>> Many American civil liberties organizations think that the the ban is a free speech issue:

> Honestly these "civil liberties" orgs have lost the plot a long time ago, or are just at "useful idiot" mode

Exactly. When I read "many American civil liberties organizations think," my first thought was "they think a lot of things, that doesn't mean what they think is true or a good idea."

Additionally: they're all essentially lawyers arguing one side of the case. Just listening to them is not going to lead to the correct outcomes (e.g. if courts only listened to prosecutors only, tons of innocent people would go to jail; if they only listened to defense attorneys, tons of guilty people would go free).

This is silly. The EFF and ACLU do amazing and important work every day.

And yet here they are, trying to pretend that a foreign government’s ability to run psyops is protected speech.

Why do you think they are pretending? Many of us agree with them.

I think “trying to pretend” is just one of those thought terminating cliches to pretend that you have a winning argument.

The use of the “useful idiot” trope tells you all you need to know about their opinions on any kind of entity dedicated to social issues.