Veteran Wins Against Navy Base Commander Censoring His Social Media

Congratulations to the Center for Individual Rights on yet another victory.  This time it was a military spouse, himself a veteran, who was banned on the Facebook page of the Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay installation.  Apparently they didn't like his comments about a power outage.

That, of course, violated the First Amendment (that's part of the document the commander of the installation swore to support and defend) and the veteran, Sergio Rodriguez, filed suit on the commander and his public affairs staff.

Sergio was victorious and the installation admitted it violated the Constitution and has agreed to change its policies.  Good on Rodriguez for his defense of our rights and, as usual, the Center for Individual Rights for doing the heavy lifting.  They provide pro bono services to clients and depend on donations for their great work, so if you're so inclined, please consider supporting their work.

There aren't many perks to legal action, but one of the few is getting to see your legal action help somebody else in their fight against tyranny, whether through legal precedent (which isn't the case for settlements) or by demonstrating that Americans do have some recourse which can inspire others to also defend our rights:

The pattern goes back further still. In August 2022, the Center for Individual Rights won a similar case against the Air Force, when a settlement required Chief Master Sgt. of the Air Force JoAnne Bass to update comment policies on her official Facebook page after blocking retired Air Force Maj. Richard Lee Rynearson III for critical posts, according to Military.com. Taken together, the cases against the Air Force, the National Guard, and now the Navy point to a recurring problem of military public affairs offices trying to curate online forums even as courts and the services' own rules increasingly say they cannot.