It feels more like two years than two months that the frenetic Trump administration has been in power, and, by extension, the dithering and shambolic Biden administration seems ancient history. But a new study from the Media Research Center detailing the widespread censorship of Americans by Biden is a sobering reminder of how close we recently came to losing our most basic freedom.
The shocking report exposes no fewer than 57 initiatives by the Biden White House, to censor the speech of American citizens. These initiatives spanned an incredible 93 separate government agencies.
JONATHAN TURLEY: GET THE US OUT OF THE CENSORSHIP BUSINESS, ONCE AND FOR ALL
The most egregious violations of our freedom of speech took the form of direct action, such as when White House adviser Andy Slavitt pressured Amazon to ban books criticizing the government’s response to COVID, or when the White House and the National Institute of Allergy & Infectious Disease threatened Meta into censoring COVID content.
There were more subtle efforts involving policies and rule-making. The State Department under Secretary Antony Blinken signed an agreement with over 20 nations pledging greater censorship online, and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas tried to establish a censorship operation chillingly named the “Disinformation Governance Board.”
To make matters worse, when there were opportunities to silence the American people that the Biden administration couldn’t do in house, they just offered partnerships or grants to non-profit organizations happy to be private, anti-free-speech police.
The MRC report lays out in blistering detail how our tax dollars went to far-left organizations like the Poynter Institute or Newsguard, which produce highly biased, often laughable reports about accuracy in the news to scare advertisers away from conservative news content.
The good news is that in just two months, many of these programs have already been cut, and even more importantly, we have a president in Donald Trump who is a fierce champion of free speech and won’t allow government censorship on his watch.
In fact, on Jan. 20, the day he took office, Trump signed an executive order which read in part, “It is the policy of the United States of America to: (a) secure the right of the American people to engage in constitutionally protected speech…”
The order goes on to specifically address many of the concerns raised by MRC’s report. And while some of the architects of the censorship regime still remain in the federal government, the Trump administration has eliminated much of the low-hanging fruit of anti-speech policies.
Now, for the bad news. If in four years a Democrat takes back in the White House, the dial could be turned right back to censorship, this time quite possibly set to 11.
One good solution is offered in a bill by Rep. Harriet Hageman, R-Wyo., that would allow American citizens to sue federal employees who collude with outside entities to censor speech.
“I have repeatedly said that the government cannot do by proxy what it is prohibited from doing directly,” Hageman said. “This is exactly what happened with the Biden Administration pressuring social media companies to suppress the free speech of American citizens.”
Hear, hear.
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The fact of the matter is that President Trump can sign executive orders until we run out of paper or Sharpies, but in the long run, only congressional action can secure free speech, not only now, but for our coming generations.
The election of Trump and a Republican Congress is a reprieve to the assault on free speech that Democrats have waged for years. But if over the next two years Republicans fail to write clearly in stone new protections for speech, the reprieve will have been wasted.
There is a natural desire to all but forget that the Biden administration ever happened. It’s a bit like COVID in that way. But in both cases, it is vital that we do not forget, and that we fix the loopholes and uncertainties that allowed both to throttle our free speech.
Have no doubt that those inside and outside the Biden administration who wish to censor you have not given up. They are simply regrouping for another charge, another chance to censor. Now is the time for champions of speech to build the defenses that can withstand that inevitable charge.
