Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO) is stepping up his efforts to hold President Joe Biden's administration to account for its collusion with Big Tech to censor Americans.
Schmitt wrote a fiery op-ed for The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday promoting legislation to sue federal officials for assaulting their constitutionally protected right to free speech online. As detailed by Schmitt, the Censorship Accountability Act would expand Section 1983 — a federal statute that allows citizens to sue state officials for violations of constitutional rights — to include federal employees. As Schmitt rebuked, “Bureaucrats who stifle free speech should face consequences.”
Schmitt singled out former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci over his blatant efforts to suppress information that went against the government-approved narrative on COVID-19. “Dr. Fauci went out of his way to convince scientists who supported the lab-leak theory to change their minds and argue that the virus originated naturally,” Schmitt said. He asserted that Dr. Fauci’s remarks prompted platforms to crack down on posts related to the lab-leak theory. “After Dr. Fauci’s efforts to discredit it, Facebook expanded its content-moderation policies to censor posts suggesting Covid-19 might have been man-made.”
Schmitt warned that enough is enough. “We need to ensure citizens can hold these bureaucrats accountable for infringing on their rights,” Schmitt wrote in the opinion piece. “That’s why I’m introducing the Censorship Accountability Act, to bring accountability to federal bureaucrats who violate Americans’ First Amendment rights.” Schmitt also cited the viral preliminary injunction issued by Louisiana District Chief Judge Terry A. Doughty in the landmark free speech case Missouri v. Biden (2022) against Biden's administration.
The injunction temporarily prohibited Biden’s federal agencies from colluding with Big Tech companies for the purpose of censoring free speech. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals would later place a temporary administrative stay on Doughty’s injunction “until further orders of the court.” Free speech be damned.
“One of the most egregious examples saw a coordinated effort by these bureaucrats, notably Anthony Fauci,” Schmitt added before citing the strong Orwellian references used by Doughty to describe Biden’sharrowing censorship regime.
“‘The censorship campaign seems to have come from the pages of George Orwell’s ‘1984,’ and the judge in Missouri v. Biden agreed, writing that it ‘depicts an almost dystopian scenario’ and that the federal government ‘seems to have assumed a role similar to an Orwellian ‘Ministry of Truth.’’”
Schmitt initiated the Missouri v. Biden (2022) lawsuit as attorney general of Missouri along with Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry (R). The lawsuit cited original research by MRC Free Speech America using its unique CensorTrack.org to track the extent of Big Tech's efforts to censor Biden's critics.
Conservatives are under attack. Contact your representatives and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on so-called “hate speech” and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us using CensorTrack’s contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.
