US lawmaker concerned over threat to government’s free speech
US Senator MItt Romney (R-UT) has expressed concern that new legislation may interfere with the government’s free speech rights in what some say is a contravention of the US Constitution.
Romney made the remarks in response to the Free Speech Protection Act, an amendment introduced by Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY). The act amends the Federal Information Security Modernization Act of 2023 to crack down on government censorship of “misinformation” by prohibiting State Department operatives from directing social media platforms to suppress free speech. It would also require “each recipient of a grant awarded by the Department to certify that it will not designate any creator of news as a source of misinformation or disinformation.”
“Over the past several years, the U.S. government has taken upon itself the task of protecting Americans from ‘misinformation’ and ‘disinformation,’” Paul said. “‘Misinformation’ and ‘disinformation’ are statements and messages that the government, in its self-appointed role as arbiter of truth, decides are false and that have what the government judges are harmful effects.”
Sen. Paul’s amendment was supported by all Republican members of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Wednesday except for Romney, who worried the legislation may affect the federal government’s right to free speech.
“Employees of the government have First Amendment rights too,” Romney told the committee, arguing that censorship is only when the government directly suppresses information. Doing so through a proxy like a social media company, however, does not qualify as censorship to Romney.
“Censorship is when the government shuts something off,” he said. “This is arguing to try and convince someone else to set it off, and that’s the right people have, whether they’re in government or outside of government.”
Romney then expressed his concern that the legislation would “shut off free speech” of “the administration in power”.
“To say that no employee of the government, from the President on down to the millions of people who work in the government, can speak with a social media company or a legacy media company and express their point of view that an article is wrong or that an avenue they’re going down is wrong, that would shut off free speech of the part of the administration in power or frankly employees that have nothing to do with one party or the other,” Romney said.
Sen. Paul responded by pointing out that the First Amendment is not concerned with workers but with government involvement in free speech, which is why it begins with the directive “Congress shall pass no law”.
Romney’s desire to protect government rights against the people has been espoused recently by some on the Left, including Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe.
Tribe reacted to a ruling by US District Judge Terry Doughty last month ordering the Biden administration to halt its “censorship enterprise” with social media companies which was violating the First Amendment rights of millions of Americans.
But to Tribe, such a ruling violates the government’s free speech, which is necessary to protect the people from such evils as vaccine misinformation and election interference.
