Columns, Congress, Constitutional Law, Free Speech

Want More Freedom of Speech? Try Less Government.

Below is my column in The Hill on my call for a bill that would bar federal funding of any program and grant to censor, blacklist, or target individuals or sites based on their content. It is time to get the U.S. government out of the censorship business. The column discusses the proposal in my new book, “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage” to block any further funding for the current system of corporate, academic, and government programs targeting opposing or dissenting views.

Here is the column:

It is time to get the United States out of the censorship business for good.

In the last three years, the House of Representatives has disclosed a massive censorship system run in part with federal funding and with coordination with federal officials. A federal court described this system as truly “Orwellian.”

The Biden Administration has made speech regulation a priority in targeting disinformation, misinformation or malinformation. President Joe Biden even said that companies refusing to censor citizens were “killing people.”

His administration has now created an anti-free speech record that is only rivaled by the Adams Administration, which used the Alien and Sedition Acts to arrest political opponents.

Jen Easterly, who heads the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, is an example of how speech controls and censorship have become mainstream.  Her agency was created to work on our critical infrastructure, but Easterly declared that the mandate would now include policing “our cognitive infrastructure.” That includes combating “malinformation,” or information “based on fact, but used out of context to mislead, harm, or manipulate.”

I have testified for years about the censorship system. For much of that time, Democrats insisted that there was no proof of any coordination or funding from the government. Such evidence did indeed exist, but Democrats worked to block any investigation to confirm what we already knew about government officials targeting individuals and groups for throttling, bans, and blacklisting.

Then Elon Musk bought Twitter. The release of the Twitter Files destroyed any plausible deniability of the government’s role in this censorship system. Various agencies had employees working with social media companies to target those with opposing or disfavored views. At the same time, we learned of grants from the federal government supporting blacklisting and targeting operations.

That includes efforts to quietly choke off the revenue of disfavored sites by pressuring advertisers and donors.

While companies like Facebook have continued to fight to conceal their coordination with the government, the Twitter Files pulled back the curtain to expose the system. Indeed, Democrats largely abandoned their denials and turned to full-throated defenses of censorship, even calling free speech advocates “Putin-lovers” and “insurrectionist sympathizers.”

In 1800, Thomas Jefferson defeated John Adams in the only election where free speech was a primary issue for voters. It should be again. Vice President Kamala Harris is known as a supporter for these censorship and blacklisting operations. She can now defend that record and convince Americans that they need to have less free speech.

This debate should ideally focus on one simple legislative proposal. In my new book, I suggest various measures that can regain the ground that we have lost on free speech. One such measure is a federal law that would ban any federal funding of any offices or programs (government, academic, or corporate) that rate, target, censor, throttle, or seek to take adverse action against individuals or groups based on their viewpoints in public forums or social media.

There can be easy exceptions to this ban for individuals or groups engaging in criminal conduct or unlawful foreign interference with elections. Threatening individuals or trafficking in child pornography constitute conduct, not speech. They are criminal acts under the federal code.

Nothing in this law would prevent the government from speaking in its own voice. If Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas wants to challenge claims made about him or his agency, he can do so on the agency website or make his case to the media. That is the essence of free speech. What he cannot do is create a Disinformation Governance Board to regulate the speech of citizens or groups.

In my prior testimony to Congress, I warned about the use of what I called “censorship by surrogate” through which agencies did indirectly what they are barred from doing directly under the First Amendment.

This new law will not put an end to the burgeoning anti-free speech movement. It will not end the new market for groups making millions in seeking to silence or strangle sites with opposing views. However, it will create a wall of separation of the government from censorship systems.

It would also offer a simple and clear line for the 2024 election. Candidates will have to take sides on free speech. If candidates like Harris want to continue to support the government in blacklisting or censoring citizens, they should own it. We spent years of politicians engaging in cynical denials of the government’s role in censorship. If these politicians are “all in” with censorship, then they should be honest about it and let voters make the same choice that was made in 1800.

With billions to play with and enabling allies in Congress to conceal federal operations, speech regulation is an irresistible temptation for the government. We have seen how this temptation quickly becomes an insatiable appetite for government officials seeking to silence rather than answer critics.

Let’s get our government out of the business of rating, throttling  blacklisting, and censoring citizens.  It is time to pass a free speech protection act.

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. He is the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage” (Simon & Schuster).

This op-ed is part of The Hill’s “How to Fix America” series exploring solutions to some of the country’s most pressing problems. 

376 thoughts on “Want More Freedom of Speech? Try Less Government.”

  1. Objectively, punishment is punishment, regardless of the privateness of the punisher.

      1. Why? He’s offering a different point of view. It’s literally what Turley wholeheartedly supports.

        1. Uh nope, nope, nope, uh uh nope

          And we know this is you replying as anonymous, Svelaz

          Pathetic

  2. Turley has shown he has a poor grasp of what free speech entails. What he calls government funding are usually one time grants. Rating content or organizations is not censorship. It’s no different than what do super reports does or even what the Heritage foundation does with it’s freedom index. All involve information which anyone can use to decide for themselves what to do with the information. That’s it.

    “ That includes efforts to quietly choke off the revenue of disfavored sites by pressuring advertisers and donors.”

    The professor is being dishonest with that claim. He’s referring to organizations like Newsguard and GDI which is a british company. Both are not encouraging anyone to choke off revenue of disfavored sites or pressuring advertisers and donors. That’s simply not true. All they do is rate sites according to criteria they use and they make it abundantly clear that all their methodology and criterion are completely transparent. Rating sites only provide information for anyone to make a decision on their own. It’s THEIR exercise of free speech. Turley knows that saying certain sites are bad or biased IS free speech. Rating sites including conservative ones do this. The American Enterprise Institute has its own rating system. The various think tanks in every state have their own rating systems posting information on which Democrats or republicans meet THEIR criteria.

    “ Nothing in this law would prevent the government from speaking in its own voice. If Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas wants to challenge claims made about him or his agency, he can do so on the agency website or make his case to the media. That is the essence of free speech.”

    Money IS free speech. Remember that. In Citizens United SCOTUS ruled that money is speech. Organizations spending money or funding efforts is considered free speech activity. It applies to government funding too. Government uses funding to dictate speech all the time. Conservatives in Congress use funding to censor speech when it comes to abortion, doctors not able to say certain things because they get government funding or organizations not able to say or promote certain things as stipulations attached to funding. Courts have said government CAN dictate limits and what speech can be used as a condition of receiving funding or grants.

    The twitter files did show cooperation, sure. But what Turley left out is that cooperation still relied on private companies having final say. Recently SCOTUS sided with the Biden administration on that issue. The states did not show evidence of coercion or censorship. They presented no proof to back up their claims that the government had pressured social media companies like Twitter and Facebook into restricting their speech. The twitter files did not show proof of censorship. It showed proof of corporation which is NOT unconstitutional or a violation of the first amendment.

    They claimed the White House had bombarded Twitter with requests to set up a streamlined process for censorship requests. But in fact, she said, the record showed no such requests. On one occasion a White House official asked Twitter to remove a fake account pretending to be the account of Biden’s granddaughter. Twitter took down the fake account and told the official about a portal that could be used in the future to flag similar issues. A request is not a demand or coercion. They could not even prove coercion. Justice Barrett emphasized that facts matter. She pointed out that lower courts in this case embraced a fact-free version of what transpired between officials in the Biden administration and Facebook, Twitter and other social media companies. It’s similar to republicans voter fraud claims. There were a lot of claims and insinuations, but no evidence to back it up and as it was in this case, they too had a serious lack of standing and lack of evidence problem.

    Even Elon Musk, the avowed free-speech absolutist, is suing advertising companies because they are exercising their free speech not to advertise on his social media platform AFTER publicly telling them to go fvck themselves.

    2. “We have seen commenters here stand in full throated support of unelected government officials taking it upon themselves to attempt to control the narrative.”

      And George does it again.

      1. Of course, because government CAN do that. It’s perfectly legal for government to control narrative and it’s not alone. Private entities, News, Pundits, bloggers, Think tanks, political parties, politicians, all seek to control the narrative. It’s literally the what exercising free speech is. The government can have a voice just like everyone else.

        1. Sure they can. Lame deflection. The “government” (i love how spastics use that term) is not some douchebag in the FBI.

          I dont care who else is doing it. They are not operatives within the the state, acting like pravda.

          Some douchebag in the government has no business using their position in secretly attempting to influence what speech is promoted and what speech is not BY ANY MEANS. Period. End of story.

          It the goddam REAL GOVERNMENT wants to release an OFFICIAL statement to express their view thats fine. No problem.

          You go right on believing what you like about the twitter files, but just like the economy, we have our own eyes and we dont need Jimmy Fallon to give us our opinion each day.

          “There is no law”. Yea no duh, spastic. Thats the topic of the column. You suck at gaslighting.

          1. Real government? Huh? You’re the one deflecting and gaslighting.

            Nobody’s said anything about the FBI.

    3. Turley has shown he has a poor grasp of what free speech entails. Geez George, you really write some stupid stuff.
      Like to see your credentials.

      1. George shows his credentials every day.

        Yesterday his credential was that he is a big fan of Jimmy Fallon.

      2. Efromme,

        All you gotta do is pay attention. Recently Turley was highly critical of a rating organization, Newsguard. He complained they were in the censorship business because their ratings disfavored conservative sites more than liberal ones and that they encouraged others from those sites. That was not true. He stated that they were government funded, but upon closer inspection they only received a one time grant a year ago. That’s it. But he called it “government funding” to imply to was a government effort to censor.
        Newsguard only provides information based on their own specific criteria, which available for anyone to see, and rates sites, blogs and news organizations. It turns out they ranked conservative, almost all of them, in the lower rankings. Turley deems it a form of censorship. What he ignores is that they are exercising their free speech to rank organizations any way they want. Free speech means having the ability to tell others your organization sucks, or is bad just as Turley is free to say Newsguard is bad because it is engaging in censorship, which is not. He opposes rating and blacklisting of organizations. Ok, fine. But those actions ARE exercises of free speech. So essentially Turley is anti-free speech when it comes to rating and blacklisting just because he doesn’t like what they say. That’s a big dose of irony.

        1. More gaslighting from Svelaz. I warned you fromme

          He gets his information from huffpost and jimmy fallon

    4. “What he calls government funding are usually one time grants.”

      If you hire a hitman just “one time,” you are still a murderer.

      The number of times matters — only to those who are unprincipled.

  3. This is definitely worth fighting for! How will this happen and how does this get into law? What can we do to fight for this right without being rolled over by the powers that be?!!!

    1. “What can we do to fight for this right without being rolled over by the powers that be?”

      Make them “the powers that USED to be”.

  4. Joe Biden and Obama have taken away more freedom than any president since FDR put people in camps, Wilson put people in jail and Lincoln did away with Habeas Corpus. Of course Lincoln was in the middle of the Civil War, Wilson was in the middle of WWI and FDR was in the middle of WWII. Obama and Biden rule during peacetime and yet they are running roughshod over the Constitution, “the thing” as Margo mocked above.

  5. Well, I would suggest that if the Professor wishes to see this law pass and even implemented, he should start with a very public disavowal of his old party. If Tulsi Gabbard can do it then the Professor can do it. At the very least he should make this change very public and possibly state he is independent, if going Republican is too much for him at this time. Of course he make pick up some nosy investigators whenever he flies.
    I would rather argue vehemently with someone or toss beer in their face or get it reflected back in my face than have to go home and pull out my rifle and start drilling with some militia. It’s a lot easier to wash beer out of your clothes than blood.

      1. UpstateFarmer-Well I do drink an occasional beer, never threw it in anyone’s face, or got it thrown back. I have rifles (several) but only shoot at paper, only blood on clothes when I shave, drilled in Jr ROTC in the 60’s, but never in a militia. Feel great but somedays I like to be more provocative than other days. See what kind of response I get. I do have a lifetime CCW permit and in my state you have to have a Doc state you are sane. Feels good right now but I am off to walk my daily 3 miles. I sort of drag after that. No need for concern. Did see a lot of blood on clothes in ER’s in Augusta, Ga, Houston, Tex and Dallas Tex and in the midwest but never my own. I know personally the cost of gunplay in communities and the tragedies they entail.
        Saw a psychologist once as part of screening for a transplant and after an 1 hour she said I was normal but I interjected she meant I was normal for a doctor. And the psychologist quickly responded “well there is that”. As a general rule doctors are not normal. But I did get the transplant 14 years ago.

        1. GEB,
          Good to hear. Kinda threw me for a moment from your usual, well thought out comments.

  6. Does anyone recognize our government as defined by our constitution? “You know, that thing”.

    1. Good question Margot. The answer is the difference between a photo and video.

      Our “photo” government appears, ahem, constitutional. It’s when we get them animated, on “video”, that it becomes apparent they are trampling all over our constitution.

      JT said, It is time to get the United States out of the censorship business for good.

      That is a huge understatement. We are way passed time and we needn’t be limited to the 1st amendment. Use the “photo” and get the government out of everything not specified by the constitution. If there is any doubt, err towards out, not in.

      1. “Our “photo” government appears, ahem, constitutional.”
        Sorry, but even assuming that by “photo” you refer to the structure of our government on paper, as compared to its effects in action, that is still a grievously erroneous statement. There are a multitude of departments that are not entitled to even exist by a plain reading of the restrictions that the Constitution places on government, and many, many times a multitude of statutes and regulations that empower those departments to go far beyond any reasonable contrivance of what the Constitution was intended to allow it to do.

  7. Why should private entities get to punish you for what you express but not the government?

    1. If a private person shoots you, it is just as deadly as if an agent of the government shoots you. The consequences are the same. There shouldn’t be any consequences at all.

      1. Why would you conflate free speech with murder?

        Give the iphone back to your mom and go clean your room.

        2. This comment is ridiculous! Just imagine if you were punished for writing this comment in ‘the new world’ — perhaps you should be first on line to pass a law for the protection that JT is writing about!

    2. Anonymous8:13AM-I would not expect to have to explain this. The constitition limits the government and the government only gets its power from the people. You have legal remedies that you can also use as a private citizen with filing suit or filing charges depending on the issue or using your free speech to attack the private entities that attack you.. Our founders recognized that the government is the greatest threat to our rights and has to be limited. Private citizens have greater latitude than the government, supposedly. Private entities cannot act as a cats paw for the government, form a cartel and suppress your rights by suggestion or at the behest of the government. An employer can take action against you if you disparage the employer or if you act outside the implied contract with your employer. If you are vilified in the process by a private entity and it is slanderous or libelous then you have remedies you can pursue. I think that is all in the citizen handbook that used to be taught in school.

    3. “ Why should private entities get to punish you for what you express but not the government?”

      Because they are NOT bound by the limitations of spelled out by the first amendment. Any private entity CAN censor your speech if it wants to. An employer can fire you for expressing support for a particular candidate. Employees don’t have a constitutional right to free speech at work, however there are federal and state laws that protect speech in certain situations.

      1. Lmao svelaz George back to his old habits of replying to every post. In his rush to demonstrate his idiocy, he even replies to the obvious lampoons.

        Definitely double digit IQ

      2. “Employees don’t have a constitutional right to free speech at work,”

        Yes they do! Lmao wowsa have we ever seen such a basic misunderstanding of civics?

        Congress shall make no law…

        That has NOTHING TO DO with what an employer can do. Firing/not firing. Has NOTHING TO DO with the first amendment.
        Congress shall make no law…
        The government cannot sanction the speech you use at work. That right doesnt disappear when you are at work. The first amendment has NOTHING TO DO with interactions between employee and employer.

        Reading comprehension not your string suit.

        1. Yes, congress shall make no law. It doesn’t say “employers shall make no law”

          Where in the constitution does it say employees have free speech rights at work? The first amendment only says the right to free speech shall not be infringed by government. It does not say the right to free speech shall not be infringed by employers. Employers can fire you for speech outside of work. The first amendment does not protect you from punishment or retaliation from private employers when expressing views or opinions in public or private. There are limits however but they are few and narrow.

          1. “The first amendment only says the right to free speech shall not be infringed by government. It does not say the right to free speech shall not be infringed by employers.”

            Exactly. So those rights still exist at work. You said they dont. A person is still protected from gov’t interference in their speech even at work.

            Dumbest statement ever.

            1. You still dont get it though do you??

              You’re lame attempt to conflate employee rights with first amendment rights is called GASLIGHTING.

              One has NOTHING TO DO with the other.

              Your tactics are lame and easily exposed. Grow up.

      3. “Because they are NOT bound by the limitations of spelled out by the first amendment.” Correct, Svelaz. But GOVERNMENT IS LIMITED by the First Amendment. That’s the entire point of the US Constitution and Bill of Rights – to limit GOVERNMENT, not The People™

        1. “Yes, congress shall make no law. It doesn’t say “employers shall make no law”

          It doesnt say that because employers dont make law.

          Yikes. Another civics lesson for svelaz.

          We’re gonna need first grade remediation if this continues to degrade.

          But thanks for making my point.

          The first amendment does not apply to employer/employee relations. However, it still applies to every citizen awake, asleep, at work, at home, on twitter. They should be free from (some spastic in) government interference in their free speech. Period.

  8. Jonathan is right. We have seen commenters here stand in full throated support of unelected government officials taking it upon themselves to attempt to control the narrative.

    Why wont their leaders just say the quiet part out loud?

        1. However, if that had been Trump holding Kathy Griffins head, you can bet the left would be apoplectic, calling it unprotected speech because it was “incitement to violence”.

          You need proof? People on this very blog tried to blame what happened to Pelosi’s husband on Trump.

          You know the same people who were not at all curious why the passenger side airbag was deployed in Mr Pelosi’s Porsche.

    2. Anonymous7:55AM-easy answer-NO, but she should receive no federal funding from any source in the government to put together something like that. All she is guilty of is extremely poor taste and she has paid the price with her career. Now give us a real question. Maybe should have applied for funding from the Antifa Arts Council

  11. “I’m not going to tell the American people what it is that we are doing about speech we dont agree with”

    ——KJP

  12. The context of WHAT gets censored should matter. There’s a big difference between political speech and plans for a new weapon.

  13. This guy, Vladimir Kara-Murza, has things to say about political freedom that Turley might agree with. The indispensable right seems like something that could be good for Russians, too.

    1. Anonymous7:29AM-Excellent and articulate gentleman from Russia. What he says rings true. Strange that the Washington Post which is calling for censorship in the US, can turn around and show this. One wonders if the left hand knows what the right hand is doing in WashPo.

  14. These articles and the fight for the crucial freedom upon which all others rest reminds of my Constitutional Law professor’s favorite saying: “The best remedy for bad speech is more speech.” What a concept! To actually have to think critically about what one hears and reads.

  15. Adams signed the bill. He did not call for it, write it, nor propose it. Rather than disparage Adams, as you often seem to do, blame Congress for putting it on his desk. Adams had few friends among the Federalists, even though he was of that party, as Washington had been. The party at that time was still under Hamilton’s control, who was no friend to Adams. Adams tried to remain above party politics. To blame him is specious.

    2. And Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act but it is Congress’ fault we have inflation???
      I guess LBJ gets no “credit” for the voting rights bills etc??

      1. For that one, i absolutely blame congress as well.

        Because it passed in the Senate WITHOUT CLOTURE. Just like the rest of the $6T they spent.

        The most important thing Congress does is decide how and how much money to spend. Having rules that allow the passage of spending without cloture is preposterous and is EXACTLY why people in this country are struggling needlessly.

        And the rich get richer.

  16. The federal government should get out of regulating speech and about everything else. We should go back to 1959, or even better 1929, and look at what government did then and what it does now. How much has been added that it really necessary?

  18. With all respect to my Democratic friends, your leaders are directly responsible for making us less free, and you are directly responsible for enabling them with your vote. Are “disinformation governance boards” the kind of thing you ever expected to see in America? Are censorship regimes and information psyops what you had in mind for your beloved country, the “land of the free”?

    This is not a Republican nor Independent party problem, this is squarely on the Democratic Party. We are willing to agree that you have many policy differences with us. As long as we are all free to talk our differences over, we can help one another and get along like family. But if one said wants to just shut up the other, all that creates is an argument, not a discussion.

  20. We are certainly far less free than just 25 years ago. Bad governance requires censorship to survive.

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