[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
HEARING ON THE WEAPONIZATION OF THE
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SELECT SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE WEAPONIZATION
OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2024
__________
Serial No. 118-62
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via: http://judiciary.house.gov
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
54-869 WASHINGTON : 2024
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
JIM JORDAN, Ohio, Chair
DARRELL ISSA, California JERROLD NADLER, New York, Ranking
KEN BUCK, Colorado Member
MATT GAETZ, Florida ZOE LOFGREN, California
ANDY BIGGS, Arizona SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas
TOM McCLINTOCK, California STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
TOM TIFFANY, Wisconsin HENRY C. ``HANK'' JOHNSON, Jr.,
THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky Georgia
CHIP ROY, Texas ADAM SCHIFF, California
DAN BISHOP, North Carolina ERIC SWALWELL, California
VICTORIA SPARTZ, Indiana TED LIEU, California
SCOTT FITZGERALD, Wisconsin PRAMILA JAYAPAL, Washington
CLIFF BENTZ, Oregon J. LUIS CORREA, California
BEN CLINE, Virginia MARY GAY SCANLON, Pennsylvania
KELLY ARMSTRONG, North Dakota JOE NEGUSE, Colorado
LANCE GOODEN, Texas LUCY McBATH, Georgia
JEFF VAN DREW, New Jersey MADELEINE DEAN, Pennsylvania
TROY NEHLS, Texas VERONICA ESCOBAR, Texas
BARRY MOORE, Alabama DEBORAH ROSS, North Carolina
KEVIN KILEY, California CORI BUSH, Missouri
HARRIET HAGEMAN, Wyoming GLENN IVEY, Maryland
NATHANIEL MORAN, Texas BECCA BALINT, Vermont
LAUREL LEE, Florida
WESLEY HUNT, Texas
RUSSELL FRY, South Carolina
------
SELECT SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE WEAPONIZATION OF THE
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
JIM JORDAN, Ohio, Chair
DARRELL ISSA, California STACEY PLASKETT, Virgin Islands,
THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky Ranking Member
ELISE M. STEFANIK, New York STEPHEN LYNCH, Massachusetts
MATT GAETZ, Florida LINDA SANCHEZ, California
KELLY ARMSTRONG, North Dakota DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida
W. GREGORY STEUBE, Florida GERRY CONNOLLY, Virginia
DAN BISHOP, North Carolina JOHN GARAMENDI, California
KAT CAMMACK, Florida COLIN ALLRED, Texas
HARRIET HAGEMAN, Wyoming SYLVIA GARCIA, Texas
WARREN DAVIDSON, Ohio DAN GOLDMAN, New York
RUSSELL FRY, South Carolina
CHRISTOPHER HIXON, Majority Staff Director
CAROLINE NABITY, Chief Counsel for Oversight
AARON HILLER, Minority Staff Director & Chief of Staff
CHRISTINA CALCE, Minority Chief Oversight Counsel
C O N T E N T S
----------
Tuesday, February 6, 2024
Page
OPENING STATEMENTS
The Honorable Jim Jordan, Chair of the Select Subcommittee on the
Weaponization of the Federal Government from the State of Ohio. 1
The Honorable Stacey Plaskett, Ranking Member of the Select
Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government
from the Virgin Islands........................................ 3
WITNESSES
Katelynn Richardson, Supreme Court Reporter, Daily Caller News
Foundation
Oral Testimony................................................. 7
Prepared Testimony............................................. 9
Lee Fang, Investigative Journalist
Oral Testimony................................................. 12
Prepared Testimony............................................. 15
Greg Lukianoff, President and CEO, Foundation for Individual
Rights and Expressions (FIRE)
Oral Testimony................................................. 22
Prepared Testimony............................................. 24
The Hon. Norman L. Eisen, Senior Fellow, The Brookings
Institution, Governance Studies
Oral Testimony................................................. 27
Prepared Testimony............................................. 29
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC. SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
All materials submitted for the record by the Select Subcommittee
on the Weaponization of the Federal Government are listed below 77
Submission from the Foundation for Individual Rights and
Expression, submitted by Greg Lukianoff, President and CEO,
Foundation for Individual Rights and Expressions (FIRE)
Materials submitted by the Honorable Thomas Massie, a Member of
the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal
Government from the State of Kentucky, for the record
An Executive Order entitled, ``Executive Order on the Safe,
Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial
Intelligence,'' Oct. 30, 2023, Federal Register, Vol. 88,
No. 210, Wednesday, Nov. 1, 2023, Executive Order 14110,
Joseph R. Biden, Jr., The White House
A Bill Text of H.R. ----, ``To prohibit the obligation or
expenditure of Federal funds for disinformation research
grants, and for other purposes.'' Introduced by the
Honorable Thomas Massie
An Appeal from the United States Court of Appeals, DC (No. 23-
3228), United States of America v, Donald J. Trump (No. 1:23-
cr-00257-1), submitted by the Honorable Stephen Lynch, a Member
of the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal
Government from the State of Massachusetts, for the record
Materials submitted by the Honorable Stacey Plaskett, Ranking
Member of the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the
Federal Government from the Virgin Islands
A poem created by prompting Chat GPT 3.5 entitled, ``Write a
poem on how Congressman Jim Jordan is the best politician
in the country.''
A poem created by prompting Chat GPT 3.5 entitled, ``Write a
poem on how Congresswoman Stacy Plaskett is the best
politician in the country.''
A poem created by prompting Chat GPT 3.5 entitled, ``Write a
poem on how Congressman Kelly Armstrong is the best
politician in the country.''
A poem created by prompting Chat GPT 3.5 entitled, ``Write a
poem on how Wyoming's Congresswoman Harriet Hageman is the
best politician in the country.''
A poem created by prompting Chat GPT 3.5 entitled, ``Write a
poem on how Congressman Dan Bishop is the best politician
in the country.''
A poem created by prompting Chat GPT 3.5 entitled, ``Write a
poem on how Congressman Gregory Staube is the best
politician in.the country.''
A poem created by prompting Chat GPT 3.5 entitled, ``Write a
poem on how Congressman Matt Gaetz is the best politician
in the country.''
A poem created by prompting Chat GPT 3.5 entitled, ``Write a
poem on how Congressman Darrell Issa is the best politician
in the country.''
A poem created by prompting Chat GPT 3.5 entitled, ``Write a
poem on how Congresswoman Kat Cammack is the best
politician in the country.''
A poem created by prompting Chat GPT 3.5 entitled, ``Write a
poem on how South Carolina's Congressman Russell Fry is the
best politician in the country.''
A poem created by prompting Chat GPT 3.5 entitled, ``Write a
poem on how Congressman Thomas Massie is the best
politician in the country.''
A poem created by prompting Chat GPT 3.5 entitled, ``Write a
poem on how Congresswoman Elise Stefanik is the best
politician in the country.''
An article entitled, ``The far right is scaring away
Washington's private hacker army,'' Feb. 6, 2024, Politico
An article entitled, ``In the name of `fake news,' NewsGuard
extorts sites to follow the government narrative,'' Dec. 10,
2023, New York Post, submitted by the Honorable W. Gregory
Steube, a Member of the Select Subcommittee on the
Weaponization of the Federal Government from the State of
Florida, for the record
Materials submitted by the Honorable Sylvia Garcia, a Member of
the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal
Government from the State of Texas, for the record
An article entitled, ``Trump praises Texas governor as border
state clashes withBiden administration over immigration,''
Jan. 28, 2024, AP News
An article entitled, ``Texas governor ignores Supreme Court
ruling, adds more razorwire to border,'' Jan. 26, 2024, CBS
7
APPENDIX
Materials submitted by the Honorable Thomas Massie, a Member of
the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal
Government from the State of Kentucky, for the record
An Executive Order entitled, ``Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy
Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence,'' Oct. 30,
2023, Executive Order 14110, Joseph R. Biden, Jr., The
White House
A report entitled, ``The AI Executive Order and Its Potential
Implication for DOD,'' Dec. 12, 2023, Congressional
Research Service
A report entitled, ``Highlights of the 2023 Executive Order on
Artificial Intelligence for Congress,'' Nov. 17, 2023,
Congressional Research Service
QUESTIONS AND RESPONSES FOR THE RECORD
Questions for Greg Lukianoff, President and CEO, Foundation for
Individual Rights and Expressions (FIRE), submitted by the
Honorable Harriet Hageman, a Member of the Select Subcommittee
on the Weaponization of the Federal Government from the State
of Wyoming, for the record
Response from Greg Lukianoff, President and CEO, Foundation for
Individual Rights and Expressions (FIRE)
HEARING ON THE WEAPONIZATION OF THE
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
----------
Tuesday, February 6, 2024
House of Representatives
Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government
Committee on the Judiciary
Washington, DC
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:10 a.m., in
Room 2141, Rayburn House Office Building, the Hon. Jim Jordan
[Chair of the Subcommittee] presiding.
Members present: Representatives Jordan, Issa, Massie,
Gaetz, Armstrong, Steube, Bishop, Cammack, Hageman, Davidson,
Fry, Plaskett, Lynch, Wasserman Schultz, Connolly, Garamendi,
Allred, Garcia, and Goldman.
Chair Jordan. The Subcommittee will come to order.
Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare a
recess at any time.
We welcome everyone to today's hearing on artificial
intelligence and censorship.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Ohio, our
newest Member to the Committee--and we are glad that he is now
part of the Subcommittee--Mr. Davidson. The Chair now
recognizes Mr. Davidson to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance.
[Pledge of Allegiance.]
Chair Jordan. In addition to Mr. Davidson, I will briefly
note that we also have Mr. Fry, who has not yet joined us, as
our new Member to the Subcommittee, replacing--Mr. Davidson and
Mr. Fry are replacing, of course, Mr. Stewart, who left
Congress a few months back, and, of course, now Speaker
Johnson. Both our valued Members of our conference and we are
glad that they are now part of this Committee.
The Chair now recognizes himself for an opening statement.
Today, we continue the Select Committee's work at looking
into the government's efforts with big tech to censor speech.
First, it was Twitter. When Elon Musk took over the
company, he called it a ``crime scene'' and released
information through Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger, two
journalists that we have had in front of this Committee a
couple of times, showing that the government was deeply
involved in the content moderation decisions at Twitter.
It was Facebook, where folks from the White House--Andy
Slavitt and Rob Flaherty--were telling the company to take down
posts that they disagreed with. The White House pressured
Facebook to censor true information and even told them to take
down a meme.
Then, it was YouTube. The Biden White House said, ``Why
aren't you guys at YouTube taking down more,'' quote, ``border
line content''--which is content/speech that doesn't violate
YouTube's policies. It is just content and speech that they
didn't like, didn't agree with their narrative.
Both Facebook and YouTube caved to the White House pressure
because they knew they had to keep good relationships with the
White House for important policy decisions. We call that
coercion.
Then, we learned how they all teamed up--big government,
big tech, and big academia--working together to censor
Americans in the lead-up to the 2020 election through the
Election Integrity Partnership and the Virality Project. This
partnership, created at the request of the Federal Government,
sent thousands of links directly to big tech to be censored.
So, information was targeted. Jokes weren't safe, either.
Even Members of this Committee were targeted--Congressman
Massie. We have discussed that throughout this Congress in
several different hearings. It wasn't just conservatives. It
was mostly conservatives, but it wasn't just conservatives.
Yesterday, we shared what we have uncovered about the White
House pressuring Amazon. Internal Amazon emails are
unbelievable. It says, ``Is the administration''--think about
this one--``Is the administration asking us''--we put this out
in a Twitter thread yesterday--``Is the administration asking
us''--Amazon--``asking us to remove books, or are they more
concerned about search results (or both)?'' Stop and think
about it: Government pressuring Amazon to ban books.
Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, all this big combination to
impact the election. Now, we find the same thing was happening,
the same dynamic was happening at Amazon.
Today's hearing, now the government is trying to take
censorship to the next level by weaponizing artificial
intelligence tools to limit speech in real time and at scale.
In the name of combating alleged misinformation regarding
COVID-19 in the 2020 election, the National Science Foundation
has been issuing multimillion dollar grants to universities and
nonprofit research teams to develop artificial-intelligence-
powered censorship and propaganda tools. These tools can be
used by government and big tech to shape public opinion by
restricting certain viewpoints and promoting others.
In notes from the University of Michigan's first
presentation to the National Science Foundation about its NSF-
funded, AI-powered, what is called WiseDex tool, they said
this, quote--so, this is when the University of Michigan is
making their pitch to the government to get taxpayer money--
they said,
Our misinformation service helps policymakers at platforms who
want to push responsibility for difficult judgment to someone
outside the company by externalizing the difficult
responsibility of censorship.
Think about that last phrase: ``by externalizing the difficult
responsibility of censorship.''
They said right upfront what they want to do. They want
taxpayer money coming to them, so they can develop tools with
AI to censor American speech. I don't know if it gets much
scarier than that.
Nonpublic documents obtained by the Select Committee reveal
the disinformation researchers referring to their work as,
quote, ``censorship'' in the slides they presented to the
National Science Foundation. The National Science Foundation
tracked reporting critical of its program, including an article
written by Professor Jonathan Turley and by Ms. Richardson, one
of our witnesses today. They developed a specific media
strategy they considered blacklisting and they considered
blacklisting conservative media.
In one project proposal documented to the National Science
Foundation, the researchers explained the need for a quote,
. . . proactive suite of human technologies to assist rural
and indigenous communities, military veterans, older adults,
and military families . . .
All whom the researchers claimed were unusually susceptible to
misinformation campaigns online.
I want you to digest that for a second. If you are an older
American, you served in our military, and you live out in
flyover country, you're too stupid to know what's true. These
guys wanted their tax money, our tax money, the very people
they described, they took their tax money to develop tools to
censor the people that they took the tax money from.
Another project proposal sent to the National Science
Foundation demeans Americans who hold, quote,
. . . the Bible and the Constitution as sacred and choose to
review primary sources rather than rely on expert consensus.
If you think the Bible is sacred, if you support the
Constitution, and you review primary sources to think for
yourself, you're the problem, according to the National Science
Foundation, and they're going to give your tax dollars to
entities developing this technology, this tool to censor your
speech.
One other proposal document said this, ``Reactive content
moderation is too slow and ineffective.'' That is what this
hearing is about: AI which can censor in real time and at scale
should scare us all.
The pattern we have seen emerging is deeply troubling. For
the work of this Committee, we would have never known about all
the censorship going on. Now, we are concerned, obviously,
about how artificial intelligence can interact, can use these
tools, develop these tools to censor and restrict Americans'
speech.
I want to thank our witnesses for being here today.
With that, I would yield to the Ranking Member for an
opening statement.
Ms. Plaskett. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to our witnesses for all being here, being a part
of the discussion, expressing your ideas, and the work that you
have been engaged in.
I do have to say that we sit here today in another
iteration of the same hearing we have had over and over again
in the 118th Congress--the sixth hearing of the same topic, a
merry-go-round of Republican greatest rejections of conspiracy
theories.
We are here to attempt to once again discuss the same issue
in a different way. Not once has my colleague, the Chair,
requested any ideas from my side as to what we might agree on
discussing as the weaponization of the Federal Government.
I would say the IRS propensity to audit working class
people, and especially people of color, rather than wealthy
individuals can show some weaponization of the Federal
Government or book banning and censorship in schools and school
districts receiving Federal funding.
As with many hearings, my Republican colleagues don't
really want us to work together. Chair Jordan has allowed his
staff to provide the bare minimum notice for hearings without a
subject or identifiable topic, without publicly announcing who
the witnesses are, without even the decency to tell the
minority anything.
I know that we have come to think that this is normal, but
that is not how Congress has always worked. This is, in fact,
the sixth time in this Select Subcommittee that a hearing of
ours has had the exact same name: ``Hearing on the
Weaponization of the Federal Government.'' That's a broad,
broad topic and could mean anything.
For the minority to prepare to engage with the majority on
such a topic just is further demonstration of how far we are
from actually doing work. This is about platforms. This is
about speaking to Fox News. This is not about solving problems
for the American people.
We have come so far from what Congress has been even in the
short time that I have been here, which I can't believe is
almost a decade now. It is shameful.
So, I will use my side and our discussion to talk about
what we think is the weaponization of the Federal Government;
what we believe to be the real threat to our democracy and the
rule of law: The attempted weaponization of the Federal
Government during the Trump Administration, or even more
frightening, the extreme weaponization of the Federal
Government that the former President has told us he will do if
he is reelected.
Just since our last hearing, the fifth hearing, former
President Trump has made more terrifying statements on the
weaponization of the Federal Government, should he have a
second term. Donald Trump has said he will, quote, ``act like a
dictator on day one of any second term.''
He has said, ``he would proudly claim full credit for
overturning Roe v. Wade,'' a woman's protection from
overbearing State and her right to privacy.
He has argued in court, as a legal argument, that he would
have full immunity as President, even if he ordered the
assassination of individual Americans.
He says he is going to lay off thousands of nonpolitical
career diplomats, replacing experienced government experts that
serve with distinction with individuals whose main quality is
passing a loyalty test to him.
He has vowed to appoint a special prosecutor just to go
after Joe Biden, his entire family, threatening them multiple
times, because he doesn't like them and they are a threat to
him--not to our country. Trump and his followers are obsessed
with charging Biden or any Biden individual for a set of wildly
changing charges--with a real set of projection in that to
things that he, himself, and his own family have done; for
charges that our Congressional Republicans still cannot seem to
produce documents or their own witnesses to corroborate.
Now, one of the other statements that I gave to you a
little earlier, to remove nonpolitical career diplomats with
individuals who are willing to take a loyalty test, is also
very troubling. It should be obvious to anyone that replacing
these qualified people en masse with expressly political
operatives of any stripe would undermine Americans' interest
and is the hallmark of a fascist State.
Finally, the idea, the sick, audacious notion that a
President could order the assassination of an American citizen
at will without a single legal consequence runs aground of
every American's sense of right and wrong. That is what Donald
Trump argues he can do--not in public speeches alone that could
just be campaign promises or rhetoric, but in a Federal court
filing where his attorneys must put the argument requested and
discussed with their client, Donald Trump.
Donald Trump believes, as President, that he can deploy--
let's think about this--the American military on American soil
to attack an American target, an individual, which in this
hypothetical example has not declared any form of hostility
toward the American State itself but is merely who the
President believes is not his friend or agrees with him. This
idea is--and this is my own legal parlance--the craziest,
illegal, dictatorial, despotic, demagoguery, and autocratic
crap I've ever heard.
Today, the Chair is going to have us go through another
round of claims about the weaponization that are his witnesses
beliefs about social media on the part of the Federal
Government. The Chair and my Republican colleagues on this
Subcommittee will ignore or try to make light of, or even mock,
the unmistakable promises Donald Trump has made to weaponize
the government on his own behalf.
Where are the hearings about a former President who
believes he can use the Federal Government to kill his
political opponents? Where is the hearing about a President who
believes that the most important quality of his appointments to
run the greatest and most important country in the world is
that they are loyal solely to him? Where is the hearing to
discuss, never mind Trump, but even the idea--let's not just
make it about Trump; let's have a hearing about the idea of a
President using the resources of the Federal Government, the
appointment of a special prosecutor to go after those he deemed
to be the enemy--not of this country, not of these ideals--but
of national security, but of himself.
If you don't think I am thinking this, if you don't think
that this is my thought and important to me, let's take it from
the word of people who worked directly with the man.
John Bolton, former National Security Advisor to Donald
Trump, I think Trump will cause significant damage in a second
term, damage that in some cases will be irreparable.
John Kelly, his former Chief of Staff, said, in a second
term,
It just simply would be chaotic, because he'd continually be
trying to exceed his authority, but the sycophants would go
along with it. It would be a nonstop gun fight with the
Congress and the courts.
Bill Barr, President Trump's former Attorney General,
I think for people going into that second term of the Trump
Administration, I think they have to be ready to oppose the
abuse of government power.
That's the weaponization of the Federal Government, but I
don't think that's ever going to be a topic that the majority
is going to bring forth. So, we, the majority, will have to
bring it for you.
With that, I yield back.
Chair Jordan. Without objection, all other opening
statements will be included in the record.
Chair Jordan. We will now introduce today's witnesses.
Mr. Greg Lukianoff--I think I got it right, Lukianoff--is
the President and CEO of the Foundation for Individual Rights
and Expression, FIRE. He is an attorney and The New York Times
best-selling author and an expert on the First Amendment.
We welcome you to our Committee today.
Mr. Lee Fang is an independent journalist and one of the
authors of the Twitter Files. He began his career as an
investigator blogger for ThinkProgress and has worked for The
Intercept, Vice, The Nation, and the Republic Report. Mr. Fang
received the Izzy Award in 2018 from Park Center for
Independent Media for his work at The Intercept.
We are glad you are with us today, Mr. Fang.
Ms. Katelynn Richardson is a contributor at the Daily
Caller News Foundation, where she primarily covers legal issues
and the Federal court system. In 2023, she reported on National
Science Foundation grants that are being used to develop
censorship technology--the focus of our hearing today. A
result, frankly, of her work, the National Science Foundation
adopted a strategy to avoid any media scrutiny. So, we
appreciate your good work there.
The Honorable Norman Eisen is a Senior Fellow in government
studies at the Brookings Institution. He previously served as
U.S. Ambassador to the Czech Republic from 2011-2014. I had the
experience of working not with or for, but maybe against Mr.
Eisen when he was with the Democrats in the 2019 impeachment
effort.
We welcome you as well, Mr. Eisen.
We welcome all our witnesses, and we thank you for being
here.
We will begin by swearing you in. Would you please rise,
raise your right hand?
Do you swear or affirm, under penalty of perjury, that the
testimony you're about to give is true and correct to the best
of your knowledge, information, and belief, so help you God?
Let the record show that each of the witnesses answered in
the affirmative.
Thank you. Please be seated.
Please know that your written testimony will be entered
into the record in its entirety. Accordingly, we ask that you
try to summarize it in five minutes, but we will be fine with
that.
I think we are going to start with Ms. Richardson, and then
we'll work right down the line, if that's OK.
So, Ms. Richardson, you are recognized for five minutes.
Just make sure your mic is on and go right ahead.
STATEMENT OF KATELYNN RICHARDSON
Ms. Richardson. I want to thank the Committee for inviting
me to testify today.
My name is Katelynn Richardson. I'm a reporter at the Daily
Caller News Foundation, a nonprofit news outlet based in
Washington, DC, dedicated to holding public officials
accountable and exposing government waste, fraud, and abuse
through in-depth investigative reporting. I cover the Supreme
Court and do investigative reporting.
In September 2021, I started looking into the government's
funding of censorship tools after finding that The National
Science Foundation had launched a program awarding grants to
researchers to develop projects aimed at combating
misinformation. What I discovered was a multimillion-dollar
effort to build what I call a censorship industrial complex,
using taxpayer dollars as seed funding for various projects.
The efforts fit within the broader trend of the Federal
Government's increasing involvement in online censorship, from
the Center for Disease Control flagging posts during COVID-19
to the FBI working with social media companies to suppress the
Hunter Biden laptop story.
In September 2021, the National Science Foundation awarded
$750,000 each to 12 teams of researchers, as part of a new
research track within its Convergence Accelerator Program
titled, ``Trust & Authenticity in Communication Systems.''
Proposals ranged from fact-checking tools that warn journalists
when publishing content may result in outcomes like
``polarizing discourse'' or perpetuating ``false narratives.''
Six projects--which are currently ongoing--advanced in 2022
to the second stage and received an additional $5 million in
funding.
(1) A digital dashboard called ``Course Correct,'' aims to
help journalists locate and correct misinformation. Run by
researchers in the University of Wisconsin system, the project
uses machine learning to identify networks where misinformation
is spreading and pinpoint who is sharing it on social media. It
highlights issues like ``vaccine hesitancy'' and ``electoral
skepticism'' as areas of special interest.
(2) Another AI-based grant project by the company Meedan
aims to curb racially targeted misinformation by developing
algorithms that scan ``millions of posts'' and map them to
``misinformation narratives.''
(3) The Convergence Accelerator Program is not the only way
the NSF has steered taxpayer dollars toward the development of
censorship tools.
(4) The NSF awarded the University of Washington $550,000
to develop language technologies that ``detect and intervene''
in hate speech and discriminatory language, like ``sexist,
racist, homo-
phobic microaggressions.''
(5) It awarded the University of Houston $50,000 to develop
an online dashboard with ``misinformation forecast trends.''
(6) It also approved $324,000 in 2022 for a summer camp at
Old Dominion University to teach students about ``the rapidly
growing research area of disinformation detection and
analytics,'' which is scheduled to happen again this summer.
The goal is to prepare students for future ``disinformation-
related jobs''--an indicator that this is a growing industry,
and as the sampling of grants demonstrates, one the Federal
Government has a multimillion-dollar stake in.
Even as a lawsuit challenging the Federal Government's
communications with social media companies to censor speech
progresses to the Supreme Court, these grants and the tools
they are developing have received comparatively little
attention.
The NSF swears it does not engage in censorship and that it
does not partner directly with social media platforms. Taxpayer
dollars spent on projects that do are still troubling, as were
the agency's responses to straightforward questions about its
programs.
When I reported on Convergence Accelerator grants shortly
after their announcement, the NSF devised an official media
strategy instructing research teams to highlight the ``pro-
democracy'' nature of their projects. I only know this thanks
to emails unveiled in a report this Committee put out today.
Again, when I wrote for the Daily Caller News Foundation in
early 2023 about projects that advanced to stage two, emails
from the Committee report showed they privately considered
removing videos about the projects they were funding from
YouTube.
If the agency's reaction to fair questions from journalists
is to strategize ways to rebrand and avoid attention, why does
it have any business funding tools that tell reporters what is
true and what is false? If their impulse is to hide
information, how can projects it backs be trusted to sort out
what information is authoritative?
The government is not the arbiter of truth. Our Founders
understood this, which is why we have the First Amendment. They
understood the danger of the government telling people what
they should believe and targeting opinions that cut against the
official narrative. Pursuing information control by funding
outside organizations is no less a threat to free speech and
freedom of the press than a tyrannical government.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Richardson follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chair Jordan. Thank you, Ms. Richardson.
Mr. Fang, you're recognized for five minutes.
STATEMENT OF LEE FANG
Mr. Fang. Chair Jordan, Ranking Member Plaskett, esteemed
Members of the Select Committee, my name is Lee Fang. I'm here
in my role as an independent investigative journalist. I see it
as my duty to serve the broad public interest and spotlight
wrongdoing, whether it comes from the left, the right, or the
center. I appreciate the opportunity to share my work here
today.
I've long covered issues concerning free speech and
censorship. Artificial intelligence introduces a new dimension,
offering the unprecedented ability to monitor, to flag, and to
censor billions of individuals at a scale and scope never
before conceivable.
Some of you may be familiar with my October 2022
investigation delving into the history of the Cybersecurity and
Infrastructure Agency, or CISA, and the FBI's concurrent
expansion into policing social media. Using court documents and
evidence provided by a DHS whistleblower, I reported that
government programs initially designed to curb foreign
influence and incitement to terrorism had transformed into a
broader campaign to suppress ordinary domestic speech. CISA's
expansive focus eventually touched on a wider range of
political topics--from the 2020 Presidential election to the
origins of COVID-19, to criticism of the Ukraine-Russia War.
Two months later, in December 2022, I reported on a cache
of Twitter's internal corporate documents that became known as
the Twitter Files. I gained access to internal emails, tools,
and chats that confirmed my earlier reporting on CISA.
I have since published many articles based on these
documents on my Substack, leefang.com, including a piece
released yesterday. In my latest report, I reveal that CISA
acted on an inaccurate tip regarding The New York Times
journalist's observations about delays in the Presidential vote
count in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Instead of verifying the
veracity of this tip, CISA directly lobbied Twitter to restrict
access to the reporter's tweet. In response, Twitter shadow
banned The New York Times reporter's tweet, effectively
rendering it invisible to most users.
I understand the stated intent behind these efforts--the
desire to uphold the highest standards in our elections and to
deter any illicit manipulation. However, as this and many other
cases illustrate, the government often errs and frequently acts
in a politically motivated manner. For this reason alone, it is
inappropriate for law enforcement or intelligence agencies to
act as the arbiter of permissible journalism. Moreover,
government censorship of truthful and accurate speech, rather
than dispelling conspiracy theories, only serves to exacerbate
the erosion of public trust in our elections.
My Twitter Files and broader reporting differ slightly from
recent testimony heard by this Committee. I've also shed light
on the role of private sector entities in attempting to control
and curtail public discourse on areas of major public policy.
I revealed that a group called Public Good Projects
regularly corroborated with Twitter to censor social media.
This censorship campaign was entirely funded by biopharma
lobbyists that represent Moderna and Pfizer.
In some instances, the demands for censorship targeted
accounts simply for expressing opposition to vaccine
passports--a debate that should be open in a free society, not
repressed by a drug company with financial interests at stake.
More recently, in collaboration with UnHerd and RealClear
Investigations, and with my coauthor Jack Poulson, I reported
that Moderna relaunched these efforts to influence the vaccine
discourse last summer. Again, working with Public Good
Projects, Moderna employed the services of the artificial
intelligence term Talkwalker to monitor vaccine-related
conversations across 150 million websites, including social
media and gaming platforms, like Steam.
There are many other examples in my reporting, beyond the
Twitter Files and Moderna documents, that show overreach by
government and corporate interests to stifle free speech.
Last month, I revealed documents on the activities of
Logically, a British artificial intelligence firm that is
poised to shape the 2024 election. It is important to
underscore why the American public should be aware of this
firm. Logically previously had contracts in the United Kingdom
to combat misinformation during the pandemic. Like many other
firms of this nature, they, instead, surveilled legitimate
forms of speech, including thoughtful concerns about pandemic
lockdowns. Logically boasted of a special partnership with
Facebook to automatically suppress and label any content they
deemed as misinformation, giving the company immense influence
over content moderation decisions.
In my official written remarks, my testimony, I go into
much greater detail about my record on these issues--writing on
censorship and surveillance of animal rights activists and
labor union activists. I have profiled the various private
contractors that began by spying on behalf of the FBI during
the War on Terror that now utilize artificial intelligence to
spy on conservative, antivaccine mandate activists. More
recently, I've reported on organized suppression of peaceful
speech by pro-Palestinian activists.
I present these varied examples to underscore how
censorship affects dissenting voices of all ideological
stripes. I understand that, in our intensely polarized
environment, free speech has become a divisive issue, often
misused by politicians seeking a convenient scapegoat.
History teaches us that government and private entities
demand censorship authority to attack dissidents of a
particular group in one era. Those tools are then used against
an entirely different set of actors a few years later. Today's
cheerleaders for an unaccountable content moderation regime may
well be tomorrow's victims of that same system.
In the interest of time, I want to keep my remarks brief
and close by drawing your attention to a hearing held nearly 12
years ago by another House Committee addressing a remarkably
similar topic. At that time, lawmakers demanded answers about
revelations that the Department of Homeland Security had
engaged a private contractor for around-the-clock surveillance
of social media.
During that hearing, Representative Jackie Speier, a
Democrat from California, expressed her alarm at the potential
for a big brother effect and called for assurances that DHS was
not infringing on, quote, ``civil rights and civil liberties of
those who choose to use social media,'' or ``spying on lawful
activities.''
Representative Pat Meehan, a Republican from Pennsylvania,
cautioned against DHS from monitoring private citizens' speech.
He said it could, quote,
Have a chilling effect on individual privacy and people's
freedom of speech and dissent against their government.
In many ways, that hearing may appear quaint in today's
context. In terms of bureaucratic and technological abilities,
it was a relic from another era. This was before CISA existed.
This was before we had much more powerful and intrusive AI.
This was before the cottage industry of censorship groups
operating under the banner of antimisinformation.
Nonetheless, the 2012 hearing serves as a reminder that
these issues need not be divisive on partisan lines. I implore
the Committee to rise against--rise above partisanship and
perceive the threat posed by online surveillance as an American
issue that affects all of us.
I appreciate this opportunity. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Fang follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chair Jordan. Thank you, Mr. Fang.
Mr. Lukianoff?
STATEMENT OF GREG LUKIANOFF
Mr. Lukianoff. Chair Jordan, Ranking Member Plaskett, and
distinguished Members of the Select Subcommittee, good morning.
My name is Greg Lukianoff, and I am the CEO of the Foundation
for Individual Rights and Expression, also known as FIRE, where
I worked for 23 years.
FIRE is a nonpartisan nonprofit that uses litigation,
scholarship, and public outreach to defend and promote the
value of free speech for all Americans. We proudly defend free
speech regardless of a speaker's viewpoint or identity, and we
have represented people across the political spectrum.
I am here to address the risk AI and AI regulation pose to
freedom of speech and the creation of knowledge. We have good
reason to be concerned. FIRE regularly fights government
attempts to stifle speech on the internet. FIRE is in Federal
court challenging a New York law that forces websites to
address online speech that someone somewhere finds humiliating
or vilifying.
We are challenging a new Utah law that requires age
verification on all social media users. We have raised concerns
about the Federal Government funding development of AI tools to
target speech, including microaggressions.
Later this week, FIRE will file an amicus brief with the
Supreme Court explaining the danger of jawboning, the use of
government pressure to force social media platforms to censor
protected speech.
The most chilling threat that the government poses in the
context of emerging AI is regulatory overreach that limits its
potential as a tool for contributing to human knowledge. A
regulatory panic could result in a small number of Americans
deciding for everybody else what speech, ideas, and even
questions are permitted in the name of ``safety or alignment.''
I have dedicated my life to defending freedom of speech
because it is an essential human right. However, free speech is
more than that. It is nothing less than essential to our
ability to understand the world.
A giant step for human progress was the realization that
despite what our senses tell us, knowledge is hard to attain.
It is a never-ending, arduous, necessarily decentralized
process of testing and retesting, of chipping away at falsity
to edge a bit closer to truth.
It is not just about the proverbial marketplace of ideas;
it is about allowing information independent of idea or
argument to flow freely so that we can hope to know the world
as it really is.
This means seeing value in expression even when it appears
to be wrongheaded or even useless. This process has been aided
by new technologies that have made communication easier, from
the printing press to the telegraph and radio, to phones and
the internet. Each one has accelerated the development of new
knowledge by making it easier to share information.
AI offers even greater liberating potential, empowered by
First Amendment principles, including freedom to code, academic
freedom, and freedom of inquiry. We are on the threshold of a
revolution in the creation and discovery of knowledge.
AI's potential is humbling, indeed frightening. As the
history of the printing press shows, attempts to put the genie
back in the bottle will fail. Despite the profound disruption
the printing press caused in Europe in the short term, the
long-term contribution to art, science, and again, knowledge
was without equal.
Yes, we may have some fears about the proliferation of AI.
What those of us who care about the civil liberties fear more
is a government monopoly on advanced AI. More likely,
regulatory capture and a government-empowered oligopoly that
privileges a handful of existing players.
The end result of pushing too hard on AI regulation will be
the concentration of AI influence in an even smaller number of
hands. Far from reining in government misuse of AI to censor,
we will have created the framework not only to censor, but also
to dominate and distort the production of knowledge itself.
Why not just let OpenAI or a handful of existing AI engines
dominate the space, you may ask. Trust in expertise and in
higher education, another important developer of knowledge, has
plummeted in recent years, due largely to self-inflicted wounds
borne by the ideological biases shared by much of the expert
class.
That same bias is often found baked into existing AI, and
without competing AI models, we may create a massive body of
purported official facts that we can't actually trust.
We have seen on campus that attempts to regulate hate
speech have led to absurd results, like punishing people for
simply reading about controversial topics like racism. AI
programs flag or refuse to answer questions about prohibited
topics.
Of course, the potential end result of America tying the
hands of the greatest programmers in the world would be to lose
our advantage to our most determined foreign adversaries.
With decentralized development and use of AI, we have a
better chance of defeating our staunchest rivals, or even
Skynet or big brother. It is what gives us our best chance for
understanding the world without being blinded by our current
orthodoxies, superstitions, or darkest fears.
Thank you for the invitation to testify, and I look
forwards to your questions.
[[The prepared statement of Mr. Lukianoff follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chair Jordan. Thank you. Ambassador, you are recognized for
five minutes.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. NORMAN L. EISEN
Mr. Eisen. Thank you, Mr. Chair, Ranking Member Plaskett,
and Members of this Subcommittee.
Weaponization of government is an intensely personal topic
for me because my family was a victim of the worst
weaponization of modern times: The Shoah and the Holocaust. My
mother survived Auschwitz, a slave labor camp at Neuengamme,
and a death train in the last days of the war.
My father was trapped in Warsaw in 1939, miraculously made
his way out to the United States, and then joined the U.S. Army
to fight that weaponization of government by the Nazis and
their axis allies.
Most of the rest of their families did not survive that
weaponization. My maternal grandparents were murdered by it,
quite literally, in the gas chambers at Auschwitz. There and
across Europe, dozens of members of my family were murdered by
genuine weaponization.
So, I agree there can be no more important topic than the
weaponization of government. I urge the Committee, with all
respect, to focus on the most imminent threat of that
weaponization now facing us as a Nation: Donald Trump's record
of weaponizing the government and his promises to double down
should he return to power.
Given my family history, I would be remiss if I did not
speak up before you today about the ominous historical echoes
of statement like this.
[Video shown.]
Mr. Eisen. Vermin. The former President has raised the
prospect that his Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff should be
executed for his efforts to mitigate U.S.-China tensions. He
has promised that if he wins the presidency, media outlets that
featured negative coverage of him will be thoroughly
scrutinized.
He has issued a blanket threat to his opponents: If you go
after me, I am coming after you. The former President has even
admitted he will be a dictator if he returns to the presidency.
He says it will only be on day one. History, alas, teaches us
that dictatorial powers, once assumed, are rarely relinquished.
What Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who Trump admires, has
done in Hungary is probably the right comparison to what might
happen here in a second term, not the most chilling examples
from earlier in the 20th century. Why? Because America was
founded on the principle of preventing the weaponization of
government against the American people.
That is central to our constitution and its protections,
including the First Amendment. Whatever we may disagree about
today, I know that everyone in this room does agree on the
central importance of the protection that the First Amendment
provides.
We do no favors to the First Amendment when we cry wolf
when none is at the door. It is no violation of the First
Amendment for government officials to inform social media
companies of posts that put the American people or our
democracy in harm's way.
For that reason, in Missouri v. Biden, the Supreme Court
was correct to stay the injunction of such contacts while it
considers the question of their constitutionality.
With respect to government engaging with AI companies, it
is consistent with the First Amendment for the government to
make its views about safety or other concerns known to AI
providers, or to utilize AI as it does a vast array of other
technologies, or to support scientific or scholarly research on
AI.
AI can be used wisely or wrongly, lawfully or not, like any
other technology. The same technology that was used to deliver
my mother and her family to Auschwitz also enabled my father to
escape from Warsaw and to report for duty in the U.S. Army.
Trains are not inherently suspicious. Neither is AI.
I look forward to discussing all of this today, including
my scholarship on AI and democracy, which I have submitted for
the record. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of the Hon. Eisen follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chair Jordan. Thank you, Ambassador.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from--we will now
proceed to five-minute questioning. The Chair now recognizes
the gentleman from Kentucky for five minutes.
Mr. Massie. When my constituents complain about their
taxes, I tell them to be thankful you don't get all the
government you pay for. Unfortunately, with AI, it looks like
you are going to get more government that you paid for because
of the scale that is--at which we are able to deploy this
bureaucracy of censorship.
A former Congressman lamented that there were, with the
dwindling number of farmers and the growing size of the USDA,
that there would eventually be one farmer per bureaucrat. In
fact, he said he was walking through the USDA down the street
and saw somebody crying in his cubicle and said now why are you
crying. He said my farmer died.
Now, it used to be the case that if you were going to be
subjected to government, that it had to be a person who had to
do it to you. At least there could be a fair fight. What
disturbs me the most here is that this is at scale you could
have one bureaucrat who is censoring millions of people at
once.
Mr. Lukianoff, did you see the White House Executive Order
on artificial intelligence, the statement that was put out? I
found that to be chilling because basically they are trying to
ban AI. I like to say if AI is banned, only the criminals will
have AI. The criminals in fact will be inside of the
government.
Can you tell us about that Executive Order or statement?
Microphone, please.
Mr. Lukianoff. There were aspects of the Executive Order
that I thought were good. Overall, I am concerned about it
opening the door to--it takes for granted, for example, that
hate speech should be something that is regulated.
I have been working on campuses now for, my organization
has been working on campuses for 25 years. I have been there
for 23 of them. I think you would be shocked to discover how
tame, moderate speech actually will get labeled under, as hate
speech.
So, I think that all the lessons we have learned from
higher education and about how vague and broad terms can
actually end up stifling ordinary speech and opinion should be
something we learn in the context of AI. We seem very hesitant
to actually learn those lessons.
Mr. Massie. The thing that troubled me is they are
literally trying to ban math and powerful computers. They are
the ones who want to have them.
Speaking of hate speech, unfortunately this project was
funded at my alma mater, MIT, where they decided they needed a
proactive suite of human technologies because that reactive
content moderation wasn't quick enough. That is Orwellian.
Basically, you are trying to predict--to them, to these
researchers, the most efficient content moderation would be
your keyboard refusing to allow you to type it in, would it
not, Mr. Fang?
Mr. Fang. No, that is right. One of the firms I just
discussed logically has discussed a proposal to automatically
counter hate speech or misinformation with AI to kind of engage
bots to algorithmically argue on the internet on behalf of the
government or whoever else employs them. That just opens the
door to all types of abuse.
Mr. Massie. The people they propose to argue with, they say
who need to be reeducated are military veterans, older adults,
minorities' role, and indigenous communities, is that correct?
Mr. Fang. Look, there is a broad scope here. We don't even
know all the clients for some of these firms. So, they have got
these partnerships with TikTok or Facebook to counter
misinformation. Sometimes they work for the government and
other times they are working for corporations on brand
reputation.
So, who is holding the fact-checkers accountable?
Mr. Massie. Ms. Richardson, when you reported on this Track
F funding of censorship, what happened? Did they think this is
ironic that they turned and tried to control the narrative
against them.
I suppose if they think they are doing something righteous
by controlling the debate, then it would be righteous for them
to try to defend themselves, and with the tools that they have.
You want to speak about that? Oh, microphone, please.
Ms. Richardson. Yes, so based off the emails that this
Committee obtained, after I had sent a couple very basic
questions, reaching out about what exactly these grants were,
what exactly these programs entail, it seems that they created
a media strategy to deflect questions and cast this in, or some
of the messaging said they would call it as pro-democracy.
So, it is ironic, and I wonder if they see the irony.
Mr. Massie. I certainly see the irony; it is deafening that
they are going to turn these tools on you. They are going to
try to shut down, to protect free speech, their definition of
it allowed speech, they are going to shut down your speech. I
find it quite ridiculous.
Well, I think at the end of the day what we are going to
have to do is quit funding this. Track F is the name of a grant
program that we funded. It has probably been going on for a
long time. So, thank you for bringing our attention to this.
I yield back.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now
recognizes the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Connolly.
Mr. Connolly. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
One has a sense that all this exercise is about projection.
The definition of projection is when an individual or
individuals unconsciously or consciously project their
thoughts, feelings, or behaviors onto someone else.
When we talk about weaponization, like Ambassador Eisen
said, ``we are concerned.'' My friends on the other side of the
aisle want to persuade the public that the weaponization to
worry about is the one that doesn't exist. Hopefully, you will
not pay attention to the real threat Ambassador Eisen and
others have, in fact, described.
There is a monstrous effort going on as we speak to
structure a second term for Donald J. Trump. Those proposals,
inter alia, include replacing up to 50,000 Federal employees
with Trump loyalists, bypassing the civil service protection,
and essentially gutting the Pendleton Act of 1883.
Invocation of the Insurrection Act on day one to quash
public protest against him, a suppression of speech three of
the four witnesses today apparently isn't concerned about.
Quoting the former President Trump himself here,
The termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even
those found in the Constitution.
Ambassador Eisen, let's go through a speed round, if we
can. If you can, tell me who said this.
The American people deserve to know that President Trump has
asked me to put him over my oath to the Constitution. Anyone
who puts himself over the Constitution should never be
President of the United States.
Who said that?
Mr. Eisen. Vice President Mike Pence.
Mr. Connolly. His party?
Mr. Eisen. His party is the Republican Party.
Mr. Connolly. Thank you. Here is another one--very good.
I think he's unfit for office. He puts himself before country.
His actions are all about him and not about the country.
Who said that? OK.
Mr. Eisen. Hold on, hold on, Mr. Connolly.
Mr. Connolly. Hurry up.
Mr. Eisen. Chair--Trump's Defense Secretary, Mr. Esper.
Mr. Connolly. Excellent. You are good, you are good.
Republican appointee, former Trump Secretary of Defense.
All right, this one.
A person that has nothing but contempt for our democratic
institutions, our Constitution, and the rule of law. There's
nothing more that could be said. God help us.
Who said that?
Mr. Eisen. That one is the former Chief of Staff, Kelly,
Mr. Kelly.
Mr. Connolly. You are--and, also, a Republican appointee?
Mr. Eisen. Trump--
Mr. Connolly. To the Republican President.
Mr. Eisen. A Republican appointee. I don't know if he
himself is a Republican. He is a long-term military person.
Mr. Connolly. Excellent. So far, you are batting 100.
If he were elected to a second term, this time, he might do
damage that would be irreparable. This is a very dangerous
period we are about to enter into here.
Mr. Eisen. That one I know. He and I have had some
differences over the years. We tried to get him to come testify
in the impeachment, and we were unsuccessful. That is Bolton,
Ambassador Bolton, my fellow Ambassador.
Mr. Connolly. So why do you think, Ambassador, given all
those--yes, I am sorry, 100 percent, 100 percent. You get a
perfect score. Very good.
Why do you think the majority here on this Committee and
other Committees want to kind of ignore those warnings from
prominent Republicans, not squishy Republicans, not even sort
of pseudo-Democrats, about what could happen in a second term
in terms of weaponization?
Mr. Eisen. Mr. Connolly, I had the honor of working with
those on both sides of the dais. We haven't always agreed on
the issues. Privately, we have had conversations where we agree
and disagree.
It would be my preference if, in addition, to the important
questions that we have heard today--and I have my points of
agreement and disagreement with the others who the majority has
invited. Mr. Lukianoff and I were talking before the hearing
about our shared orientation on regulation of AI.
I would prefer, I won't guess or impugn motives. I would
prefer, and I would urge publicly or privately, if we could
work together at least on the Insurrection Act.
Mr. Connolly. Well, if I can interrupt you. We won't
question motives, but we certainly will question the agenda.
That is why I began with the definition of the word
``projection.''
I yield back.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman yields back. The gentleman from
Florida is recognized for five minutes. Excuse me, the
gentleman from Kentucky has a UC request.
Mr. Massie. Mr. Chair, I have a UC request. I ask unanimous
consent to submit for the record October 30, 2023, Executive
Order from Joe Biden titled, ``Executive Order on the Safe,
Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial
Intelligence,'' where he says AI reflects the principles of the
people who build it and then tries to reserve it for the
government.
Chair Jordan. Without objection.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Florida.
Mr. Gaetz. So, Ms. Richardson, as I understand the National
Science Foundation, they take government money and then they
dole it out in the form of grants to colleges and universities
that then build censorship tools that Big Tech then relies on
so that Big Tech has an arm's length away from the censorship
that is shaping viewpoint.
Is that essentially what your reported concludes?
Ms. Richardson. Essentially this Track F program, which was
through the Convergence Accelerator Program, awarded the
$750,000 grants to 12 initial projects. Then, six of these
continued on to have an additional $5 million in funding.
Most of these are at universities. Some of them are private
companies as well developing these tools. They are all--
Mr. Gaetz. Yes, and we are going to--and Mr. Eisen, I guess
my question to you if you are done texting--would be like is
that OK with you, what NSF has done?
Mr. Eisen. As a veteran of the Committee staff, I should
know better.
Mr. Gaetz, I have not had the opportunity to study the
report--
Mr. Gaetz. OK, well, let me go through some of the grant
requests then.
Mr. Eisen. Might I finish my sentence, please, Mr. Gaetz?
If I can just finish the sentence.
Mr. Gaetz. No, you were finishing your text earlier, I am
going to finish the question. MIT says that rural communities
are--
Mr. Eisen. Mr. Gaetz, just for the record, I was asking for
the law that governs that.
Mr. Gaetz. I would ask my time to be restored.
Mr. Eisen, the question is the MIT grant that said that,
``people in rural communities were particularly susceptible to
misinformation,'' do you have an opinion on that?
Mr. Eisen. I do have an opinion, Mr. Gaetz. As you know,
there are two texts that are holy to me, because Mr. Gaetz and
I have talked before. One is our Torah, our bible, that I live
by. I am an observant person. That is a holy text to me, and I
have the deepest respect. I have traveled to those places--
Mr. Gaetz. I guess, the problem, Mr. Eisen--
Mr. Eisen. Can I please finish my answers? The other text
that is holy to me is the Constitution. In my quick review of
this report--those are my two holy texts. I share that with the
Chair and others on this, I know that.
In my quick review of the report, it appeared to me that a
great deal of the evidence related to legitimate sponsorship of
scientific and technological research--
Mr. Gaetz. OK, well, let me stop you there, Mr. Eisen,
because here is the problem. While you indicate that the Torah
and the Constitution are your sacred texts, if Americans
indicate online that the Bible and the Constitution are sacred
to them, the very grants that are being issued by the NSF would
deem those people in a separate and diminished class.
Mr. Eisen. No, sir.
Mr. Gaetz. Where they would be--oh, it indeed--it is
precisely in the MIT--
Mr. Eisen. I have the materials here, no, sir.
Mr. Gaetz. Objection.
Mr. Eisen. I would request that the Committee release the
testimony of Kate Starbird, the University of Washington
scientist, the former WNBA player.
Mr. Gaetz. That wasn't this grant, you are talking about a
different grant, Mr. Eisen.
Mr. Eisen. She explained--
Mr. Gaetz. MIT said that, ``if you are rural, that is you
are part of a military family, if you view the Bible and the
Constitution as sacred then . . . ''--and you know why they
said, ``you are uniquely susceptible to misinformation''?
Because if you think the Bible and the Constitution are
sacred, you might not rely on the expect class, right? You
might not rely on all the folks in D.C. and at all the think
tanks. That is really what people have to rely on.
So, when we are taking government money to go and try to
harm people who have a particular religious view or a
particular view on the Constitution, I would think that in that
type of a circumstance, we aren't crying wolf when there is
none at the door.
Mr. Eisen. Mr. Gaetz, if we can talk about that material in
context, if we can have the full context of the Committee's
investigation. The Ranking Member has said, ``there are 29
depositions that this Committee has taken.''
Mr. Gaetz. OK, but Mr. Eisen, this isn't about any of
those. This is about when MIT wanted the grant that Ms.
Richardson was just talking about, right, they went and made a
presentation to NSF.
They said here is why you ought to pick MIT to do it. It
was to target military families, people in rural communities,
people who believed in the Bible and the Constitution.
Then guess what? With these AI tools, if you stack that up,
maybe you are a person in a rural community who loves both the
Bible and the Constitution. Well, then you are really
susceptible to misinformation because the expert class thinks
better.
Mr. Eisen. No, sir, if you look at the full documents and
the full record--
Mr. Gaetz. Have you seen the movie Minority Report? Have
you seen the movie Minority Report, Tom Cruise?
Mr. Eisen. Yes, I have seen that film.
Mr. Gaetz. Doesn't this kind of feel like that, that you
are trying to do--that it is coming to life before our very
eyes?
Mr. Eisen. May I answer?
Mr. Gaetz. Because you have got the government funding
these predictive analytics to go after Americans. Here is what
I think is actually true. It is not that military families and
rural Americans and people who love the Bible, and the
Constitution are dumber or uniquely susceptible to anything.
It is just they don't think like how the expert class and
the National Science Foundation wants them to think, and so
they are trying to program what they see so they can control
what they believe. That is the true weaponization this
Committee will stand against.
I yield back.
Chair Jordan. Well done, well done. The gentleman yields
back.
The gentlelady from Florida is recognized.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I think it has been well-established through several,
nearly all these Committee hearings that this Subcommittee was
built on a bogus foundation that the Federal Government was
weaponized to take down and silence conservatives.
Seven hearings later, we have yet to see any real evidence
of that, including this one. Meanwhile, our MAGA loyalist
colleagues shamelessly ignore Donald Trump's ample record and
mounting threats to turn our Executive Branch into his personal
vendetta buzzsaw.
We could easily look at his past abuses, say to hurt the
owner of the Washington Post, or his vast attempts to overturn
a free and fair election, one that he soundly lost.
Better yet, we could look at his unfolding 2024 enemies
list, where prime targets are sure to be doctors who provide
abortion services and half of our population in America,
America's women.
Ambassador Eisen, it is good to see you. Thank you for
being here. Donald Trump brags about how he ``was able to kill
Roe v. Wade,'' as you can see here. What would a second Trump
presidency mean for American women who need lifesaving abortion
care?
Mr. Eisen. Congresswoman, nice to see you also. Thank you
for inviting me.
The meaning of a second Trump term, as in so many other
issues across the board, would be devastating, potentially
devastating for women and for all those who are affected when
women require lifesaving abortion care.
The decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in the Dobbs case
represents a betrayal of the principle of stare decisis, the
principle of settled law, to impose an agenda that is dangerous
and threatening.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you, thank you. As you are
leading to, Donald Trump led the charge to overturn 50 years of
established law, decimating women's basic healthcare rights in
the process. It is no surprise, really. This is a man who
bragged about grabbing women's genitals and stands accused of
sexual misconduct by dozens of them. Was actually held liable
for sexual assault.
Trump's lack of respect for women is well-documented, but
as the MAGA leader, his animus emboldens extremists at every
level to target women's reproductive healthcare. Interstate
travel, social media messages, even the Federal process used to
approve medicine have been weaponized to target women. Texas
has gone so far as to deputize the public as a weapon to
restrict women's access to reproductive care.
Ambassador Eisen, in your opinion, do you expect Trump to
push for a national abortion ban outlawing abortion in all 50
States, briefly, if he were to win a second term?
Mr. Eisen. Congresswoman, as you know, one of Donald
Trump's proudest accomplishments was that he was able to kill
Roe v. Wade.
Looking at his supporters and the fervent sentiment for a
50-State abortion ban, and with the door that has been opened
by the Dobbs decision, the removal of those Federal protections
for women, but for all those affected, the families, the
communities, I fear that Donald Trump would seek to break new
ground.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. If you don't mind, I want to drill
down a little bit.
Mr. Eisen. Please.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Can you detail how you think Trump
could weaponize the Department of Justice, or even the FDA, to
further restrict women's right to access abortion healthcare?
Mr. Eisen. He could order the Department of Justice to
appear across the country to defend the increasingly draconian
laws that are being put on the books to prosecute those who are
involved, even when it jeopardizes the life of the mother.
At the FDA, he could take additional restrictions,
depending on how the mifepristone case comes out. Take
additional restrictions on medication and on health
technologies.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you.
Mr. Eisen. Jeopardizing women's lives.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. The White House should never be
turned into a workshop to grind personal and political
grievances. Trump did that during his last term and promises to
do it again.
Mr. Chair, I always thought his Subcommittee was a MAGA
sham, but after what we have heard today, this Subcommittee may
need to be retained, if Donald Trump wins the 2024 election,
and redirected toward actual weaponization of the Federal
Government.
Make no mistake, Trump will ramp up his efforts to
weaponize the Federal Government against women. President
Biden, on the other hand, continues to stand with women across
the country and protect them against further erosion of our
basic healthcare rights.
So, maybe we will see you back in the Subcommittee again
next Congress, Mr. Chair. I hope not, and I yield back.
Chair Jordan. The gentlelady yields back. The Chair now
recognizes the gentleman from North Dakota, Mr. Armstrong.
Mr. Armstrong. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
We talked a little bit earlier about making sure that it is
arm's length. It is not always arm's length.
The $5.75 million in taxpayer funds to the software company
that proactively told the National Science Foundation that it
intended to leverage relationships with social media companies
to identify and limit acceptability to misinformation; $5
million in taxpayer funds to identify, task, and correct real
world instances of dangerous misinformation; and $750,000
taxpayer funds to MIT researchers studying whether certain
groups are more vulnerable to misinformation campaigns.
These researchers believe that conservatives, minorities,
and veterans were uniquely incapable of assessing the veracity
of content online. The MIT project proposal stated that the
need for a proactive suite of human technologies because broad
swaths of the public cannot effectively sort truth from fiction
online. The aura of superiority, elitism and absolute arrogance
should be shocking. Unfortunately, it is entirely predictable.
The Federal Government is suppressing the speech of its
citizens by coordinating with researchers and pressing social
media firms. The delusionary attempt to define and control
misinformation and disinformation, terms that this Committee
learned encompassed true information, which is where we heard
the dystopian phrase ``malinformation.''
The Biden Administration would have you believe that even
though information is true, it can be suppressed because it
lacks context or was inconvenient to a preferred narrative.
True information can be suppressed or is simply wasteful
spending of taxpayer dollars.
Artificial intelligence has the potential to supercharge
the Government's censorship and suppression of speech. We know
that AI will have the computing power to sort and analyze data
on a massive scale, which has been the main obstacle to content
moderation on large platforms.
Less often discussed is the speed at which AI will process
data and automatically censor speech, even to the point where
censorship will be completely automated, certain topics will be
barred from being posted as opposed to being taken down.
Ms. Richardson, your testimony describes how the National
Science Foundation approved $324,000 for a course to teach
college students about disinformation detection and analytics.
This course was to prepare students for disinformation jobs.
Can you further describe this disinformation course, the
dangers it holds for free speech, and the Federal Government's
funding?
Ms. Richardson. Yes.
So, this course is a summer camp hosted for students to
prepare them for jobs in the disinformation industry which, as
these grants that the National Science Foundation is funding,
show is a growing industry. Preparing students to work in it is
just another way that the Government is continuing to expand
it.
Mr. Armstrong. Restrictions on this type of speech require
that the Government have a compelling interest and restrict the
speech in the least restrictive means. Funding these
disinformation projects is clearly an attempt by the
Administration to indirectly censor disfavored topics, which
will avoid legal challenge and strict scrutiny review.
Do you believe that the indirect funding of such censorship
is any less harmful to the First Amendment, the right to free
speech?
Ms. Richardson. I think that indirectly funding censorship
tools is equally as harmful, especially as you describe many of
these tools are targeting specific topics. Some of them talk
about vaccine hesitancy, electoral skepticism. That is in their
grant description as the kind of speech that they are
targeting.
So, I think it is quite concerning.
Mr. Armstrong. Mr. Lukianoff, I have got a minute left. I
appreciate the work FIRE does. We talked, obviously there has
been a lot talked about universities and these different
issues.
I had the opportunity to work with your organization when I
was in the North Dakota State Senate because one of the reasons
I think this is so dangerous on the front end, and
turbocharging the ability to do this, particularly on college
campuses, is the lack of due process that exists for students
and how, how students actually have the ability to appeal,
whether it is a conviction, whether it is a censorship, whether
it is everything, and how that can directly impact the rest of
their lives.
What is your No. 1 concern with AI as it relates to college
campuses and censorship?
Mr. Lukianoff. As it relates, my No. 1 concern with AI--and
I do wish this could be taken more seriously by people on my
political side of the fence, both Lee and I are more left
wing--is the inherent bias that we are already baking into it.
That is one of the things that scares me the most.
Just to give a comical example, we asked ChatGPT to write a
poem about why Representative Jim Jordan is the best politician
in the country. It refused to do that.
We ran this for every single Member of the Committee, and
it refused to do this only for Republicans. It refused to do it
for Dan Bishop. Sorry, Congressman. It only would write a
generic one for Matt Gaetz or Harriet Hagerman.
Now, this is a comical example of how this bias of my side
of the political fence is actually being baked into the
technology that is going to be the operating system for how we
make any number of decisions going forward.
Mr. Armstrong. It never, ever goes away?
Mr. Lukianoff. It never goes away.
Mr. Armstrong. Thank you. I yield back.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman yields back.
Mr. Massie. Mr. Chair.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman from Kentucky is recognized.
Mr. Massie. Yes. I have a unanimous consent request.
I have got a bill that I am going to introduce that would
prohibit the funding for disinformation research grants, secure
and trustworthy cyberspace grants, and prohibit funding at the
NSF for Track F.
I would like to, with unanimous consent, introduce that for
the record.
Chair Jordan. Thank you. Without objection.
Mr. Lynch. Objection. Objection.
Can we read that? Can we just take a peek at that before we
enter it for the record?
Mr. Massie. It is one page long. I will give it to you.
Mr. Lynch. OK. All right.
Chair Jordan. Without objection that will be entered.
Mr. Lynch. Thank you, Mr. Massie. I appreciate that.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman from Massachusetts is
recognized for five minutes.
Mr. Lynch. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I would rather be working on some other issues that are
really urgent. We are in the midst of two global conflicts. We
have got a land war in Europe, and Ukraine is running out of
resources to fight for its own freedom.
We have got a situation in Gaza that deserves our full
attention.
We have got a situation on the Mexican border that has
humanitarian aspects to it, but also national security
implications as well.
This week the U.S. Senate is scheduled to vote on a
bipartisan national security agreement that seeks to address
all those priorities. Though it is not perfect, it is an
agreement that was carefully negotiated by a group of
Republicans, Democrats, and one Independent Senator over the
past several months.
So, I would really like to be voting on those bills. I
really, really think that it is Congress' responsibility to
address those concerns, Gaza, Ukraine, and the U.S. border,
Mexico border. I would welcome the opportunity to vote on those
and support those bills because I think those really have an
immediate impact, an urgency that this hearing does not.
It is ironic that last week in the U.S. Senate my
Republican colleagues argued that there should be greater
restrictions on social media platforms, and greater
restrictions. Here we keep going on about not--well, too much
restrictions are already in place and there should be greater
freedom.
Ambassador Eisen, so, we did hear recently in the D.C.
Circuit Court where President Trump's team argued that he
should have immunity in a case where he ordered the U.S.
military to assassinate his political opponent. They actually
argued that case in open court.
It was stunning. When we are here sitting and talking about
the weaponization of the Federal Government, does that scenario
in which the sitting United States President orders, in that
case they said SEAL Team Six, but the U.S. military to
executive his political opponent, they said he has that right
and he would be immune from prosecution unless he were first
impeached.
Could you speak to that in terms of the weaponization
aspect that we are supposed to be concerned about on this
Committee?
Mr. Eisen. Thank you, Mr. Lynch.
Just this morning as we were gaveling the hearing in, the
D.C. Circuit, in a bipartisan and unanimous opinion, including
Judge Henderson, a Bush appointee, rejected the absurd notion
of Government weaponization represented by the idea--and I know
my friends on both sides of the dais reject this--the absurd
idea that an American President could order SEAL Team Six to
assassinate a political opponent and be immunized from the rule
of law.
It is another thing that we all agree on here today, like
the importance of the First Amendment.
The D.C. Circuit held. Thank goodness, as a former
Ambassador, thank goodness for our standing around the world,
because that is the kind of thing that those dictators that the
President, former President, has voiced admiration for, Xi,
Putin, that is the kind of thing they do, the North Korean
dictator, not American presidents. The unanimous opinion said
that no, of course a President cannot do that.
That will put back on track, I believe, will put back on
track an important rule of law, perhaps the most important rule
of law and democracy case that our Nation has ever seen, and
that is for the attempted weaponization, the genuine attempted
weaponization of the U.S. Government, including the Department
of Justice and of State governments, by the former President
after he lost the 2020 election to retain power.
Think of that. That is not America.
Mr. Lynch. Thank you. Thank you, Ambassador.
Mr. Chair, in closing, I just want to offer a unanimous
consent to enter into the record the decision of the United
States Court of Appeals today, from this morning, in the case
of United States of America v. Donald J. Trump that was before
the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.
Chair Jordan. Without objection.
Ms. Plaskett. Mr. Chair, I would like to introduce into the
record, I know one of the witnesses said he had difficulty
putting something together for you. I am so glad that the staff
was able to, actually using ChatGPT, because you have a poem
written about you.
Chair Jordan. I look forward to reading it.
Ms. Plaskett. ``In the halls of Congress''--if I could just
read--``where debates ignite.'' I would just love--
Chair Jordan. No, no, no. You can introduce it into the
record, but--
Ms. Plaskett. It even talks about the Heartland of Ohio.
Chair Jordan. Without objection it will be entered into the
record.
Ms. Plaskett. Thank you.
Chair Jordan. Thank you for saving it.
Ms. Plaskett. You are welcome.
Chair Jordan. I am sure there will be many poems coming
from the Democrats about me in the near future.
Ms. Plaskett. It is very uplifting.
Chair Jordan. Well, that is, that is wonderful. I would
expect nothing less.
Ms. Plaskett. Thank you. Neither I.
Chair Jordan. The Chair now recognizes himself.
Mr. Fang, what happened in the last decade? In your
testimony you said, you draw attention to a hearing 12 years
ago. The Department of Homeland Security, it was a hearing on
the Department of Homeland Security had retained a defense
contractor to conduct round-the-clock monitoring of social
media. You said there was bipartisan opposition to that.
What has happened in the last decade that we do not--
because here is the difference, here is the big difference. The
same agency, the Department of Homeland Security last year
tried to set up a disinformation governance forum, some
Committee which is going to tell us what we are allowed to say
and what we are not allowed to say. The only side objecting to
that was the Republicans.
So, I am like you, I want to know what has happened in the
last 12 years?
Mr. Fang. A lot has changed. It wasn't that long ago that
the Democratic Party stood up very strongly against the
Department of Homeland Security and criticized it as a
politicized agency.
Chair Jordan. By the way, Mr. Fang, you are not a
Republican; is that right?
Mr. Fang. No. I am an Independent.
Chair Jordan. OK. Keep going.
Mr. Fang. Not that long ago Democrats directly and
forcefully criticized the Department of Homeland Security as an
agency run amok that could interfere in our elections to help
Republicans. This is an agency that has grown by billions of
dollars since 9/11, that was originally set up to fight Islamic
radicalization to prevent another terrorist attack, that now
polices Tweets, that now polices comments on Facebook and
Instagram, and that now in a biased way censors regular
American legitimate speech on political issues.
Chair Jordan. The Ranking Member said in her opening
statement that, ``there is no evidence of censorship.'' Is that
an accurate statement?
Is there any evidence, is there no evidence of censorship,
Mr. Fang?
Mr. Fang. I just on my Substack yesterday showed a The New
York Times reporter, based on false information, being
censored, and being shadow banned.
Chair Jordan. Yes. You cover the Twitter files. The
Government pressured Twitter to take down certain Tweets by
American citizens. Facebook got pressured from the White House
to do the same. YouTube got pressured from the White House to
do the same. They all worked together on this project, this
Election Integrity Partnership, to do the same. On and on it
goes.
They said, oh, we have had six hearings on censorship. I
kind of think, Mr. Lukianoff, the First Amendment's probably
worth doing six hearings. I would say 60 hearings maybe better,
maybe 600.
We are talking about the First Amendment.
Mr. Lukianoff. Yes.
Chair Jordan. Would you agree?
Mr. Lukianoff. Well, Congresswoman Wasserman-Schultz hit
the nail on the head. I just kind of wish we could think about
this from a trans-partisan point of view. They will immediately
get this when it is a Republican Administration trying to do
the same thing. We have presented a great deal of evidence that
this is actually happening, that it is being encouraged by the
Government in many cases.
The story that came out this morning, the idea of, say,
Donald Trump decides to actually try to get a book removed from
Amazon. If it was a book that people on my side of the fence,
on the left, liked, we would freak out, and rightfully so. At
the same time, it seems like there is nothing we can actually
do to get our own side of the political fence concerned about
the idea of collusion between some of the most powerful people
in Silicon Valley and the country and this--
Chair Jordan. The censorship mob will come for them, too.
Right?
Right now, it is focused on the Fifth Circuit said this,
the court said, ``it is focused primarily on conservatives,
primarily on people on the political right.'' It will come for
the left, too.
Mr. Lukianoff. Oh, yes. It already does.
Chair Jordan. It already does.
Mr. Lukianoff. I defend people on the left on campus all
the time. It is very strange to try to get people to be
concerned when people they agree with are losing their jobs.
My latest book, ``The Canceling of the American Mind,'' is
filled with examples just from the past couple years of
professors on the left losing their job.
Chair Jordan. This is the reason I have invited more
Democrats to the hearing, Democrats like you guys, or
independents like you guys who actually embrace the First
Amendment. This is what we spent the entire--they rightly point
out, we spent the entire first year of this Congress primarily
in this Subcommittee focused on what is happening to the First
Amendment?
Because I say this all the time, if you can't speak, you
can't talk, you can't practice your faith, you can't share your
faith, you can't petition your government, and you don't have a
free press. That is, the ability to speak is fundamental to how
we do things in this great country. If we lose that, oh my
goodness.
You said something earlier that stuck with me. You said,
``we are losing even the ability to ask questions.'' Not just
State it, you can't even question.
Go back to COVID. You couldn't even say, I wonder if this
thing came from a lab? If you just raised the question, you got
censored. Down the line it went.
We learned just a week ago, a couple weeks ago, that Dr.
Fauci, when he was asked where did the six-foot social
distancing come from, do you know what he said? I just sort of
made it up. I am not sure where it came from.
Think of the impact that had.
If you questioned that, if you just asked the question why
do we have it? Half the time the stuff they tell us is just
false. You can't even question that, for goodness' sake.
So, that is why it is important we have these hearings.
Folks like you who aren't on the same political aisle as us are
willing to come forward, and we appreciate it.
I will give you a chance to respond in the last 10 seconds.
Mr. Lukianoff. When I was talking about literally, I was
talking about literally questioning as well. One of the things
that we did with ChatGPT was run the questions that we asked
students about whether or not someone should be allowed to
speak on a particular campus. We were told one of the questions
by ChatGPT was an inappropriate question to ask ChatGPT.
Chair Jordan. Yes. Again, highlighting the danger of when
this goes to scale and happens in real-time with artificial
intelligence, that is the frightening part. That is why we have
got to get this right.
Mr. Lukianoff. It treats us like children, not citizens.
Chair Jordan. Well said. Well said.
With that, I recognize the gentleman from California.
Mr. Garamendi. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for setting
up my question.
You are quite correct; the Government does have awesome
power. It tends to be used in an inappropriate way.
We have already heard today the direct quotes of the former
President and wannabe President, Mr. Trump, that he would use
the Government to suppress speech which, presumably, is what
you are arguing for, free speech. He said very clearly that he
would do so.
In fact, he is reportedly planning to use the Insurrection
Act, a law that gives the President nearly unchecked power to
use the military as a domestic police force, to target those
who publicly protest against him, presumably using their free
speech rights under the Constitution.
Much of this seems to be coming from an organization here
in Washington, a think tank that has put together a program
called Project 1925, or 2025, which essentially would use
Executive Orders that would deploy the military domestically,
using the Insurrection Act.
Ambassador Eisen, a while ago you wanted to talk about the
Insurrection Act and how it might be used by the former and
wannabe President once again. Could you speak about that and
the trouble that the Insurrection Act could bring to free
speech here in America?
Mr. Eisen. Thanks, Mr. Garamendi.
The Insurrection Act, as Members on both sides of the aisle
know, was enacted in 1792, and grants the President the
authority to deploy the U.S. military domestically and use it
against Americans under certain conditions. It is the primary
exception to the Posse Comitatus Act under which Federal
military forces are generally banned from participating because
of the danger, because it betrays that core American idea that
we won't use our military against our own people on our own
soil.
Unfortunately, the Insurrection Act does not contain
definitions of key terms like insurrection, rebellion, and
domestic violence.
Put aside the imminent danger of a President formerly in
the White House and seeking to return to the White House who
has made the kind of alarming statements. Irrespective of
party, it should be an absolute imperative to modernize, and
update, and limit utilization of this dangerous statutory tool.
It is particularly urgent, given the threats that the former
President has made.
When you put those threats in context of what people who
say these things have done around the world and, indeed, who
have said these kinds of things, they mean them.
So, I think it is important, urgent. If there is one thing
if I could ask my friends on the other side of the aisle, if
there is just one thing, we could do that we could agree on as
Americans, and it goes fundamentally to conservative principles
about limiting rogue government, and the danger of government,
and the power of executive overreach, please update, limit,
confine, and constrain the Insurrection Act. Bring it back into
a core with fundamental American principles.
Thanks, Mr. Garamendi.
Mr. Garamendi. Much to be said about this entire subject of
free speech, the use of AI.
It seems to me that if I were a consumer product company
and someone were to put forward disinformation on the internet
about my product, would I want to be able to have information
from MIT about how I might respond? I think I probably would.
So, the issue of the scientific use of information so that I
might counter it.
I want to stay with the former President, who clearly has
laid out an agenda to deprive all of us of our constitutional
rights, the Insurrection Act specifically, and more than that.
So, if it's the weaponization of Government that we are
interested in discussing here, we have to be aware of what is
imminent: A Presidential candidate that has put in the public
record, in his own speeches, that he intends to limit our civil
liberties.
I yield back.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman yields back.
The gentleman from California is now recognized for five
minutes.
Mr. Issa. Thank you.
Ambassador, you certainly spoke passionately about limiting
the Insurrection Act. I find that interesting when the people
of your party here have used the word practically nonstop for
the last three years about the actions of people who in a
disorganized but terrible way did something, but they raised it
to the word Insurrection Act.
I would hope that you would denounce that just as much as
an excess. It is not a civil war; it is not troops trying to
secede from the Union.
I want to hit one more thing. Since you, it wasn't the
subject du jour, but you made it part of it today. In your time
as Ambassador during the Obama Administration you probably
wouldn't have been as thrilled when the ACLU said that they
questioned the killing of al-Awlaki in Yemen, a 16-year-old
American citizen born in Denver that President Obama fired a
Predator, using a Predator filled with Hellfire missiles
because he was such a clear and present danger halfway around
the world.
So, I hope that you are just as excited if the ACLU or some
other civil liberties group brings charges for the lack of due
process and the killing of an American, not the attempt to
capture, not the attempt to stop any other way, but killing
them in another country.
I am going to bring up Mr. Lynch, who is a dear friend I
have traveled with, and I appreciate him. He seemed to think
that this hearing wasn't that important and shouldn't be on
this subject but, rather, other subjects. Then he left. I think
he has left. Yes.
So, Mr. Fang, I am going to ask you, you are familiar with
the term, ``Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of
speech''?
Mr. Fang. Yes, sir.
Mr. Issa. Is it fair to say, for both you and Ms.
Richardson, that the expression, if the founding fathers now
were looking at where we are, ``Congress may make no''--they
might write, ``Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom
of speech, and the NSF shall award no grant that abridges
speech''?
Is that a fair extension that the grants, the money to
abridge by the Federal Government is, in fact, an abridging of
speech, not by Congress making a law, but by Congress
appropriating money that then is used to abridge free speech?
Mr. Fang. I believe the potential is there. I think the
Supreme Court has ruled that it is axiomatic that the
Government can't censor by proxy. If there is evidence of that,
that does raise alarm.
Mr. Issa. Well, and actually getting to the question of
money, the awarding of grants for a moment. Congress shall pass
no laws, it has been well established that the Executive Branch
shall not interpret a law in a way that would abridge free
speech also. In other words, it doesn't just bar us from making
laws, it bars the Executive Branch from abridging free speech.
Is that correct?
Mr. Fang. That is right.
Mr. Issa. It even would bar the Article II, the Federal
Court, from abridging free speech. So, this is not a law, even
though it says Congress shall make no laws, it is
constitutionally all three branches; correct?
Mr. Fang. I believe so.
Mr. Issa. OK. So, when Track F was spending money, and all
the other programs you have heard mentioned today, each one of
those by definition when they choose censorship they are, they
are truly using Federal dollars to make decisions about what
speech is heard and not heard?
Mr. Fang. I think the concern is certainly there.
Mr. Issa. Well, now I am hearing the--you are sounding like
the Independent you are. I am hearing the potential. Abridging,
meaning to limit or restrict, do they limit or restrict? Does
any censorship, by definition, limit or in that way?
Mr. Fang. Look, if there is evidence of any of these
contracts, the government contract programs being used to
censor Americans' speech, then of course.
Mr. Issa. Well, clearly, clearly there was.
Ms. Richardson, I am just going to go to you, both of you.
Quickly, the limiting of speech, any time you write an
algorithm or you influence an individual to take down or not
print something, is there any question in your mind that if you
wrote something as a journalist and it didn't show up you would
be, by definition, abridged?
Ms. Richardson. I think the concern here is that these
algorithms are being used to target particular kinds of speech.
Yes, it--
Mr. Issa. I am not worried about kinds; I am worried about
speech, period. I am trying to remember that they may take down
liberal speech someday. They have actually said Mr. Trump would
do that if he got back in.
Mr. Fang, if you wrote an article and it simply disappeared
from the internet, all or part, would you say you were
abridged?
Mr. Fang. Absolutely.
Mr. Issa. OK. I am going to give--because you have been
shaking your head so much, Mr. Lukianoff, would you say that is
the crux of this? Not a question of whether we, as Republicans,
somehow can't be made as good using AI, but more broadly we
have a responsibility to make sure neither the Article I, nor
Article II, nor Article III Branch of Government shall
restrict, or inhibit, or abridge free speech. Is that correct?
Mr. Lukianoff. Agreed.
It is one of the reasons why I have been a little puzzled
about the hostility of the Murthy v. Missouri decision, that
essentially limiting the power of Government to coerce social
media platforms into censoring opinions that the Government
itself cannot censor under the First Amendment should be
something that there should be bipartisan agreement on.
If you are afraid of the next guy abusing that power--and
you should always be--then you should also support the idea
that jawboning is a problem.
Mr. Issa. Thank you.
I yield back.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman yields back.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Texas.
Mr. Allred. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I would like to yield my time to Ms. Plaskett.
Ms. Plaskett. Thank you, Mr. Allred, the gentleman from
Texas. My colleague just said, ``worried about Trump.'' The
Democrats are not worried about Trump taking down speech if
he's reelected.
We're worried about him taking down people if he's
reelected. He's already silenced many of those on that side of
the aisle. So many of the Republicans that I came here to
Congress which are afraid of saying half of what they would
really like to say about President Trump or about a lot of
other issues because he has a base that they feel afraid of,
that they may lose their political positions if they have true
free speech in that party.
So, we're not worried about him taking down people's
speech. At this point, he's been emboldened enough to believe
that he can take people down. That's the real fear. That's why
I have no problem with Ms. Richardson, Mr. Fang, or Mr.
Likianoff--is that--
Mr. Lukianoff. Lukianoff.
Ms. Plaskett. --Lukianoff being here to be witnesses. The
information they're giving is interesting. It's something we
should consider.
There are other issues going on also that we can have a
discussion about in this Committee and you won't. That's what
is incredulous about the fact that we've been doing this six
times, is that you haven't interspersed it with any other
topic. That's the concern.
I wanted to ask the Ambassador about an agency that I have
a tremendous amount of respect for. Of course, I'm a little
biased. I worked at the Department of Justice for a Republican
President as a Republican political appointee.
I work for the in civil division for Robert McCallum who
later became President George W. Bush's Ambassador to
Australia. I worked for Larry Thompson, the Deputy Attorney
General. Worked for James Comey who at the time was the Deputy
Attorney General.
Mr. Trump, President Trump has said he would use the DOJ
and actually attempted to use it as his own personal law firm
when he was President. He tried to bully prosecutors to
prosecute his friends, out of prosecuting his friends and MAGA
loyalists. He pressured the DOJ to target Democrats and
political appointments.
He tried to force senior DOJ leadership to pursue election
fraud cases in the States he lost to Joe Biden. If he gets a
second term, he's made it clear that those disturbing actions
are just the beginning. There are walls between the White House
and DOJ, intentionally built to keep our prosecutor's objective
and our law enforcement system trustworthy.
He wants to tear that wall with his Presidency. Ambassador
Eisen, a recent report claims that Trump intends to appoint a
loyalist to head the DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel who will
write an opinion dramatically expanding Presidential immunity.
Give the Appellate Court's decision today and what we
understand about Presidential immunity, can you explain to the
American public what that would mean to our democracy?
Mr. Eisen. It would mean danger, grave danger, Ms.
Plaskett. The Office of Legal Counsel are lawyer's lawyers.
They are the in-house law firm essentially of the Department of
Justice, of the Federal agencies, and of the Executive Branch.
The opinions that they offer on the law govern what the
Executive Branch does.
I didn't always agree with that when I was in the White
House. I had to deal with them. They ultimately say what the
law is.
If they were to say that a President had the absolute
immunity to order SEAL Team Six to commit an assassination,
today's opinion, as important as it is, a milestone in American
law that the D.C. Circuit has given us. As important as it is,
it only applies to former Presidents. If I may say, that's why
I think the Supreme Court may--we don't know.
They may deny cert. It's a very narrow holding today. That
unfortunately leaves a wide field of battle. I know that my
friends do not want that on either side of the aisle, do not
want that kind of power for the Federal Government, very
dangerous.
Ms. Plaskett. Thank you. I yield back.
Chair Jordan. The gentlelady yields back. The gentleman
from Florida is recognized.
Mr. Steube. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Once again, we are here
today to hear about the Biden Administration's efforts to
censure the speech of American citizens. In a seemingly
unending series of examples from across the Federal Government,
we have seen public servants use taxpayer resources to shut
down certain disfavored viewpoints.
This is fundamentally un-American and violates free speech.
Thanks to the tremendous work done by Ms. Richardson, we know
that the National Science Foundation spent millions of taxpayer
dollars on artificial intelligence research conducted at elite
universities like the University of Michigan, University of
Wisconsin, and MIT. Although AI has the potential to be a
powerful tool, it can also be used for many nefarious purposes
that infringes on liberty of American citizens.
Unfortunately, it seems the recipients of these NSF grants
were doing just that, by developing AI tools to censure
disfavored speech. Effectively, the American people are being
forced to subsidize their own censorship. Researchers at the
University of Michigan were even so brazen to market their
WiseDex technology as a way for social media companies to,
quote, ``externalize the difficult responsibility of
censorship.''
The fact that they believe censorship is a responsibility
is extremely concerning, especially when the government is the
entity funding such censorship. MIT's team of researchers were
even more candid when they stated in a project proposal that
certain segments of the population, including military veterans
and military families, are particularly susceptible to, quote,
``misinformation campaigns.'' Thus, they argue that it is
necessary to have a proactive suite of human technologies to
counteract the supposed misinformation because reactive content
moderation is too slow and ineffective.
In other words, the elites at MIT think that my fellow
veterans and I are too dumb to think for ourselves. These
efforts to use AI to censor the thoughts of American citizens
is truly disturbing. There are a small group of elites who
believe they alone can discern objective truth and alternative
viewpoints they deem misinformation must be suppressed. Now,
they seek to use the powerful tool that is artificial
intelligence to help them censor disfavored opinions and the
American taxpayer is being forced to foot the bill.
Mr. Fang, I'd like to start with you. You've recently
written about NewsGuard which is a company that works closely
with the government and major corporate advertisers by scoring
news websites as a sort of misinformation meter. As you
reported, NewsGuard has received a 749,000-dollar contract from
the DOD. Can you describe some of the free speech concerns that
you've seen regarding NewsGuard?
Mr. Fang. Well, NewsGuard is one of the many kinds of first
in this cottage industry of antimisinformation. They provide
tools to rank websites on their kind of truthiness. They have
their own sliding scale.
The problem here is that they have been caught over and
over again getting the facts wrong. They claim that any website
or news outlet that reported on the COVID lab leak as the
origin of COVID-19 was spreading a conspiracy theory. They've
also gone after left leaning websites that are simply reporting
on the Ukraine-Russia war in a critical way saying that Ukraine
is a client State of the U.S.
Perhaps you disagree with this point of view. This isn't a
conspiracy theory. This is a legitimate area of public debate.
NewsGuard, in particular, is another company that, as you
mentioned, receives military contracts. If they're working for
the military and shaping public opinion and journalism around
issues of foreign policy, for me, that raises inherent
conflicts of interest.
Mr. Steube. I was in the military. It's basically like a
psy-op mission that they're doing using taxpayer dollars to
psy-op American citizens. I'd like to ask unanimous consent to
put into the record Mr. Fang's article, ``In the name of `fake
news,' NewsGuard extorts sites to follow the government
narrative.''
Chair Jordan. Without objection.
Mr. Steube. Ms. Richardson, in the little time I have left,
as I noted in my comments, MIT researchers thought they needed
to protect veterans and military families, among other
populations, from misinformation campaigns. Should we be
concerned that such biases held by the creators of this
powerful technology will especially harm populations like
veterans and military families?
Ms. Richardson. I think that the concern is that the people
who are creating these technologies are letting their biases
influence how they play out and who they are censoring through
these tools. So, yes, I do think whether it's right or left, we
need to understand that these tools can be used to censor
Americans.
Mr. Steube. Mr. Lukianoff, I saw you shaking your head
during some of my comments. In the 38 seconds I have left,
would you like to add to that?
Mr. Lukianoff. Sure. I'd actually want to talk specifically
about the data index, basically, the misinformation index, the
CDI. It listed not only--as far as the riskiest online news
outlets, it listed the New York Post, RealClearPolitics, The
Daily Wire, the Blaze, One America News Network, The
Federalist, NewsMax, The American Spectator, The American
Conservative, and worst of all in my opinion, Reason Magazine,
that even though I know not everyone is a Libertarian. It's
some of the smartest people I know and some of the smartest
reporting I've seen come out of Reason Magazine. This is being
treated as de facto misinformation.
Mr. Steube. All conservative websites. I yield back.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman yields back. Chair now
recognizes the gentlelady from Texas.
Ms. Garcia. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I just want to
remind all of us that everyone's words matter. As Ambassador
Eisen has pointed out, what our leaders say, in particular,
really does matter.
So, when the twice impeached, four times indicted former
President talks about being a dictator, I really don't think
that's a joke. I think he's for real. For four years, Trump
turned the Federal Government into a horrifying weapon for his
own personal gain to serve his racist goals, punish his
enemies, and to attack reality.
Trump weaponized the Federal Government in many ways. Most
horrifically, he put children in cages and he weaponized ICE
and immigration to a point of instituting mass deportations,
sending ICE to round up immigrants at schools and hospitals. He
traumatized those children for a lifetime.
MAGA Republicans across the country are simply just
following suit. They want to please him. They want to see him
be happy.
Greg Abbott, our Governor in my State of Texas seemingly
seems to be auditioning for Mr. Trump to pick him as Vice
President or perhaps a member of his cabinet because Abbott has
erected a razor wire barrier at the Texas-Mexican border as
part of his auditioning. I don't know how familiar folks here
are with razor wire. I've been to Eagle Pass.
I've seen what they've done. They have anchored giant buoys
with table saw blades in the river. When children try to swim
across, they get caught. They panic and some may drown.
If you look at this poster, you can clearly see a child in
agony. You can tell from his face that he's crying. He's
begging. He's kneeling in front of a Texas guard put there by
Governor Abbott to prevent anyone from coming through, even
border patrol to do their job.
Cruelty seems to be his game. I think what Greg Abbott
continues to do is undermining what it is to be human. He's
doing this to children and that's how low we've come.
This is straight out of a dictator's play book. Ambassador
Eisen, when Greg Abbott and Donald Trump talk about the only
thing that they can't do now is shoot immigrants. Or some may
say that they've got what they've got coming to them. What
message is that sent to the public and to the rest of the
world?
Mr. Eisen. Ms. Garcia, the Committee, the Chair, the
Ranking Member have been very generous today in allowing me to
offer my policy analysis thing with my personal history. My
father who I referred to earlier came to this country as an
undocumented migrant when he arrived in 1940 on that last ship,
the last ship to leave Athens, the Port of Athens, for the
United States during World War II. He had a transit visa, and
he stayed and joined the Army and earned his citizenship that
way.
So, as the child of an undocumented migrant, your question
hits me where I live. Of course, we have reasonable compromises
on immigration. We can agree or disagree.
Part of compromise is you never get what you want. That
is--I was talking with Mr. Issa before about Chair Hyde who I
got to know as a younger person. That's the great tradition of
the House Judiciary Committee and of this chamber that we're in
today.
When we attempt to do immigration policy which involves
some of the most vulnerable people on our continent, whenever
we make policy involving those who are at risk, we should do it
with compassion. We talked about the twin guide stars like my
own, the Bible, the Torah, and the Constitution. They teach us
that you shouldn't use the language that Greg Abbott uses.
If there's a less cruel way to protect our border, then
razor wire that tears the flesh of children simply seeking a
better life. In a way, they should find those less painful
physical methods but also the words, the words matter. Above
all, they're following the lead of Donald Trump with his cruel
words, including those we played earlier today.
Ms. Garcia. Should it even be a Governor who's flagrantly
ignoring Supreme Court ruling about the buoy. I mean, is there
a place where we should let every Governor just decide what
they want to do on immigration and on Federal immigration law?
Mr. Eisen. As reprehensible to ignore rulings of the U.S.
Supreme Court for anyone. We are a Nation of laws. Everyone
must abide by those laws, particularly those who are in power
like Governor Abbott. What he has done is reprehensible,
unlawful, an insult to the Constitution, and an insult to the
idea of America.
Ms. Garcia. Thank you.
Chair Jordan. The gentlelady's time has expired.
Ms. Garcia. Mr. Chair, I do have a unanimous consent
request.
Chair Jordan. Go right ahead.
Ms. Garcia. I'd like to introduce for the record two
articles, ``Trump praises Texas Governor as border State
clashes with Biden Administration over immigration,'' and
``Texas Governor ignores Supreme Court rulings, adds more razor
wire to border,'' for the record. Unanimous consent.
Chair Jordan. Without objection.
Ms. Garcia. Thank you.
Chair Jordan. Gentleman from North Carolina is recognized.
Mr. Bishop. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Lukianoff, I want to
go back to what you said. Would you hit me again with the AI
request you said you made, because I felt distinguished by
that.
It was Chair Jordan that wouldn't answer, that wouldn't
write a poem about. You said little old me. So, tell us again
what that was. What did you ask?
Mr. Lukianoff. Thankfully because it's going to be
different when you ask it different times. It has been
consistent in that it was willing to write a poem for all
Democrats. The ones that it singled out when we did this, and
it was writing me a poem about why Representative Jim Jordan is
the best politician in the country.
It wouldn't do it for him. It wouldn't do it for you. It
gave us a generic one for Matt Gaetz and Harriet Hageman.
Now, the way they're going to try to refute this is, I
didn't get it. It's, like, no, we have screenshots of this. I
know that's kind of, like, oh, look, it's inconsistent. No
kidding, it's inconsistent. Guess what. It consistently favors
one side over the other.
Mr. Bishop. I'd really like that screenshot for me.
Mr. Lukianoff. Oh, absolutely.
Mr. Bishop. Look, so did you say, Mr. Lukianoff, that
you're a liberal, that you're on the left?
Mr. Lukianoff. I am.
Mr. Bishop. One of the things interesting about this
process, the weaponization hearings to me, is the number of
witnesses that I've understood at least have some political
origin on the left who've been before this Committee.
Mr. Lukianoff. Yes.
Mr. Bishop. You said you are. Mr. Fang, you said you're an
independent. I don't know if it's correct to say you had
political activity on the left. I sort of thought so.
Mr. Fang. I've worked for some progressive media outlets in
the past.
Mr. Bishop. OK. That's what I'm thinking about. Of course,
you had Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger, both of whom
came from there. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., comes as a witness of
the Committee on the left. There are others. I'd yield to the
Chair if he can name a couple others. I know that there have
been others.
Chair Jordan. Tulsi Gabbard.
Mr. Bishop. Tulsi Gabbard. Thank you, Mr. Chair. You know
what's been very interesting, Mr. Fang, you said at the
beginning of the hearing, you used the example from the
Committee hearing in 2012. You implored the Committee to
approach this serious issue, AI and censorship, in a bipartisan
way. How do you think that's worked out in this hearing?
Mr. Fang. I've watched part of that hearing. I read the
transcript. This was on a much more minor issue. This was just
the DHS contracting to monitor social media, not censor, not
interject, not work with the FBI to pressure social media to
take down posts.
This was arguably a much more benign issue. In that
hearing, you had both sides, Republicans and Democrats, raising
very legitimate privacy concerns, free speech concerns. It
wasn't partisan. It was both sides working together to discuss
these common principles.
Mr. Bishop. Yes, what about this hearing? Has it worked out
bipartisan way as far as you're concerned?
Mr. Fang. Not so much.
Mr. Bishop. Yes, it seemed like to me everybody--ever
person--the memo on the other side of the aisle was to go after
Donald Trump which is fine. Whatever. It implies that there's
nothing to this issue. Isn't that right, Mr. Lukianoff? You've
got machines possibly taking down who trains of thought across
social media from the dialog across the world.
Mr. Lukianoff. Yes.
Mr. Bishop. Implicitly if you're saying, oh, I just want to
talk about Donald Trump. That's suggesting there's nothing to
do. What accounts for that? You guys are leftist.
We have some of the left--not leftist, I'm sorry--but
people on the left who have come as witnesses and some of them
have been trashed. Some of them had demand for their sources
from the other side. They had the FTC chase down one of them,
just crazy stuff. Why is that the case?
Mr. Lukianoff. It's extremely frustrating. In my latest
book, we talk about--this is the perfect rhetorical for it. So,
we take on right and left in the book.
We talk about defeating the Stop WOKE Act in court, for
example. We talk about the simple act of labeling someone as
being on one side or the other means I don't have to listen to
them anymore. So, you'll see. The number of people who are now
accused of being right wing, I call this fascocasting,
declaring someone fascist and suddenly you don't have to listen
to them anymore.
It's a childish tactic. It's become increasingly common to
a point where I'm actually seeing scholars claiming that now
the ACLU and The New York Times are right wing because it
worked with everyone else. Why not scare them out of being
credible if we can just label them something that sounds mean.
Mr. Bishop. It sounds pretty grave danger for society if
that's the way Congress devolves to. Mr. Fang, I'm going to
give you the rest of my time. What we've done with some of
these hearings is also bring out some of the people like
Richard Stengel and Pablo Breuer who've been involved in
various aspects.
The one you bring out, Brian Murphy, former DHS, former FBI
official, writes, the Executive Branch is most well equipped to
intervene against foreign covert speech proliferating in the
homeland. A lot of what happens in the cognitive warfare space
domestically has been transferred over to the social media
companies. You'll hear politicians on all sides saying that
social media companies need to be better policers.
I agree with that. He goes on to say part of the social
contract in a liberal democracy is between the citizens and the
Executive Branch where you give up some of your freedom so you
get security back. That troubles me. Is that something that
people should be troubled by? Who is he?
Mr. Fang. Yes, this is a former Trump official, the former
Intelligence Director of the DHS who created dossiers on
journalists who engaged in inappropriate surveillance of left-
wing activists. The very problem that we've heard discussed at
this Committee, he's now at an antimisinformation AI firm. He's
basically said very openly that the problem with the
Disinformation Governance Board was not violating civil
liberties or free speech.
The problem was that it was too out front. It was too
obvious of a political entity. He said that it should basically
be reconstructed using third parties, that the government
should take the back end and work with journalists, with
nonprofit groups, and with companies like his own to police
misinformation.
Mr. Bishop. Thank you for informing the world.
Chair Jordan. Well done. The gentleman from New York is
recognized.
Mr. Goldman. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Bishop, I'm happy to
write you a poem if you like.
Mr. Bishop. I can't wait.
Mr. Goldman. I want to go back to something you say which
is some memo or whatever that all we want to do is talk about
Donald Trump. The fact of the matter is that this Committee
which may go down as one of the most useless and worthless
Subcommittees ever created by Congress is called the
Weaponization of the Federal Government. The reason we all know
now that this was created and stood up is that the Republicans
are trying to flip the script and to distract from the fact
that the true of weaponization of the Federal Government with
evidence and facts and support was done by Donald Trump and his
administration and will be done by Donald Trump and any future
administration. Now, this also goes back to 2016 and the fact
that Special Counsel Robert Mueller, the unanimous opinion of
the intelligence community, pretty much everyone who looked at
this concluded that Russia used false information on social
media to interfere in our 2016 election.
The problem the Republicans want to rebut and undermine and
distract from is that they did so to help Republican candidate.
So, if you attack the Democrats as the real weaponizers of the
Federal Government, then you get to flip the script and turn it
on the Democrats and say, oh, no, they are, and get to continue
doing and opening up the avenues for additional real
weaponization of the Federal Government. Now, Mr. Lukianoff, do
you think there is a First Amendment right to distribute deep
fakes online?
Mr. Lukianoff. Is there a First Amendment right to
distribute deep fakes online? Of course there is.
Mr. Goldman. OK. Now, do you think that there's a First
Amendment right to distribute deep fakes online with the intent
to interfere in an election?
Mr. Lukianoff. If you add additional steps to it; it can
potentially be criminal. To create them--
Mr. Goldman. I'm not even going to waste our time getting
into this because what you have just highlighted--
Mr. Lukianoff. Yes.
Mr. Goldman. --and agreed to is that this is a very
difficult issue. The balance between the First Amendment and
what is free speech and what is--
Mr. Lukianoff. Respectfully, Congressman--
[Simultaneous speaking.]
Mr. Goldman. Sir, I didn't ask you a question.
Mr. Lukianoff. You said this was a useless hearing.
Mr. Goldman. I didn't ask you a question. Mr. Chair, I'd
like to reclaim my time.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman has the time.
Mr. Goldman. The problem that we are facing in the post-
2016 world where social media is used as a weapon to interfere
in elections from foreign governments is that this is a
difficult thing to navigate. Balancing the First Amendment
which all Democrats support. The First Amendment is not
absolute.
There's obviously some speech that is not protected.
Balancing the interests of free and fair elections is a
complicated situation. What is not complicated is--and by the
way, this has been the theme of this Committee for the whole
year.
I believe the Committee has interviewed more than 30
witnesses. Every single witness behind closed doors has said
that the government has never coerced, pressured, or threatened
any social media company into taking any action. The whole
premise of this theory falls apart.
What we should be focusing on is Chair Jordan abusing the
power of his Committee in the Congress to subpoena State
prosecutors in an effort to undermine their prosecutions of his
revered friend, Donald Trump. That is no place for Congress to
be, no place for the Committee to be. That is a true
weaponization of the Federal Government.
When we start talking about other things that are the real
weaponization of the Federal Government such as Donald Trump's
statements, that he will just indict his political enemies or
that he would use the Insurrection Act to deploy the military
against civil protesters or even that he had argued his
lawyers, one of whom has appeared twice here. He's one of our
favorite witnesses. John Sauer actually said that if Donald
Trump ordered SEAL Team Six to assassinate a political rival,
it could not be a crime unless he was impeached. Somehow, that
is a predicate.
The fact of the matter is the true weaponization, the
threat of weaponization is from Donald Trump and the
Republicans. We ought to move on from this charade. I yield
back.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman yields back. The gentlelady
from Florida is recognized. Gentlelady yield?
Ms. Cammack. Yes, I'd like to yield 15 seconds to the
Chair.
Chair Jordan. Yes, I would just point out the description
of the Committee's work by the Member from New York might carry
a little weight if he wasn't the same guy who in our last
hearing said that social media companies only took action on 35
percent of the demands from the government. So, this is a guy
who thinks 35 percent censorship is OK. Now, he's describing--
[Simultaneous speaking.]
Mr. Goldman. Will the gentleman yield for a question?
Ms. Cammack. No.
Chair Jordan. It's the gentlelady's time. I yield back.
Ms. Cammack. No, I reclaim my time.
Mr. Goldman. It's a mischaracterization of what I said.
Ms. Cammack. So, I find it incredible the alternate reality
that Representative Goldman is living in. He just stated that
there has never been an occasion in which the White House, the
Biden White House has threatened or pressured social media
companies to take down social media posts. I have time stamps.
I have emails.
We come with receipts. I can--February 6, 2021, 9:45 p.m.,
Flaherty, White House official demanding Twitter take down a
parody of Finnegan Biden, Hunter Biden's adult daughter. We
have all the receipts on this.
We can go over this over and over again. It would be a
waste of time. Denying reality as my colleagues on the left
continue to do is a disservice to the American people. I cannot
believe that this is where we are at.
I'm going to jump right into this. We're trying to address
essentially digital authoritarianism. That's what we're
contending with. So, I find it ridiculous that my colleagues on
the left can only and will only talk about Donald Trump as
though this is not a real issue that everyday Americans,
Republicans, Independents, and Democrats are facing. So, Ms.
Richardson, while investigating these NSF grants and the NSF
convergence research, was there any documentation or
communication regarding the philosophical foundation of the
language models being used in the AI tools?
Ms. Richardson. Some of the grant descriptions themselves
talk about areas that they are specifically interested in
seeing--controlling--in discussing misinformation in. These
areas--some of these grants focused on election misinformation.
Some of them focused on vaccine misinformation. So yes.
Ms. Cammack. OK. So, there were philosophical discussions
about the language models themselves, that these particular
grant awardees would be using?
Ms. Richardson. I think that a lot of these grant
descriptions expressed exactly what they were going to be
investigating.
Ms. Cammack. Did they talk about open-source language
models as part of a requirement for this research?
Ms. Richardson. Some of these grants were--they're
analyzing different sets of data. Some of them wanted to do
keyword searches to analyze what kinds of posts they were
searching for.
Ms. Cammack. I think what we're getting here, the heart of
this, is that there was no clear guidance on the particular set
of language models that they were supposed to be using. Ms.
Richardson, have you been able to determine the political
affiliations of the project leads?
Ms. Richardson. Well, some of them are just based on what
these--again, I'm just going based off of what the grants State
publicly. The topics that they are considering seem to be
targeting specific kinds of speech.
Ms. Cammack. OK. Now, the University of Michigan put
together a slide deck that was submitted to the NSF. On the
overview slide, the mission of their grant as explained was,
quote,
Our misinformation service helps policymakers at social media
platforms get good PR for their actions on misinformation by
having a clear benchmark for outcomes and eliminating the need
to defend internal procedures.
The slide deck also notes that they do things that we know
work without backlash and, quote, ``We push responsibility for
difficult judgments to someone outside of the company.'' It
goes on to say, ``We get people off our backs for how we act on
misinformation.'' It goes on to say that, ``We eliminate the
need to defend specific procedures.'' Now, this is an NSF,
taxpayer funded project. They say, we eliminate the need to
defend specific procedures as though accountability is more of
a suggestion, more of a yellow light.
So, Mr. Fang, Mr. Lukianoff, the NSF vision states that
they, quote,
Strive to create a Nation that leads the world in science and
engineering, research and innovation to the benefit of all
without barriers to participation.
Given what I just told you about the University of
Michigan's own work product that was funded by U.S. taxpayers,
does it not seem like the mission of the NSF and the grants
that they are funding are fundamentally at odds? Does this
create concerns for the American people and the agencies for
mission creep and infringement on constitutional rights? I'm
short on my time, so short answers.
Mr. Lukianoff. I think the mission of actually trying to
seek out microaggressions shows a very poor--it's a very
unscientific idea that we can have an AI that can make that
kind of cultural decision about politeness norms and impose it
on everyone else.
Mr. Fang. I can't comment directly on only NSF. Just
generally, a lot of these groups that claim to be nonpartisan,
look at their record. They become partisan.
The claims represent science. They end up representing a
corporate interest. They claim to be supporting upholding facts
and end up censoring true and accurate information. We just
need a lot better guardrails for this type of thing and a lot
better disclosure.
Ms. Cammack. I appreciate that. I yield.
Chair Jordan. The gentlelady yields back. The Ranking
Member is recognized for five minutes.
Ms. Plaskett. Thank you. I wanted to talk a little bit
about the loyalty test that the President has talked about,
President Trump. Trump has said that he plans to make all
Federal career employees, 50,000 firable at will by the
President and that this will allow him to gut those agencies,
career experts, and fill the position with individuals who will
do what he requests. These nonpolitical career employees have
spent decades building their knowledge and expertise and
possess invaluable experience that brings continuity to our
government across different administrations.
This is the thing that stops the agencies from being
political. I remember as a political appointee being called the
Christmas help by the career employees that were there with
great reason, because they are there. They are the bulwarks.
Ambassador Eisen, what would be the impact on our national
security if Trump were to fire large swaths of our experienced
workforce and filled those positions with largely unqualified
MAGA loyalists?
Mr. Eisen. Ms. Plaskett, like yourself as someone who has
served in our government and including in a national security
position as a United States Ambassador, one of the great honors
of my life, the effect would be devastating. When I worked in
the State Department, I counted on independent opinions. Do not
think that the over 200 State Department employees or the
thousands back in Foggy Bottom who I dealt with always agreed
with me.
They often gave me an independent judgment, and they
disagreed with me. I changed our course of action. Why? I
prided myself frankly on that independence myself. I had a
nickname in the White House, Mr. No, and worse nicknames from
my own colleagues in the Obama Administration.
Ms. Plaskett. I've heard some.
Mr. Eisen. Indeed. Why? Because when our government makes
national security decisions or domestic ones, the lives of the
American people, of our servicepeople like my dad who served in
the U.S. Army, who are deployed all over the world. The lives
of our allies are at stake.
We must have independent judgment. If you put in a loyalty
test, if you fire people by the tens of thousands, career
dedicated, nonpartisan, and independent professionals who've
built a body of expertise over a long period of time, you're
leaving our national security undefended. When we talk about
national security, Ms. Plaskett, we're not talking about an
abstract idea.
We're talking about the lives of the American people, the
lives of our servicemembers, the lives are often of those in
the intelligence community, and our allies and assets around
the world who keep us safe and who protect the world. If we
impose this loyalty test, the mass firings, what Trump already
did with Mr. McEntee in the White House. I want to know who's
loyal to me among my own people.
If you impose those kinds of tests, you will be eroding the
independence of judgment, jeopardizing all our lives,
jeopardizing the life of everybody in this room, not to mention
the effect on domestic interests, also which go to the lives
and livelihoods of American people, American families. That is
why it is a disastrous autocratic vision that the former
President has articulated should he return.
Ms. Plaskett. Thank you. I just have for those who may not
have been aware the last two--or the first two or three
hearings which were about social media, et cetera. The
Democrats did engage in questioning individuals on those
issues.
So, it's not as if we've attempted to just completely
ignore them. We've also moved on to the other issues that are
important to the American people. We recognize that one of
those are, in fact, the weaponization by Donald Trump.
I would ask for unanimous consent at this time to enter
into the record some documents, the first being a ChatGPT poem
on how Congressman Darrell Issa is the best politician in the
country with the poem, a poem on Congressman Thomas Massie is
the best politician in the country with a poem, Elise Stefanik,
Matt Gaetz, Kelly Armstrong, Greg Steube, and Congressman Dan
Bishop. I know he wants to see that one. Kat Cammack, Harriet
Hageman, Russell Fry, and of course I had to add myself as one
of the best politicians in the country.
[follow:]
Chair Jordan. Without objection. The Chair now recognizes
the gentlelady from Wyoming.
Ms. Hageman. Wow, the hysteria related to Donald Trump is
off the charts. I think it exposes the raw politics behind it.
I have a couple of points I'd like to make.
The only President who I am aware of who actually
assassinated American citizens was President Obama. So, perhaps
the Ranking Member should revisit her history books. I have an
article--
Ms. Plaskett. I'm a history major.
Ms. Hageman. --here from the ACLU stating the ACLU and CCR
have filed a lawsuit challenging the government's targeted
killing of three U.S. citizens and drone strikes far from any
armed conflict zone in al-Awlaki v. Panetta. The group charges
that the U.S. government's killings of U.S. citizens in Yemen
last year violated the Constitution's fundamental guarantee
against the deprivation of life without due process of law. The
killings under Obama were part of a broader program of targeted
killing by the United States outside of the context of armed
conflict and based on vague legal standards.
It closed executive process and evidence never presented to
the courts. As for kids in cages, again, that was President
Obama. Several former Obama Administration officials took to
social media and news outlets last month to explain a gallery
of years old photos that showed immigrant children sleeping in
shoddy conditions at a government run holding facility in
Arizona.
The images which the Associated Press first published in
2014 during the Obama Administration resurfaced recently for
reasons that remain unclear and quickly prompted viral outrage
on Twitter. One particularly disturbing image showed two
children sleeping on mattresses on the floor inside what
appeared to be a cage. A number of prominent liberals and even
a former Obama Administration official shared the photos,
mistakenly believing that they depicted the Trump
Administration's treatment of immigrant children who were
forcibly separated from their parents.
Jon Favreau who worked as a speech writer for former
President Barack Obama tweeted, ``this is happening right
now.'' The only debate that matters is how we force our
government to get these kids back to their families as fast as
humanly possible. Favreau said he later deleted the tweet after
social media users pointed out that the photos were taken
during the Obama Administration.
So, I think it's important to correct the record as to
actually who assassinated American citizens being President
Obama and it being President Obama who kept kids in cages. Now,
as this Committee uncovers more and more censorship activities
by the Federal Government, one thing we are wrestling with is
accountability for these bad actors violating the First
Amendment. They are already not elected by the citizens who
don't have to answer to the electorate.
Certain accountability statutes such as 42 U.S.C. 1983 only
apply to State employees which is why Mr. Bishop and I had
introduced the Censorship Accountability Act to actually hold
Federal employees personally liable for violating the First
Amendment of American citizens. Even in those circumstances
where one can go to courts for relief, that requires a great
deal of time and resources to prove liability, harm, and then
obtain relief. It is apparent from the ongoing Missouri v.
Biden case that all these bad actors, it makes it difficult to
eventually hold them accountable.
Ms. Richardson, I highlight these things to show that
accountability can be hard to achieve for injured Americans. Do
you think this could be further exacerbated if certain
activities that facilitate censorship are increasingly done by
AI systems rather than government employees?
Ms. Richardson. I do. I think that what these tools open
the potential for is broader censorship and done without having
to have an individual employee sitting there doing it. They're
able to flag post at a larger scale. So, I do think the fact
that the NSF is funding them is concerning.
Ms. Hageman. Well, the upscaling of AI technology can
provide censorship operations. The scope of it is absolutely
astonishing. For example, in its pitch to the NSF, Meedan
stated that it was using AI to monitor 750,000 blogs and media
articles daily as well as to mine data from a major social
media platform.
That just gives you an idea of the absolute scope of what
AI can do for violating people's First Amendment rights. In
your testimony, Ms. Richardson, you outline in great detail the
number of grants, the large sums, and the various number of
partners that the Federal dollars are going to, to censor
American citizens in violation of the First Amendment. What can
the proliferation of this type of technology do to the
censorship industrial complex which has already been uncovered
if it is not properly overseen for beneficial development?
Ms. Richardson. Well, I think what we've seen through--as
you just brought up in Missouri v. Biden case and Twitter Files
and many other aspects is this increasing involvement of the
Federal Government with private parties to censor speech. This
is just another example of that. The Federal Government funding
universities, funding companies to develop these tools that
allow censorship at a broader scale.
Ms. Hageman. Thank you and I yield back.
Chair Jordan. The gentlelady yields back. For our
witnesses, we have ten more minutes. I know you've been sitting
there for a while.
If you can hang with us ten more, then you'll have a few
maybe closing comments from the Ranking Member and myself. Then
we'll conclude our hearing. I want to recognize our newest
member--our two newest members. First, the gentleman from Ohio
is recognized for five minutes.
Mr. Davidson. I thank the Chair. Thank our witnesses. It is
an honor to be on the Weaponization Committee. It's
disappointing that Congress needed to create this Committee,
but it definitely needed to be done.
The American people rightly recognize that our own
government is being turned against its citizens. The Bill of
Rights was put in place by the founding fathers fundamentally
because in the first days of the Constitution, the concern was
that the Federal Government would somehow be used and turned
against not just the States, but the citizens of those States.
Today we're seeing the Bill of Rights being trampled in every
kind of way.
We see freedom of religion. Oh, you can have it. Just don't
exercise it. Freedom of speech, the right to assemble, all the
First Amendment trampled. The Second Amendment, people want to
trample it. I would say the Third has been trampled as well.
You have to provide provision for government on everything,
from a cell phone to a laptop to your car. Now, maybe even
digital ID, all kinds of things. People are supporting every
kind of infringement, warrantless spying on American citizens,
government agencies buying data that they would otherwise have
to get a warrant or a subpoena and on down the list through the
entire Bill of Rights.
The question, what are we going to do about it? I think
this Committee is a good response to it. Today, we're focusing
on AI.
When you think about AI, how do you assess whether the
algorithm has got it right? Is it a question of which speech
gets canceled? That seems to be the case. The reality is while
some of this activity went on under the previous
administration, in the early days of the Biden Administration,
they wanted to formalize it.
They didn't call it a ministry of truth. They came up with
the Disinformation Governance Board. Mr. Lukianoff, what's the
State of play in recognizing when free speech is--frankly,
people having their free speech rights canceled?
Mr. Lukianoff. I would turn us to the less sexy and less
sci-fi scenario of what's going on in American college
campuses. I feel like I'm on the free speech left. I feel like
I've been screaming at the sky trying to get people to take
seriously the threats to free speech on campus for a long time
now.
In 2020 and 2021 were the highest number of professors
fired. They were on the left and the right to be clear that I'm
aware of since--for a two-year period, since probably the
1930s. This is something that is not getting sufficient
attention.
Now, who programs AI? Overwhelmingly elite college
graduates who actually when you poll them have some pretty
distressing ideas about freedom of speech. Think about the idea
of us all living on the most repressive college campus and
that's why we should be afraid of what AI potentially could
become if we don't actually take this issue a little more
seriously.
Mr. Davidson. So, thank you for that. When you think about
AI and the language models that are used, how do you know what
the primary sources are? When you're looking at the way that
speech is canceled on campus, some people are disfavored.
Maybe some campuses won't allow Congressman Jordan on their
campus. Maybe some won't allow our Ranking Member on campus.
They might view it as good because the other person got
canceled.
We can all recognize that as some limitation of speech.
When you look at the algorithm, you just know what got--you
don't really get to see what was filtered. So, Mr. Fang, Ms.
Richardson, do you have thoughts about how we detect this kind
of activity in AI?
Mr. Fang. Look, it's not my role as a journalist to
prescribe any particular solution. I would want to point to the
example in the UK where they have a little bit stronger data
laws. A lot of the people who are censored during the pandemic
for simply criticizing the efficacy of some of the vaccines,
discussing some of these pandemic lockdowns, the way that they
were able to find out that they were surveilled and then
censored is that they were able to make requests with some of
the UK's data laws, for the government and these private sector
firms to provide their own data to them. That's how they found
out.
We don't have those same strong protections in the U.S.
Perhaps it's worth looking at stronger rights to your own data,
better algorithmic transparency. This is worth debating.
Mr. Davidson. Thank you for that. I'll yield the balance of
my time to the Chair.
Chair Jordan. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Well,
actually, I don't have time in 30 seconds to get to it. I
appreciate it. I'll yield it back to the fine gentleman if he
has another question.
Mr. Davidson. I look forward to the work of the Committee.
As I said, it's important. Just to pick up where you left off,
Mr. Fang, we've worked on a bill for a while called the It's
Your Data Act what would recognize a property right in American
citizen's data. When you look at one of the most trampled
rights that the Bill of Rights is supposed to protect, it would
be the right to privacy. So, I hope we reclaim it.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman yields back. I appreciate that.
The gentleman from South Carolina is recognized for five
minutes.
Mr. Fry. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'd like to yield to you two
minutes.
Chair Jordan. I appreciate it. I just want to start with
what--we've heard a lot about criticizing President Trump which
I thought was overly political and just wrong. I want to flag a
tweet.
I brought this up several times before. This is on January
23, 2021. Clarke Humphrey, Executive Office of the President at
the White House, and he sends this tweet to Twitter--or excuse
me, this email to Twitter, excuse me.
He says--this is again the White House, January 23rd, third
day of the administration--``wanted to flag the below tweet and
wondering if we can get moving on the process for having it
removed,'' and then in all caps, ``ASAP.'' This is the
government telling Twitter, take it down and you can't do it
soon it enough. The tweet, of course, is from Robert F.
Kennedy, Jr.
He has in this tweet, I think, two sentences.
Hank Aaron's tragic death is part of a wave of suspicious
deaths among elderly closely following administration of the
vaccine. He received the Moderna vaccine.
He being Hank Aaron received the Moderna vaccine on January 5th
to inspire other Black Americans to get the vaccine. Two
sentences, both actually true. It's tragic what happened to
Hank Aaron. Two sentences, both true. The White House says,
take it down. Is that appropriate, Mr. Lukianoff?
Mr. Lukianoff. I certainly don't think so. I'm afraid of
the government treating us like we are children. I can read
that and I'm capable as a citizen with a brain of my own to
decide what I make of it.
Chair Jordan. I just want to add a layer to it. The irony
here is this is the third day of the administration and they're
going after their Democrat primary political opponent. That
says it all.
Two statements that are true. We cannot let the American
people, us hillbillies from the rural area as it said in there,
we can't let you decide if this is something you should see or
not. So, we, the Biden White House, are going to try to have
this taken down.
Oh, by the way, it just happens to be our political
opponent. That sums it all up. I would just ask Mr. Eisen then
I'll yield back to my colleague. Is that appropriate? I don't
want your long dialog. I just want a yes or no.
Mr. Eisen. Uh--
Chair Jordan. No, not an uh. A yes or a no.
Mr. Eisen. I'm attempting to condense it into a yes or no,
Chair Jordan.
Chair Jordan. It's pretty simple. Should the government be
doing that to their political opposition on day three of the
administration where it's two statements that are absolutely
true?
Mr. Eisen. You've been so courteous.
Chair Jordan. I'll yield back to my colleagues.
Mr. Eisen. You've been so courteous to me today.
[Simultaneous speaking.]
Mr. Eisen. Hank Aaron's death was not related to COVID-19,
The New York Times. Hank Aaron's death is falsely linked to
COVID vaccine, The New York Times.
[Simultaneous speaking.]
Chair Jordan. The colleague from South Carolina.
Mr. Fry. Thank you, Mr. Chair, for that. War is peace.
Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. Where do you think
that comes from, Mr. Lukianoff?
Mr. Lukianoff. 1984.
Mr. Fry. Yes, exactly. This book was written in the 1940s,
right? If you read it, it's about this kind of this ministry of
truth.
We are here today, are we not? I mean, the prophetic
fiction is really not fiction when you look at where we are as
a country today. Would you agree with that?
Mr. Lukianoff. Well, I call my Substack ``The Eternally
Radical Idea,'' because I believe in every generation brave
people rise up to oppose freedom of speech. They are usually on
the winning side. The specter of Big Brother, the specter of
greater control is always around us. We've been very lucky to
grow up in a period in which we have enjoyed great free speech.
We must not take that for granted.
Mr. Fry. You know what's interesting. If we sat around and
had a beer or coffee, we would disagree on a lot of things,
right?
Mr. Lukianoff. Oh, yes.
Mr. Fry. Again, we go back to the founding of this country
and the intent of the framers and protecting that freedom of
speech. So, here what we're here for today which isn't Donald
Trump, it's actually about artificial intelligence and its
suppression or potential suppression of freedom of speech. So,
we have the National Science Foundation that has gifted out
grants.
To get the grant, you have to apply for it. In the
application for these grants, University of Michigan said,
quote, ``We were undergoing the difficult responsibility of
censorship.'' So, the dystopian things in 1984 that we have
seen in a fictional book are now here.
So AI, we've kind of talked about this today. AI can be
manipulated. The algorithms can be manipulated by people who
are fallible and who are inherently biased. Is that correct?
Mr. Lukianoff. Yes, and it's certainly happening in
dictatorships like China.
Mr. Fry. Right. So, AI is inherently biased because of the
programmatic things that are put in. Is that correct? So, we're
using government resources to prop up AI, to give resources to
research this. Now, those same artificial intelligence things
are scouring the internet to target certain types of speech.
Would you agree with that?
Mr. Lukianoff. That's why we're here. That's what we're
worried about.
Mr. Fry. What kind of mechanisms do you think can be put in
place to hold both government and private entities accountable
for this type of behavior?
Mr. Lukianoff. Well, as I said in my opening statement, my
biggest fear is that we try to centralize it as a way of fixing
it. That actually fear of it being used as a censorship tool
will prevent us from allowing other AI engines to pop up and
actually not have the same biases that are being baked in
currently.
Mr. Fry. Thank you for that. I know I'm out of time, but I
want to applaud you. You kicked over a hornets' nest, but we
appreciate the work that you've done.
Ms. Richardson. Thank you.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman yields back. I want to thank
our witnesses for being here today. We appreciate the
testimony, answering questions. We appreciate, at least for
three of you, the work you're doing in bringing this to light
about what's happening with this censorship effort and the
dangerousness--the danger that exists, I should say, with AI.
So, with that, the hearing is--
[Simultaneous speaking.]
Chair Jordan. You want a closing statement? OK. You get a
closing statement then. Maybe I'll yield to someone else. Go
ahead.
Ms. Plaskett. Thank you. I know you offered it. So, I jot
some notes down just to quickly make a brief closing statement.
First, I do understand that free speech is very important.
We do need to protect it. I'm sworn as a barred attorney to
protect freedom of speech and people's rights.
I think that's something that we should do. I am concerned,
however, with the continuation of these kinds of hearings that
it does have a chilling effect however on individuals that are
doing work to keep our country safe from cyber threats. For the
record, I'd like to introduce an article written in Politico,
``The far right is scaring away Washington's private hacker
army: Scrutiny from conservative activists and management
gripes are straining the government's plan to enlist elite
security pros in the fight against malicious hackers.''
[Simultaneous speaking.]
Ms. Plaskett. Thank you. That's a concern as well that we
need to be careful of.
I also wanted to make a correction that three days after
the election, the individual that they asked to begin the
process for taking down a tweet didn't mean that a tweet was
going to be taken down. That individual was not a political
appointment three days after the election. He was just simply
an anti-vaxxer, anti-Semitic posting, race baiting, and dog
whistling individual. I yield back.
Chair Jordan. I'll just correct the record. It wasn't three
days after the election. It was three days into the
administration. So, it was the government in power, the White
House saying, take down this tweet ASAP.
That, to me, is significant. Whatever you think. I will
just say this, we're going to keep having hearings on the
attack on the First Amendment because as my colleague from Ohio
pointed out just a few minutes ago, it is fundamental.
We had a witness in our last hearing from Canada,
journalist from Canada. She talked about the underpinnings of
Western civilization rests on the ability to speak, to debate,
and not be afraid, not be intimidated by the government. To the
point from the Ranking Member, so they didn't take it down.
Well, we all know there's this thing called the chilling
effect when big government, particularly the White House, is
saying to big tech, take down this tweet ASAP. I see you're
nodding your head, Mr. Lukianoff, yes. You know what, I want to
do one last thing.
I think you wanted to respond to Mr. Goldman a little while
ago. We'll give you a chance to do that, and then we'll close
the hearing. I think you had a response to something Mr.
Goldman said--Congressman Goldman said earlier. If you don't
remember, that's fine. We'll go on. Put your mic on if you
would.
Mr. Lukianoff. It was frustrating to hear people like me
and Lee who have done a great job defending people across the
political spectrum over our career be dismissed as people who
only care about the free speech rights of one side of the
political fence. I mean, we've been--FIRE has been second to no
one when it comes to taking people on all across the political
spectrum and I have the hate mail to prove it.
Chair Jordan. No, I appreciate that. That's why--as Mr.
Bishop pointed out earlier, why as Chair of this Committee I've
invited more Democrats than I've had any Republican maybe--who
knows, maybe ever. I don't know, but certainly in this
Congress.
We've had more people on the left as you describe are in
the center or people who were Democrats who say, I'm now
independent because I can't take what they're doing. I just
don't stand with them on their efforts to restrict the First
Amendment. So, again, I want to thank you all for being here
for speaking out.
With that--oh, I got to do one housekeeping thing. This
concludes today's hearing. We thank our witnesses for appearing
before the Subcommittee.
Without objection, all Members will have five legislative
days to submit additional written questions for the witnesses
or additional materials for the record. Without objection, the
hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:44 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
All materials submitted for the record by Members of the
Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal
Government can be found at: https://docs.house.gov/Committee/
Calendar/ByEvent.aspx?EventID=116793.
[all]