{"id":45745,"date":"2020-01-14T09:50:37","date_gmt":"2020-01-14T14:50:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=45745"},"modified":"2020-01-14T22:57:40","modified_gmt":"2020-01-15T03:57:40","slug":"exclusive-activist-randy-scott-files-federal-lawsuit-against-lehigh-acres-fire-and-rescue-district","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2020\/01\/exclusive-activist-randy-scott-files-federal-lawsuit-against-lehigh-acres-fire-and-rescue-district\/","title":{"rendered":"Exclusive: Activist Randy Scott files Federal lawsuit against Lehigh Acres Fire and Rescue District"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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This lawsuit raises the question of whether government such\nas the Lehigh Fire District is obligated to respect the rights of speech on\nsocial media when the speech is critical of the government or if it can simply\ndelete comments that paint the fire district in a bad light.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Scott has filed a federal lawsuit against the Fire Dist Case # 2:20-CV-26FTM-29NPM Click here<\/a> to read it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In July of 2019, a New York Federal appeals court upheld a\nlower court decision from 2018, which disallowed President Trump to block his\ncritics and naysayers from his personal Twitter account. This decision set a\nfirst-time precedent stipulating that \u201cthe First Amendment does not permit a\npublic official who utilizes a social media account for all manner of official\npurposes to exclude persons from an otherwise\u2010open online dialogue because they\nexpressed views with which the official disagrees,\u201d wrote Judge Parker, who was\nnominated to the appeals court by President George W. Bush.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Randy Scott and his lawsuit against the Fire District also\nadds that there are broader implications, \u201cIt\u2019s not just Facebook. Think\nYouTube and Twitter comments.\u201d Scott\u2019s lawsuit alleges \u201cDefendants, by denying\nPlaintiff\u2019s political speech, caused Plaintiff to lose a critical opportunity\nto communicate on topics of importance to society.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We reached out to the Fire District for comment. Katie Heck\nPIO for the district sent this by email, \u201cAs it appears Mr. Scott intends to\nfile a lawsuit, I am unable to provide you a comment at this time outside of\ndirecting you to our Standard Operating Guideline for our District Social Media\nPlatforms. It is posted on our website as well as on our Facebook page.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Will Scott be asking the Court for punitive damages for the\nclear reckless and callous indifference to his First Amendment rights. See\nSmith v. Wade. 461 U.S. 30, 56, 103 S.Ct. 1625, 75L.Ed.2nd 632 (1983) (Punitive\ndamages are available \u201cwhen the defendant\u2019s conduct is shown to be motivated by\nevil motive or intent, or when it involves reckless or callous indifference to\nthe federally protected rights of others.\u201d).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Katie Heck the PIO of the Fire District <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Did Katie Heck the PIO of the Fire District show evil motive\nor intent, or when it involves reckless or callous indifference to Mr. Scott\u2019s\nposts that are federally protected? This could be grounds for Heck\u2019s removal. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This lawsuit raises the question of whether government such as the Lehigh Fire District is obligated to respect the rights of speech on social media when the speech is critical… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":45746,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,32],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45745"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45745"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45745\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}