Protecting Speech From Government Interference Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. COMER. 140.

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Mr. COMER. Mr. Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chair, I rise in support of H.R. 140, the Protecting Speech from Government Interference Act. This legislation is clearly needed.

During the Oversight and Accountability Committee's February 8 hearing on protecting speech from government interference and social media bias, the Oversight and Accountability Committee learned just how easy it was for the Federal Government to influence a private company to accomplish what it constitutionally cannot, and that is limit the free exercise of speech.

At the hearing, we heard hours of witness testimony that revealed the extent to which Federal employees have repeatedly and consistently communicated with social media platforms to censor and suppress the lawful speech of Americans.

The hearing exposed just how much the Biden administration attempted to normalize a policy of Federal censorship. Biden administration officials have publicly called upon and privately coordinated with private-sector social media companies to ban specific accounts viewed as politically inconvenient.

During our February 8 hearing, one of our witnesses, a former FBI official and former Twitter employee, called for Federal legislation that would reasonably and effectively limit government interactions with private-sector platforms.

I agree with him. It is inappropriate and dangerous for the Federal Government to decide what lawful speech is allowed on a private-sector platform.

My bill, the Protecting Speech from Government Interference Act, makes this type of behavior an unlawful activity for Federal officials to engage in, subjecting those who attempt to censor the lawful speech of Americans to disciplinary actions and monetary penalties.

The Federal Government should not be able to decide what lawful speech is allowed. We have the First Amendment for a very good reason. Federal officials, no matter their rank or resources, must be prohibited from coercing the private sector to suppress certain information or limit the ability of citizens to freely express their own views on a private-sector internet platform.

Former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, for example, should not have been free to use her official authority to openly call for Facebook or any other social media company to ban specific accounts or types of speech from its platform. That was not an appropriate use of the authorities or resources of a senior executive branch official.

Further, Federal employees should not feel empowered to infringe on the independence of private entities by pressuring them to complicate or change their community guidelines and content modernization policies.

If the Biden administration needs to express its policy positions or political preferences, it has immense communication resources of its own through which to engage in the public square and offer its information and arguments.

If the administration feels it is losing the policy argument and the public's confidence to stronger voices, the answer should never be to deploy the resources and power of the Federal Government to limit the speech of others.

The legislation before us today expands the current Federal employee political activity limitations of the Hatch Act to include a prohibition on Federal employees using their official authority to influence or coerce a private-sector internet platform to censor lawful speech.

This includes a prohibition on actions that would result in a private-sector platform suppressing, restricting, or adding disclaimers or alerts to any lawful speech posted on its platform by a person or entity.

Whether an ordinary citizen or an established media organization, all Americans have a right to utilize these new and powerful communication technology resources to share their views and opinions without Uncle Sam putting his thumb on the scale to tilt the debate in one direction.

Americans know that the First Amendment protects them from this kind of government censorship, protects them from Federal officials who seek to use their positions, their influence, and their resources to censor lawful speech.

The only thing that has changed is that the public square has moved online, with powerful new communication tools.

We are discussing this legislation today because Americans know that something is wrong, and they have asked Congress to fix it.

This bill is a targeted first step to address one clear part of the problem--the troubling development that Federal officials in the U.S. Government view it as their role to censor the speech of Americans.

I urge all my colleagues to support this very necessary legislation.

Mr. GOLDMAN of New York.

This bill purports to protect free speech from government censorship. I agree, it is a great idea. It is such a good idea, in fact, that the Founding Fathers put it in the Constitution. It is called the First Amendment. We don't need a new bill to protect free speech because that is currently the law of the land, so we must ask ourselves: What is the point of this bill?

As our esteemed ranking member observed last night, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping probably don't make a habit of watching congressional proceedings, but we are willing to bet that this floor debate is of keen interest to Russian and Chinese agents bent on destabilizing our democracy and influencing our elections to serve their interests.

H.R. 140 would effectively allow these and other foreign malign actors--who have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into online propaganda to create chaos, mistrust, hate, and confusion for Americans--to continue using social media platforms unfettered to wreak havoc on our democratic institutions, including the integrity of our elections.

It would do so by undermining the only defense that we have against these operations, which is the ability of our national security, intelligence, and law enforcement agencies to warn social media platforms and the public about the deployment of counterfeit accounts, disinformation, and cyber surveillance by malign actors.

Now, I have no doubt that my Republican colleagues will claim that, of course, all of our national security apparatus is able to warn social media companies of foreign interference. But the way that this bill is written--even if that is the case, which it is not--they would have to wait 72 hours in order to do that. Seventy-two hours on the internet is a lifetime. Everything that they would want to accomplish would be accomplished within 72 hours.

Now, there are exceptions to that. So, clearly, my Republican colleagues recognize that there need to be exceptions, but those exceptions cover a very, very narrow window, a narrow scope of child pornography, human or drug trafficking, or the dissemination of classified information. Anything else that might not be lawful speech still has to wait 72 hours, far too long.

Now, Democrats acted in good faith to identify and correct these dangerous loopholes in our committee, but all of our amendments were voted down. Our Democratic and Republican colleagues attempted again to address the most dangerous flaws of this bill by submitting 64 amendments for floor consideration, but Republicans only allowed 10 to be considered here today. Of those, only one--one--was offered by a Democrat. So much for all the open floor rules that our Republicans have talked about.

Now, in fairness, Republicans accepted multiple minor amendments that were submitted late, and yet still rejected many of the timely amendments. Some of those Democratic amendments would have cured the obvious weaknesses and loopholes of this unnecessary bill.

There was one amendment that would allow our intelligence community, national security apparatus, and law enforcement to inform social media companies of national security threats.

Another amendment would allow them to inform the social media companies in order to combat domestic and international terrorism.

Another amendment would have addressed fraud targeting seniors.

Another amendment would have ensured the safety of children online. Another amendment prevented attacks on the U.S. Capitol.

One amendment even would have prevented the incitement of violence by Neo-Nazis and other hate groups.

They were all voted down. They even blocked a bipartisan amendment offered by Congresswoman Houlahan and Congresswoman Mace to ensure that law enforcement can still act immediately to prevent sexual assault.

By rejecting these commonsense amendments, Republicans have made it clear that this bill is not about protecting the rights and safety of all Americans. In fact, even though there is no evidence--and I will get to that in a minute--that warrants this bill, there is plenty of evidence that Russia interfered in our elections in 2016.

Now, what this bill does is it welcomes the same kind of election interference that we know Russia did in 2016 and that they continue to do today. Just like Donald Trump sided with Vladimir Putin over our intelligence communities in Helsinki in 2018, this bill and the Republicans who are sponsoring this bill are siding with Russia and Vladimir Putin over our national security apparatus and our law enforcement.

My Republican colleagues claim that they have put this bill forward because the FBI somehow colluded with Twitter to suppress the New York Post article on the Hunter Biden laptop story for all of 24 hours 3 weeks before the Presidential election, a private business decision based on the best information available at the time, and which had absolutely no discernible impact on the availability of the article nor the outcome of the election.

The chairman of this committee just referenced a hearing that we had where there were hours of testimony about censorship. Well, the only testimony I witnessed about censorship was former President Trump trying to take down tweets that he did not like on Twitter. There was no evidence--none at all--that the FBI or any other law enforcement agencies directed Twitter to take down any unlawful speech, and that includes the Hunter Biden laptop story.

Now, we can spend some time, although we don't need to, on why that story was both highly suspicious and also glaringly false, but the broader point is that this is a bill that seeks a solution where there is no problem. There is no protected speech that has been prohibited by the Federal Government, and there is no actual evidence of any censorship under the First Amendment.

We are basically trying to change the law to redefine censorship, and in doing so we would be opening up the floodgates to allow for all sorts of unprotected speech to be distributed throughout our social media world online because the government officials who are charged with making sure that our laws are not violated, that crimes are not committed will be handcuffed and unable to do their jobs for fear that they will be fined thousands of dollars if they are wrong.

I urge all my colleagues to stand with free speech and American democracy and oppose this dangerous bill.

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Mr. COMER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Colorado (Mrs. Boebert).

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Mr. COMER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Rose).

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Mr. COMER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Edwards).

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Mr. COMER. Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Fry).

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Mr. COMER. Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Grothman).

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Mr. COMER. Mr. Chair, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentleman from Wisconsin.

Mr. GOLDMAN of New York. Mr. Chair, I have now been here for about an hour. I have yet to hear any evidence at all that the FBI has, in any way, censored any one on social media, on Twitter, or otherwise.

What I have heard is a private company has temporarily restricted a false article from appearing on its website based on serious suspicions of its derivation and, in fact, the same basis for that false article, a hard drive, was proven subsequently to have been altered.

The basis of what we are talking about underlying their concern was false, but nevertheless it was still able to be sent around the internet with ample time, and the social media site even apologized for doing it.

This is a bill that, once again, is a solution searching for a problem. Our First Amendment covers everything that is in here, but the effect of this is it would allow foreign countries to jeopardize our national security, to jeopardize our elections, and to, once again, interfere in our democratic process.

That is the only thing that this bill accomplishes and it should be voted down.

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

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Mr. COMER. Mr. Chair, the problem I face is that the Federal employees see it as part of their job to censor Americans' First Amendment protected speech on social media and internet platforms, especially if the speech is misaligned or inconvenient for the administration's political priorities.

This legislation fixes and addresses this problem head-on with a narrow prohibition on the activities of civil servants.

This bill expands the Hatch Act to prohibit Federal employees from using their official authority to censor lawful speech on third-party online platforms. This is the first step toward important work that should be done in this space of addressing the challenges of preserving free speech on the internet for all Americans.

I thank Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan and Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers for their early support in crafting this very important legislation.

I urge my colleagues to support this necessary bill.

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

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Mr. COMER. Mr. Chair, I rise in support of the amendment.

The Protecting Free Speech from Government Interference Act ensures that this new prohibition on government censorship is enforced in the same way as the Hatch Act.

My colleague, Mr. Clyde's, amendment provides much-needed oversight of the implementation and enforcement of this new prohibited Federal employee activity. The amendment's required annual reports by the Attorney General--to be generated in consultation with the Office of Special Counsel--will help Congress evaluate the governmentwide compliance with this new prohibition.

The Clyde amendment will help create transparency and provide Congress valuable insight into any violations of this prohibition of government censorship. I appreciate the gentleman from Georgia working with the committee on his amendment, and I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes.''
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Mr. COMER. Mr. Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

My amendment makes minor enhancements to this important piece of legislation that were brought to our attention after our markup.

First, this amendment makes a few technical drafting edits. Second, this amendment clarifies the enforcement section of this legislation with the conforming edit to ensure that the U.S. Office of Special Counsel has the specific authority necessary to carry out the enforcement provisions this legislation establishes for senior government officials.

With this technical change to the special counsel's enforcement capabilities, we are ensuring that the real penalties we have introduced for senior officials can be carried out. We must ensure that senior officials will not escape accountability when they engage in government censorship prohibited by H.R. 140. This will help deter government employees.

Further, this amendment clarifies that the OSC can enforce a civil monetary fine of up to $10,000 against senior officials, as clearly intended by the text we reported out of committee.

Mr. Chair, I ask for my colleagues' full support of this amendment, and

Mr. GOLDMAN of New York. Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

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Mr. COMER. Mr. Chair, I just want to reiterate this. This bill protects the First Amendment rights for American citizens. My colleagues would like us to believe that by protecting an Americans' right to say whatever lawful speech they want, we are empowering Russia and China. It is just not true.

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

Mr. GOLDMAN of New York. Mr. Chair, I yield myself the balance of my time for closing.

Mr. Chair, I think this amendment and the chairman's comments are very telling. Of course nobody objects to protecting the free, lawful speech of any American from the Federal Government. That is the First Amendment. But what this bill does is it creates a tremendous barrier to our law enforcement intelligence community and national security apparatus from protecting Americans from all sorts of illicit, malign activity that occurs on social media.

So by preventing us from bringing our substantive, thoughtful amendments to the floor for a vote, what this bill is ultimately doing, the net effect of it, even if it is not the intent of it, is that it is allowing foreign actors to interfere in everything that happens in our democracy, including our elections.

Now, why does this matter? Why would it matter? Well, because we all know the special counsel definitively proved that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump win. And the Trump campaign welcomed that interference and used it for their benefit. If you disagree, go look at Special Counsel Mueller's report. That is what is called conclusions based on evidence, not what this bill is.

Mr. Chair, for that reason, we oppose this amendment as well as the underlying bill itself.

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

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Mr. COMER. Mr. Chair, I rise in support of the amendment.

The Protecting Speech from Government Interference Act prohibits Federal employees from censoring lawful speech while ensuring that the government can still protect American citizens and enforce the law. It does this by narrowly exempting lawful actions to exercise legitimate law enforcement functions from the prohibition on censorship.

These are lawful actions to suppress unlawful speech, such as child pornography, the illegal transportation of controlled substances, or preventing the unlawful dissemination of properly classified national security information.

My colleague's amendment further clarifies the initial intent of this exemption while preserving the bill's reporting requirement to provide Congress timely reports on any lawful actions taken by agencies under this exemption.

Mr. Chair, I thank my colleague for his engagement on this important issue.

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

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

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Mr. COMER. Mr. Chair, I rise in support of the amendment.

The Protecting Speech from Government Interference Act ensures that the new prohibition on government censorship is enforced in the same manner as the Hatch Act is currently enforced.

My colleague's amendment further strengthens this enforcement. It enshrines Congress' intent to ensure that the Office of Special Counsel continues to treat employees exercising public-sector union-negotiated official time as official duty time.

Official time is taxpayer funded, and this amendment makes certain the Hatch Act's new censorship prohibition will continue to act to apply to Federal employees on official time.

Mr. Chair, I ask my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on this amendment.

Mr. GOLDMAN of New York. Mr. Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chair, part of the problem with having a redundant amendment on the floor is that there were so many important amendments that the Democrats offered that were not even allowed to come to the floor, notwithstanding the purported open rules that Republicans have been so proudly championing this Congress.

One of those amendments would have included in the category of exceptions to this unnecessary bill coordinating between law enforcement and social media companies about neo-Nazis inciting anti- Semitic violence on social media. That amendment was offered in the committee and was unanimously rejected by my Republican colleagues, who apparently believe that neo-Nazis should incite violence against Jews unchecked and unfettered on social media.

Unfortunately, that amendment was also offered and rejected at the Rules Committee last night, and so, therefore, we don't have it here to argue about, and we will not be able to vote about it on the floor. Instead, we are voting on this redundant, unnecessary, and confusing amendment that does nothing to meaningfully change this bill but, instead, is an opportunity to rail against union workers.

For that, Mr. Chairman, I oppose this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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Mr. COMER. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Good amendment.

This bill clarifies that Federal agencies are not prohibited from taking lawful actions to enforce our Nation's laws and regulations. My colleague's amendment clarifies that Federal agencies may still enforce our Nation's laws that combat obscene matters which are not protected by the First Amendment.

This amendment clarifies congressional intent that our Federal agencies must continue working to keep our children safe from the lewd materials so often circulating on the Internet. Protecting our children should be a central focus of this legislative body, and this amendment cements that commitment.

Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on the amendment.

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Mr. COMER. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

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Mr. COMER. Mr. Chairman, this bill is timely and necessary. We have learned just how easy it is for the Federal Government to influence a private company to limit the exercise of First Amendment protected speech.

During a recent hearing on the Twitter files, the Oversight and Accountability Committee heard from a former FBI official and Twitter employee who called for Federal legislation that would reasonably and effectively limit government interactions with private-sector platforms.

Let me be clear: A former FBI official and former Twitter employee endorsed and called for legislation just like this.

This legislation should not be controversial, but the intention of this amendment is to gut this bill. The intention of this amendment is to risk the implementation of this necessary legislation.

The inclusion of the clause this amendment removes is standard legislative practice. All this clause does is make sure that if a court decides to strike down any part of this act, that the rest of the act stays intact. It is that simple.

These clauses have been used in legislation for decades. Including a clause like the one in this legislation is standard practice that ensures that this much-needed and noncontroversial legislation can be faithfully implemented.

Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this amendment, and

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Chair, how much time do I have remaining?

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

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Chair, I yield myself the balance of my time.

First of all, let me thank the gentleman from New York for his clarification. He was in the hearing. He heard the witness ask for relief. But I would say that gentleman did not ask to have, at the core of the relief, a legislative initiative rooted in far-right conspiracy theories despite the clear lack of evidence that any Biden administration official violated the First Amendment or censored Americans or social media platforms.

We want to make sure that we are safe and have national security, but at the same time, how are we going to amend the Hatch Act and really shut down those who are involved in law enforcement and national security?

We saw what happened on January 6. We need all of the communications and intelligence that we need, not only to protect our law enforcement but to protect the United States of America.

My amendment is necessary, Mr. Chairman. It is necessary because the court's presumption is that the statute is constitutional. If there is a section that is found unconstitutional, the court will yield to this idea that they will look at it in a manner to discern what are the facts.

My amendment simply says that to put this in the legislation, you are then going to have a guardrail against this bill being found unconstitutional.

With that in mind, I ask my colleagues to support the Jackson Lee amendment, which is a clear expression of the law.

Mr. Chair, I rise in support of the Jackson Lee Amendment No. 6 which would strike Section 2, Subsection (e), the severability provision in H.R. 140--the Protecting Speech from Government Interference Act.

Subsection (e) of Section 2 in H.R. 140 ``provides a severability clause that keeps the remaining portions of the Act in place should a portion of the Act, or an amendment made by the Act, be held to be unconstitutional.''

The insertion of such a severability clause in this bill is telling of the complete lack of faith in the constitutional viability and credibility this entire bill aims to put forth.

While the general purpose of the severability doctrine clause is used to direct courts on what to do with the statute or a part of it, if a provision is invalidated, Congress is actually discouraged from using express severability clauses given it is unnecessary due to the court's strong presumption in favor of any such need for severability.

Moreover, Congress assumes its laws are constitutional. As such, the primary application of a severability clause is for the functionality of the statute and whether the surviving provisions are capable of functioning independently.

To include a general severability clause in H.R. 140 is not intended to provide clarity to the courts on particular or specific sections of this bill, but rather it is an ill attempt to save a poorly written bill that is anticipated to be unconstitutional in part or in whole.

Such a provision does not belong in this legislation and does not comport with traditional intended uses for such a doctrine typically preserved and carefully applied by courts (not legislators) in reviewing statutes in question as to unanticipated functionality or constitutionality concerns.

The entire bill as written is problematic, and such a clause would not save it.

For these reasons, I ask that my colleagues vote yes to the Jackson Lee amendment No. 6 to strike the severability clause of H.R. 140.

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

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Mr. COMER. Mr. Chair, the Protecting Speech from Government Interference Act aims to prevent Federal employees from censoring the lawful speech of Americans.

My colleague's amendment further strengthens the enforcement of this new prohibition on Federal employee actions by increasing the potential debarment penalty from 5 to 10 years.

Increasing this debarment for up to 10 years serves as a strong deterrent to Federal employees and clearly underscores Congress' understanding of the significant harm these censorship activities have done to America's trust in their Federal Government.

We must rebuild this public trust that the Federal agencies Congress is charged with conducting oversight over are operating within the boundaries of their lawful authorities.

Civil servants that extend their duties beyond their legal authority to encroach on the speech rights of Americans do not deserve to serve in our Nation's government.

Mr. Chair, I ask my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on this amendment.

Mr. GOLDMAN of New York. Mr. Chair, I am prepared to close, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. COMER. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Ogles amendment.

The Protecting Speech from Government Interference Act introduces newly created civil fines for the most senior officials.

My colleague's amendment further strengthens this enforcement penalty for senior officials by increasing the civil monetary fines up to $50,000.

This $50,000 will serve as a deterrent to the administration's most senior officials--Senate-confirmed Presidential appointees and the White House staff--to prevent them from censoring the lawful speech of ordinary Americans.

It is especially important that our Nation's most senior leaders are held to a higher level of accountability given their higher level of influence.

I thank the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Ogles) for proposing this amendment which preserves the carefully negotiated structure of the bill.

I ask my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on the amendment.

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

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Mr. COMER. Mr. Chair, I move that the Committee do now rise.

The motion was agreed to.

Accordingly, the Committee rose; and the Speaker pro tempore (Mr. Alford) having assumed the chair, Mr. Moolenaar, Acting Chair of the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union, reported that that Committee, having had under consideration the bill (H.R. 140) to amend title 5, United States Code, to prohibit Federal employees from advocating for censorship of viewpoints in their official capacity, and for other purposes, had come to no resolution thereon.

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