[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 30 (Monday, February 24, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S980-S981]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         FREE SPEECH PROTECTION

  Mr. MORAN. Mr. President, along with my colleagues, I have been in 
places across the country this past week. Most of my time was spent in 
Kansas, and certainly Kansans had a good opportunity to express to me 
some of their worries and concerns about what is going on in 
Washington, DC.
  One of the things that has become very dominant in those 
conversations is the concern that this administration--Washington, DC--
that the Constitution, as we learned it, as we were taught in high 
school government classes, does not seem to be being complied with. The 
concern is the constant efforts by this administration to do things 
unilaterally, to put in place executive orders and policies and 
regulations.
  This has become a common conversation. It is pleasing to me that 
Kansans care so much about the structure of our government, the 
foundation that was created by the Framers of our Constitution, and 
they have a genuine concern that the Constitution is being violated. 
Often the conversation is: What are you doing about it?
  The topic I want to talk about today is just one more example. This 
one has a reasonably positive ending, but I want to highlight something 
that has transpired in Washington, DC, that started last May at the 
Federal Communications Commission.
  I just learned about this recently, and it became much more of a 
common topic with knowledge across the country as a result of one of 
the FCC Commissioners, Ajit Pai, and his opinion piece that appeared 
over the past few days in national publications.
  What we learned was the Federal Communications Commission was 
considering--in fact, considered, put in place--a program in which they 
were going to survey the broadcasters they regulate. They hired an 
outside firm, as I understand it, and questions were prepared that were 
going to be asked of people in newsrooms across the country.
  The pilot program was organized to occur in South Carolina. Among the 
kinds of questions that were going to be asked in newsrooms across the 
country by the FCC were: What is the news philosophy of this station? 
Who decides which stories are covered--whether a reporter ever wanted 
to cover a story and was told they could not do so.
  It seems to me whether you have a conservative or liberal bent or you 
are down the middle of the road, you ought to have great concern when 
the agency that regulates the broadcasters decides they want to get 
into the newsroom to discover how news is developed at that station. 
That is not part of what the mandate of the FCC is, and it ought to 
raise genuine concerns from those who care about free speech. It 
certainly raised those concerns from me.
  I came back to Washington, DC, today with the intention of 
highlighting this issue for my colleagues, making the American people 
more aware of this tremendous affront to the First Amendment of the 
U.S. Constitution. The good news is that Chairman Wheeler at the FCC 
announced just a couple days ago that this proposal, as it included 
questions about how news was developed, was being withdrawn.
  So in part I am here to express my genuine concern about how did we 
get so far as for anyone at the FCC or their contractor to think this 
is appropriate behavior for a regulator; and, secondly, I am here to 
say that I am relieved and pleased that Chairman Wheeler has stepped in 
to withdraw those kinds of questions.
  The argument was made that this is a voluntary survey, but as 
Commissioner Pai indicated in his opinion piece in the Wall Street 
Journal, it is hard to see how something the FCC is asking of a 
regulated broadcaster would be really considered voluntary.
  The Commissioner says: Unlike the opinion surveys that many of us 
receive on the phone or in the mail, in

[[Page S981]]

which we can hang up the phone or never answer the phone or we can toss 
the survey into the trash, when the FCC sends someone to your station 
to ask you questions about how news is developed, it is hard for you to 
say: I am not going to answer the question, when the FCC has control 
over your license.
  So I am here to make certain that this kind of approach is something 
that is in the past. I serve on the Appropriations subcommittee that is 
responsible for the FCC's budget. When they come to tell us about their 
appropriations request, again I will thank Chairman Wheeler for 
withdrawing these questions, but I want to make certain there is a 
genuine concern on behalf of all of us in the Senate--Republicans and 
Democrats, whatever brand of philosophy you claim to espouse or 
believe, you ought to be worried when the FCC is making inroads into 
how news and opinion is formulated at broadcasting stations--television 
and radio--across the country.
  So the speech I had intended to give raising this topic is only given 
now in part. It is my view that every American citizen has certain 
civic responsibilities. Not just us Members of the Senate, every 
American citizen's primary responsibility as a citizen is to make 
certain we pass on to the next generation of Americans a country in 
which the freedoms and liberties guaranteed by our Constitution are 
protected throughout the history of our Nation into the future.
  So I ask my colleagues to be ever vigilant as we see an ever 
encroaching Washington, DC, administration, even Congress, intruding in 
the lives of the American citizens, particularly as it relates to their 
opportunities for free speech.
  I will be back later in the week to talk about other intrusions by 
the Federal Government into free speech and political advocacy. But 
again, Mr. President, thank you for the opportunity to be on the Senate 
floor today to highlight what I think would have been an egregious 
violation of the Constitution by one of our Federal agencies.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. KING). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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