Congress is Working to Defund and Dismantle the Fed-Led Censorship Regime

Until we restore a culture to sustain the First Amendment, there’s no substitute for aggressive legal and political action

The government continues doggedly defending its censorship regime. (SAN)

Congress Is Working to Rein in Federal Government-Led Censorship

Champions of free speech had cause to rejoice over federal Judge Terry A. Doughty’s fitting Independence Day ruling in the landmark Missouri v. Biden case freezing federal government-led speech policing.

Despite the magnitude of the judge’s decision, it’s far from a guarantor of our First Amendment rights. That much was made clear just 10 days later when the federal government obtained a temporary administrative stay at the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Two of three presiding judges at least preliminarily bought the government’s argument that preventing it from inducing social media companies to censor unauthorized facts and opinions, under the guise of combating “mis-, dis-, and mal-information” (MDM), caused the feds “irreparable harm.”

The underlying case remains pending. While Judge Doughty believes the plaintiffs are likely to prevail in their argument that the government violated the First Amendment on an unprecedented scale, the feds’ dogged defense of their censorship system suggests they will fight up to the Supreme Court to maintain it.

Even if the plaintiffs win at the highest court, no American should be satisfied, nor rest easy, knowing that only federal judges stand between their most fundamental rights and tyranny.

Robust legislation must reinforce good jurisprudence.

Congress should defund and dismantle the censorship apparatus that Missouri v. Biden, the Twitter Files, and its own oversight efforts have helped to unmask. Not a single penny of taxpayer dollars should be used to silence ourselves.

A review of Republican-led legislative efforts, primarily but not exclusively out of the House, suggests our representatives are making strides toward achieving this end.

I chronicle those efforts, providing a comprehensive look at what Congress is doing to combat the fed-led censorship regime, in a new piece at the Epoch Times.

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Freedom and censorship in America: A feature interview with Ben Weingarten

Separately but related, last week I sat for a long-form interview with my friend Ezra Levant of Rebel News on freedom and censorship in America. You can listen to the interview by clicking below, or download the interview here.