• by Wendy Davis , 8 hours ago

A judge in New York has issued a temporary restraining order prohibiting the federal government from detaining Imran Ahmed, a lawful permanent resident and founder and CEO of the research group Center for Countering Digital Hate.

The order, issued Christmas Day by U.S. District Court Judge Vernon Broderick in New York, prohibits the government from "arresting or detaining" Ahmed or, if the government had already detained him, from removing him from the district.

Ahmed -- a British man who is married to a U.S. citizen and lives with her and their young child -- was among a group of people targeted by Secretary of State Marco Rubio for allegedly acting as "agents of the global censorship-industrial complex."

Rubio stated on December 23 the government was imposing visa restrictions on those so-called "agents," and could "initiate removal proceedings against certain individuals."

Undersecretary of State Sarah Rogers specified in a tweet that Ahmed was among the people who were sanctioned.

She wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that the Center for Countering Digital Hate "created the infamous 'disinformation dozen' report, which called for platforms to deplatform twelve American 'anti-vaxxers.'"(That report, issued in 2021, said that a dozen anti-vaxxers -- including current Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. -- were responsible for up to 65% of anti-vaccine content on Facebook and Twitter alone.)

Rogers added on X that "leaked documents" from the Center for Countering Digital Hate "show the organization listed 'kill Musk’s Twitter' and 'trigger EU and UK regulatory action' as priorities.

"The organization supports the UK’s Online Safety Act and EU’s Digital Services Act to expand censorship in Europe and around the world," Rogers wrote.

On December 24, Ahmed sought a court order prohibiting Rubio from moving forward with the threatened sanctions.

"Simply put, immigration enforcement -- here, immigration detention and threatened deportation -- may not be used as a tool to punish noncitizen speakers who express views disfavored by the current administration," his lawyers wrote.

"Mr. Ahmed faces the imminent prospect of unconstitutional arrest, punitive detention, and expulsion for exercising his basic First Amendment rights," counsel added.

The Center for Countering Digital Hate has published critical reports about offensive speech posted by users on X, formerly Twitter. One of those reports, issued last year, accused the company of failing to remove racist, homophobic and antisemitic comments posted by Twitter Blue subscribers. That report cited several examples, such as the posts “Diversity is a codeword for White Genocide,” and “Trannies are pedophiles.”

X unsuccessfully sued the group, claiming that wrongly scraped the platform to obtain the research informing the report.

Last year, U.S. District Court Judge Charles Breyer dismissed the lawsuit, writing that X brought the case in order to penalize the Center for Countering Digital Hate over its reports.

“This case is about punishing the defendants for their speech,” U.S. District Court Judge Charles Breyer wrote in an opinion issued in March 2024.