Protecting Speech From Government Interference Act

Floor Speech

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Ms. STANSBURY. Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

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Ms. STANSBURY. Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to this amendment, which is, as the gentleman has described, a simple training requirement to ensure that this act is implemented correctly. Seems like a perfectly reasonable thing in and of itself; that is, it would be if the actual underlying bill that it seeks to modify was reasonable and not some sort of bizarre, Orwellian doublespeak designed to mislead the American people about what this bill is actually about.

Nothing about this bill is reasonable. Nothing about this bill, the process of how it has been brought to the floor, and how it has misled the people of our country about what is happening is normal. It does not secure the freedom of speech or any other freedoms of the American people. It actually endangers them.

In fact, it imperils our democracy by handcuffing the ability of law enforcement, national security, and intelligence officials to provide factual, critical information to social media companies and the public in order to prevent crimes or to ensure that election fraud tampering does not occur and that there is no foreign interference with our elections.

This is not some unintended consequence of the bill; rather, it is the entire point of this bill, as my Republican colleagues have conceded.

When we marked up this bill in the Oversight Committee, Chairman Comer produced two emails from a single FBI agent to Twitter that he said were ``the purpose of the bill.'' You might be asking, what terrible censorship was the FBI trying to achieve in those emails? When Democrats were finally provided with the email content, it was an email to Twitter from the FBI identifying fraudulent election tweets. In fact, the content identified that there were multiple tweets that were misleading about the time, place, or manner of voting in the upcoming election.

This is the smoking gun that they are claiming is taking away our freedoms--that is right--election misinformation that was meant to deceive American voters, which the FBI flagged as part of their course of business. They would like to hamper the ability of our FBI and our law enforcement to be able to do their jobs.

This is, of course, the same party that has engaged in voter suppression for countless decades, so we probably shouldn't be surprised.

We know that the American people not only want us to protect their voting rights and their basic rights to express themselves, their freedoms as protected by the Bill of Rights and our Constitution, but we also want our public servants to be able to do their jobs and to do their jobs with integrity and ensure the integrity of our election system.

Democrats sought to try to address some of the grave flaws in this bill and address the supposed intent of the bill by submitting 43 separate amendments for floor consideration. In fact, only one was made in order.

Republicans, on the other hand, submitted 20 amendments, many like this one, ignoring the dangers of the underlying bill and not wanting to improve it to protect American freedoms but simply tinker around the edges to make it more enforceable.

My question is, why are we voting on this amendment and not Congressman Torres' amendment to ensure the bill does not prohibit Federal officials from preventing and addressing cyberattacks?

Why are we voting on this amendment and not Congressman Lynch's amendment to ensure the bill does not prohibit Federal officials from protecting our national security?

Why are we voting on this amendment and not Congressman Goldman's amendment to ensure that the bill does not prohibit Federal officials from fighting foreign election interference, as occurred in the 2016 election?

Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment and oppose this bill. It does nothing to improve a deeply dangerous bill.

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Ms. STANSBURY. Mr. Chair, I will take a moment to reiterate that this bill is not as it appears or the majority is proposing it appears to the American public.

This bill is not about defending the basic right to free speech and our constitutional rights. This bill is about hamstringing the ability of Federal law enforcement, our national security staff, and others in the Federal Government from protecting our country from election interference.

This amendment would make the enforcement of that bill stronger by requiring training to further censor and allow for interference in our elections.

I am opposed to this amendment, and I rise in opposition to the bill.

Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

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Ms. STANSBURY. Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

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Ms. STANSBURY. Mr. Chair, our inspectors general conduct vital work on behalf of the American people. They help to safeguard taxpayer dollars and government operations from waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement, and they investigate what occurs inside our Federal agencies. To ask them to waste their finite resources and staffing on an annual reporting requirement for a bill that actually threatens the freedom of the American people and the American public and electoral system is gravely antithetical to their missions and their purpose and is, itself, an act of waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement. Nobody could act in good conscience to support this amendment.

One of the most concerning aspects of this bill is that it creates a waiting period of at least 72 hours before law enforcement officials can take action to prevent or respond to most crimes or threats they identify, either on or involving social media platforms.

Let's imagine that you are a Federal official, an FBI investigator, and you see information being shared online that indicates that a sexual assault is imminent, some sort of violence is about to occur, there is some sort of election fraud about to occur. Under this bill, you would have a decision to make. Do you write and file a lengthy report to Congress and then wait 72 hours until it is too late, or do you act immediately, knowing that you might be subject to a $50,000 fine or might be barred from Federal service for 10 years because you reported something that has been tagged as censored speech under this bill and amendment?

Thanks to the excellent bipartisan work of Congresswoman Houlahan and Congresswoman Mace, we could have been considering a very different kind of amendment here on the floor today, one that would have made sure that this bill still allowed enforcement officials to act immediately in this exact case.

My Republican colleagues would not allow this amendment to come to the floor today, choosing, instead, to waste our time and the time and resources of our Federal agencies on this amendment. They choose a do- nothing, wasteful reporting requirement over a bipartisan amendment that would protect the safety, in many instances, even the lives, of women and Americans across the country. It is outrageous.

I believe that this bill and this amendment are dangerous, and I urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment.

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Ms. STANSBURY. Mr. Chair, in closing, I will note one final time that this bill and its proposition are deeply dangerous. It proposes to actually address free speech and censorship when, in fact, it would hamstring our Federal officials.

This amendment adds dangerous changes to the bill that would make it even more difficult for our Federal officials to do their job.

I am opposed to the amendment, and I am strongly opposed to the bill itself.

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Ms. STANSBURY. Mr. Chair, I think we have well established that not only the premise of this bill, but many of the requirements in it, are dangerous for our Federal law enforcement, dangerous to our constitutional rights, dangerous to the American people, and dangerous to our national security and our electoral system.

Yet, the way it is being proposed to the American people is that it will defend their rights and their rights to speak freely under the First Amendment.

During our markup of this bill, we talked about gaslighting. Gaslighting is the act of when somebody in authority actually makes you believe you are crazy because the truth of what is occurring is actually the opposite.

This bill is a dangerous gaslighting of the American people. We will not stand for it. It is dangerous to our democracy. It is dangerous to our elections, and it is dangerous for the people of this country.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

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