masked sheeps, getting away w/ muggings, pick pocketing, and more.
      – Masked idiots running, not realizing that they’re inhaling their own CO2 from the concentrated area of their masks. Good times.
      – Believers are totally fine w/ having a nasty and sloppy morbidly obese moron telling them to stay home, mask up, and do nothing in terms of living life or exercising. This is an easy one, as most people are lazy and fat, so this just reinforces their own ignorance.

      So, brilliant dr. or whatever, living a terrible scared life ain’t living. Good luck!

  • MEG
    Posted at 08:19h, 29 June

    Many people seem to have forgotten that the purpose of shutdowns was to flatten the curve and not overwhelm healthcare, which WAS accomplished, and now surprised that the virus didn’t disappear while they were inside their homes. Certainly, much of the increase in testing accounts for the increase in cases, particularly now routine testing for people allowed to get procedures, diagnoses, testing, surgeries previously not allowed, … but what the media neglects to share is background detail specifically regarding Florida Arizona and Texas… if you think about their location, it really is common sense. Excellent articles written by Daniel Horowitz over at conservative review . com analyze the numbers, with links to facts and data.
    By the way, California is experiencing a large increase in cases as well… hopefully msm will remember to include it in their “reporting”. All I ever hear about in comments is AZ FL and TX. Odd

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