Two Washington agencies—Spokane County Sheriff’s Office and the Bonner County Sheriff’s Office—can no longer hide or delete comments on Facebook that may be critical of their agencies, two federal judges have ruled.
Jim Leighty, a local activist, filed two federal lawsuits last year claiming both agencies deleted or hid critical comments he had written below multiple posts, while keeping comments that were pro-police in nature, the Spokesman reports. The rules the agencies followed to hide comments or delete comments were also inconsistent and not applied 100% of the time, according to the lawsuit.
At some point, the Bonner County Sheriff’s Office ended up blocking Leighty from its page altogether, which violated the First Amendment, the lawsuit says.
Idaho’s Chief District Judge David Nye, nominated by President Donald Trump in his first term, ruled in favor of Leighty last month. So did U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Rice, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama.
