[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 20 (Tuesday, January 31, 2023)]
[House]
[Pages H560-H566]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   THREATS FACING CONSERVATIVE SPEECH

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 9, 2023, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Buck) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.


                             General Leave

  Mr. BUCK. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may 
have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and 
include extraneous materials.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Colorado?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. BUCK. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise to discuss the threats facing conservative speech 
in this country. When members of government take it upon themselves to 
declare certain speech illegal or undesirable, they effectively silence 
opposition. This isn't the American way.
  We have seen this kind of censorship in Saudi Arabia, Communist 
China, and Soviet Russia. We never want to see it in America.
  Tonight, we are gathered to call attention to a  shocking, 
coordinated attempt by progressives in business and government to 
suppress dissent, stifle debate, and threaten free speech.

  Last week, one of the largest satellite TV providers, DIRECTV, chose 
to deplatform Newsmax from their lineup.
  Newsmax is the fourth highest-rated cable news channel and is watched 
by more than 25 million Americans. This decision means that more than 
13 million homes will lose access to Newsmax programming.
  Mr. Speaker, 2 years ago, Democratic members of the Energy and 
Commerce Committee wrote to AT&T and DIRECTV encouraging the censorship 
of One America News, FOX News, and Newsmax. Two years later, two out of 
three of those networks are now deplatformed.
  One year ago, after pressure from Democrats, AT&T and DIRECTV removed 
the One America News Network from its programming, and now DIRECTV has 
removed Newsmax.
  The Energy and Commerce Committee has immediate jurisdiction over the 
business interests of DIRECTV. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to 
understand why AT&T and DIRECTV felt pressured to comply with committee 
demands.
  Simply put, Democrats in that committee disagreed with the content 
coming out of One America News Network and Newsmax and decided they 
wanted them canceled.
  This is a clear case of free speech infringement and viewpoint 
discrimination. Government colluding with telecommunications giants 
should chill us all.
  We are facing a concerted, unabashed effort to shrink the limits of 
debate by corporations in an unholy alliance with political activists 
and their government avatars. These companies have become willing 
prosecutors of dissent.
  Woke corporations are actively interposing themselves between 
Americans and the conversations they need to have. Why? Because they 
are afraid, afraid that the lessons they learned in progressive 
universities won't stand up to objective scrutiny; afraid that vigorous 
debate breeds societies of citizens, not sheep; above all, afraid that 
if they cannot anoint themselves enlightened arbiters, their ideas will 
just have to stand on their own merits like the rest of us.
  I urge my colleagues across the aisle to rethink their desire to 
silence opposition. The people who want to silence opponents are people 
who can't win debates.
  I urge American businesses to stiffen their spines and stand up in 
favor of free speech and open speech.
  We acknowledge that we may never know the exact mindset of the 
decisionmakers who decided to join hand in glove with progressives' 
drive to silence their opposition, but what we know is more than 
enough.
  Democrats asked, and DIRECTV delivered. Progressives spoke up, and 
One America News was silenced. Newsmax is now on the chopping block.
  Where does that leave us? Under the lengthening shadow of censorship 
or at the beginning of a new era when freedom fights back.
  I know what side I will be on. Which one will you join?
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina 
(Mr. Bishop), my colleague from the Tar Heel State.
  Mr. BISHOP of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from 
Colorado and my colleagues will show in this hour that censorship of 
conservative voices proliferates among social media and other tech 
companies, banks and other commercial service providers, and massive 
public companies and capital markets pursuing ESG policies.
  As Mr. Buck suggested, it is worse than that because the leading and 
most insidious censors, whose predominant selection of conservatives to 
victimize, by the way, as only an aside, are the powerful and secretive 
agencies of Federal law enforcement and the so-called intelligence 
community.

                              {time}  1830

  In only the most recent example of this egregious wrongdoing, and 
solely due to the commendable voluntary disclosure by a social media 
company of the Twitter files, we now know that not only the FBI but 
also the ODNI, NSA, and CIA audaciously abused their power to 
coordinate Big Tech and Big Media to suppress from circulation 
information that was highly significant to the 2020 Presidential 
election; namely, the New York Post's Hunter Biden laptop story.
  But even this jaw-dropping disclosure focusing on an isolated 
document brings home just how insidious, how brazen the conduct of 
these massive and unaccountable agencies has become.
  Here is one. Twitter files Number 7, Tweet 15, by one of the 
reporters with integrity, Michael Shellenberger: My colleagues at the 
Fort had a query for you. This is from Elvis Chan at the FBI to Yoel 
Roth at Twitter.
  My colleagues at the Fort is a reference to Fort Meade, the 
headquarters of the National Security Agency. He says that Twitter no 
longer provides their data feed, as they had in earlier years 
apparently, and asked if they would be willing to change it.
  Their data feed; comments, postings of 77 million Americans and more 
than 330 million people worldwide.
  My colleagues, Mr. Chan says, are currently contracting with a vendor 
for an analytic tool for open-source intelligence. The commercial 
version of this tool includes the Twitter data feed. However, the feed 
was disabled because

[[Page H561]]

the vendor said they did not want to violate their terms of service 
with Twitter.
  My colleagues are wondering if Twitter would be open to revising its 
terms of service to allow this vendor to continue having access to the 
Twitter feed.
  This representative of the FBI is asking for Twitter to reverse its 
policy to allow government agencies to conduct analytics on the 
discourse of the American people; mass surveillance of the public 
conversation; collection and preservation, so it can be searched at 
will by government bureaucrats for whatever purposes.
  And note, he makes reference to the provision of this, not to the 
FBI, but ``to members of the IC,'' the intelligence community.
  Bad enough if this were the FBI, but he is talking about the agencies 
who are supposed to direct their attention abroad for the sake of 
American security and, instead, they are seeking mass surveillance on 
Americans' utterances and those of unsuspecting people the world over.
  A good Democrat, William Proxmire said, power always has to be kept 
in check. Power exercised in secret, especially under the cloak of 
national security, is doubly dangerous.
  Mr. Speaker, in the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the 
Federal Government, we will plumb the depths of powerful agencies gone 
rogue; and then this Congress must act to keep in check power exercised 
in secret.
  Mr. BUCK. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Arizona, the 
Grand Canyon State (Mr. Biggs), America's favorite Arizona podcaster.
  Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for organizing this.
  In years past, I would imagine that this particular issue would draw 
people from both sides of the aisle to come and protest the marriage of 
Big Business, Big Tech, and Big Government, to silence dissenting 
voices in this, what once was the freest Nation in the history of the 
world.
  Censorship is an authoritarian tool used to keep power by suppressing 
dissent. It is done, in our case, under the myth of keeping Americans 
safe. Conservatives, though, are playing against a stacked deck. This 
administration is doing the stacking.
  Last year, for instance, the Department of Homeland Security 
attempted to establish the Orwellian disinformation governance board, 
ultimately having to walk that back but, in reality, they just gave it 
another name and they will continue to try to suppress conservative 
voices.
  We learned months later that Facebook implemented a special portal 
where government officials can request the censorship of specific 
posts.
  Ahead of the 2020 election, unelected, deep state bureaucrats 
coordinated with major social media companies to ensure that the 
contents of Hunter Biden's laptop would be suppressed, right before an 
election.
  Users could not even share a link to the New York Post story to read 
the report for themselves, and Twitter even locked the New York Post's 
account and others for simply sharing the report.
  Facebook spied on individuals' private messages and reported users to 
the FBI if they questioned the 2020 election.
  Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram and others removed a sitting United 
States President from their platforms. Meanwhile, Twitter allowed 
Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to tweet horrific messages and tweets, 
without so much as deleting the tweets.
  And we wonder, we wonder, why Americans feel threatened by their own 
government, and why polling consistently tells us that our governmental 
institutions are viewed with disrepute by the American people.
  The moderators of these platforms have put their thumb on the scale 
of debate and have targeted conservatives over and over. But censorship 
does not just occur online, it can occur in the chilling of speech and 
the removal of debate altogether. We see that on college campuses, 
where students are fearful of retaliation if they express a 
conservative viewpoint.
  We have seen this administration target concerned parents attending 
school board meetings to protect their First Amendment activity by 
likening them to domestic terrorists.
  Recently, we have watched as Democrats, instead of promoting free 
speech, wrote a letter demanding that AT&T, that Alphabet, Hulu, Apple, 
Comcast, Roku, et cetera, remove three conservative media outlets from 
their programming. They have taken down OAN, and they  have now 
notified Newsmax they are going to take them down.

  We know what happens in nations where you have the Big Government 
utilizing the power of the marketplace through Big Business, and now 
the marriage of Big Tech. We know that that leads to something that I 
call fascism. That is what we see happening in this once and, 
hopefully, future great Nation today.
  The idea, `` . . . that ideas can be dangerous; but that the 
suppression of ideas is fatal to a democratic society. Freedom itself 
is a dangerous way of life, but it is ours.''
  That statement was originally issued in May of 1953 by the 
Westchester Conference of the American Library Association.
  I am suggesting that we have the courage to allow free speech, free 
thought, free debate in this great Nation.
  Mr. BUCK. Mr. Speaker, it is now my honor to yield to the gentleman 
from South Carolina, the Palmetto State, one of Biden's many vacation 
spots (Mr. Norman).
  Mr. NORMAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman and I appreciate him 
for putting this together.
  Mr. Speaker, as citizens of the United States of America, we are 
privileged to have a constitutional right of free speech. This right 
entitles us to the ability to speak, but not the right to be heard.
  Favoring liberal voices over conservative ones, while pretending to 
be neutral, is both hypocritical and profoundly unfair. However, no law 
compels private companies to be fair and evenhanded arbiters of 
information.
  Censorship of conservatives online and by Big Tech has become a 
commonly used mechanism by the left to silence conservatives. Silencing 
people because you simply disagree with them dangerously infringes on 
the rights of free speech as protected in the First Amendment of our 
Constitution.
  When I learned that DIRECTV dropped Newsmax from its channels, I was 
outraged. Newsmax is the fourth highest-rated cable news channel and is 
watched by 25 million Americans.
  Everyone should be allowed to choose what news outlets they want to 
hear from, especially with the dominance of the democratic media. I 
frequently reach a wide audience of my constituency to communicate the 
ongoings of Congress and can personally speak to how large the audience 
is based on the feedback I receive from my constituents in South 
Carolina's Fifth District and from other States.
  I am glad that House Republicans will hold hearings on this matter to 
get to the bottom of the blatant censorship of conservative views so 
that we will know, once and for all, if DIRECTV has been selectively 
targeting Newsmax.
  DIRECTV should be held accountable for its actions, and I fully stand 
behind conservatives having their voices heard.
  Mr. BUCK. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Babin), the best dentist in Texas.
  Mr. BABIN. Mr. Speaker, not many have tasted true freedom like 
Americans have because, in all of the world, there is no place like the 
United States of America.
  But if we are not careful, this unique experiment that has persevered 
through depression, famine, sickness, terrorism, world wars, and a 
civil war will disappear before our very eyes.
  The French philosopher Montesquieu wrote that ``the deterioration of 
every government begins with the decay of the principles upon which it 
was founded.'' This statement is as true today as it was in 1748.
  Right now, we are literally witnessing the decay of our freedoms of 
speech. For years, we have watched one political party silence and 
discredit those they disagree with by de-platforming them, censoring 
them, shadow-banning them, and suppressing their ability to reach the 
public.
  We have seen this tactic used against duly elected Members of 
Congress, professionals in countless fields, conservative media outlets 
like Newsmax and OAN, and even a sitting President.

[[Page H562]]

  The endless kowtowing to a political faction with an agenda so 
radical that you either have to bend the knee or be exiled goes against 
the very fabric of our Constitution. It is un-American, and it is a 
disgrace.
  The left treats debate or, God forbid, even a simple difference of 
thought, as public enemy number one. Why is our freedom of speech so 
threatening to the democratic narrative?
  We cannot stand idle while our freedoms are being extinguished. As 
President Reagan said, ``freedom is never more than one generation away 
from extinction.''
  I don't want my 17 grandchildren to spend their sunset years telling 
their children and their children's children what it was once like in 
the United States, when men and women were free.
  We must ensure that America remains that beacon of hope, the city on 
a hill, a nation with a dream that anyone can grasp if they only have 
the courage to dare.
  Mr. BUCK. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Virginia, the 
Old Dominion State, the State for Lovers (Mr. Good).
  Mr. GOOD of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his 
leadership, his continued leadership on this subject.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today to bring awareness, more awareness to the 
continued censorship of conservative voices.
  Leftist bias and discrimination continues to threaten a diversity of 
thoughts and viewpoints being represented in the public arena. It is 
not hard to find examples of conservative voices being silenced.
  In fact, we know that Democrats and the White House have been 
colluding with private companies in recent years to censor and 
eliminate conservative voices.
  In fact, back in February of 2021, Democrats on the Energy and 
Commerce Committee went so far as to write and ask AT&T's DIRECTV to 
censor OAN, FOX News Channel, and Newsmax. Then, in January of 2022, 
AT&T-owned DIRECTV complied and dropped OAN from their platform and 
their channel lineup.
  Now they are planning to do the same thing with Newsmax, the fourth 
highest-rated cable news channel, or the fourth most popular one, and a 
top-20 cable channel overall.
  Meanwhile, DIRECTV carries 10 to 12 liberal news channels with a much 
lesser audience, and actually pays them to be on their platform.
  It is wrong for DIRECTV to make nonbusiness decisions for ideological 
reasons that are in direct conflict with the interests of their 
customers, their employees, and their shareholders.
  Worse yet, it is wrong for DIRECTV to utilize their business to 
suppress conservative voices by infringing on the constitutional 
freedoms of speech and the freedom of the press because Newsmax is 
actually a media company that is trying hard to hold government 
accountable.
  Why else would DIRECTV drop one of their most popular channels?

                              {time}  1845

  DIRECTV's actions are just another example of Big Tech and big media 
being leveraged to discriminate against conservative voices.
  Whatever happened to classic liberalism where we allowed a variety of 
viewpoints to be heard and let people think for themselves?
  Republicans must conduct appropriate oversight to determine the 
degree to which Democrats in Congress and the White House are colluding 
with media companies to suppress First Amendment freedom of speech and 
freedom of the press.
  Mr. BUCK. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. 
Van Drew).
  Mr. VAN DREW. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Buck for doing this and 
putting this together.
  Blatant attacks on conservative speech are truly nothing new. First, 
the left and Big Tech removed a sitting President from social media 
platforms. Imagine that: a sitting President removed.
  Then Big Tech companies deemed conservative views on COVID 
``misinformation'' and removed sitting Members of Congress from 
Twitter. Then these same Big Tech companies deemed the Hunter Biden 
story ``misinformation'' and wiped any mention of it from their 
platforms.
  Yet, Democrats can freely post that former President Trump was 
involved in Russian collusion, despite that being proven a lie. 
Democrats in Congress can tweet anti-Semitic rhetoric with no 
repercussions from Big Tech or even their own party. It is 
unbelievable.
  When an outsider of politics came in and took over Twitter, thank 
God, Democrats knew they were in a little bit of trouble. They did 
everything possible to stop the overhaul of the platform, which 
desperately needed to be done. It is because they knew our government 
was involved in censoring Americans, censoring American free speech.
  Our First Amendment is unequivocally the most important right 
afforded to us, the most important right given to us, from our 
forefathers. It is a blessing from God.
  We teach our children to have a voice. We teach them to stand up for 
what they believe in. Yet, this trend being perpetuated by the left 
that differing viewpoints should be censored cannot stand.
  With DIRECTV making the decision to remove Newsmax, it is essentially 
depriving millions of Americans from hearing directly from their 
Representatives. It is definitely censorship, and it is departing from 
our Nation's, from America's, core principles.
  That is why I am standing here. I am standing here, and I am fighting 
here for Newsmax on DIRECTV.
  It is not just about Newsmax. It is about Americans' right to freedom 
of speech. We cannot lose the America, the America that we know and the 
America that we love, but we are so painfully close to losing it in so 
many ways, and this being the most important way.
  We cannot allow the silencing of views. We must foster and encourage 
debate in this great country. Everybody should be at the table. All the 
issues should be discussed and hammered out.
  Whether you are a Democrat, a Republican, or an independent, everyone 
deserves a voice. Everyone deserves to be heard. This is America. 
Everyone deserves to exercise their First Amendment right without any 
interference, without interference from big companies, without 
interference from Big Tech, without interference from government. That 
is what our Founders intended. That is what America is about. We have 
the responsibility to stand up and fight for and love that America.
  Mr. BUCK. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman who has been described 
as New Jersey's best dentist.
  Now, we are going to Arizona's best dentist.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Gosar).
  Mr. GOSAR. Mr. Speaker, censorship in America is a major problem. 
Congress cannot continue to deputize Big Tech to censor competition and 
lawful political speech.
  Reforming section 230 of the Communications Decency Act is critical. 
That is why I have sponsored Stop the Censorship Act: to empower users 
with their editorial control, not government or Big Tech.
  Making it worse, Big Government has colluded with Big Tech to censor 
American citizens and to influence elections, which is a clear and 
illegal violation of the Hatch Act and First Amendment. Now, we have 
AT&T's DIRECTV deplatforming Newsmax. It is all unacceptable.
  Corrupt corporations and bureaucrats must be held accountable. We 
will utilize the Holman rule and all tools at our disposal in Congress.
  Looking back even 10 years, it was difficult to predict the 
totalitarian instincts that Big Tech and fake news media now promote.
  Our country was literally founded on free speech and other civil 
liberties. Today, the fragile Big Tech hipsters are afraid of ideas. 
They are afraid of open discussion. They cannot fathom how to issue a 
counterpoint to anyone or an idea they don't like.
  Censorship is un-American. It is uncivil. It is a recipe for 
discontent and authoritarianism. An enforced contract between the 
subscriber and user protects free speech.
  I thank the Congressman from Colorado for hosting this Special Order 
on this important issue, and I look forward to our investigations and 
to our reforms.

[[Page H563]]

  

  Mr. BUCK. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Cloud).
  Mr. CLOUD. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Buck for his leadership on this 
and thank him for bringing us together for this important conversation.
  The First Amendment recognizes what we understand to be a God-given 
right, the right to freedom of speech and the right to free press.
  Tragically, Americans have seen their government conspire against 
them recently. We have seen parents targeted at school board meetings. 
We have seen pro-life activists brought under light by the strong hand 
of their government.
  Too many times, American companies have joined in this effort. We 
have seen once-great American companies become the enforcement arm of a 
radical, woke, left agenda. They have enforced and become the 
authoritarian enforcement for this effort. But Americans are aware of 
what is happening.

  Too many times, we have seen them go after people who voiced concerns 
over COVID lockdowns and vaccines on social media. Now, they are going 
after news channels that air stories that they disagree with.
  Last year, several Members on the other side of this aisle sent 
letters to several cable and satellite providers, including DIRECTV, 
demanding that they stop showing OAN, Newsmax, and Fox. In recent 
weeks, we have seen AT&T's DIRECTV cave to the Democrats' anti-American 
and Marxist demands by demonetizing Newsmax and OAN.
  Many Americans are concerned. They realize that their government's 
suppression of speech is the mark of totalitarianism. We are committed 
to pushing back on this administration's attempt to silence and 
suppress the American people.
  To those on the left, I would simply ask this: If you have to work 
this hard, if you have to use censorship, coercion, and suppression for 
your ideas to gain any traction, maybe you have bad ideas.
  Mr. BUCK. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. 
Tenney), a marine mom.
  Ms. TENNEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank all my colleagues, but 
unfortunately, this isn't a bipartisan group.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today with deep concern about the state of free 
and diverse speech in American public life.
  DIRECTV, as part of the extreme negotiation tactic, deplatformed 
Newsmax and silenced their unique perspective for over 13 million 
DIRECTV subscribers.
  This negotiation tactic is a clear example of political bias against 
conservative news outlets like Newsmax, and it is having a chilling 
effect on free speech and freedom of the press.
  Media outlets enjoy certain privileges as members of the fourth 
estate. Limiting free speech based on political views is against the 
spirit of the First Amendment and contrary to a country that celebrates 
and encourages the marketplace of ideas.
  As a former newspaper owner and publisher, I know what it means to 
represent all viewpoints in the media and to revere that marketplace of 
ideas. DIRECTV has a responsibility to reassure its customers and the 
American people that it is not silencing Newsmax for political reasons.
  I ask, and all of us are asking, that DIRECTV immediately come to the 
negotiation table with Newsmax and end this disruption of access rooted 
in political bias.
  Mr. Speaker, I thank, again, my colleagues and everyone standing up 
for this. I just hope that everyone on both sides of the aisle, with 
all viewpoints, would stand up and fight on behalf of all of us who are 
now not getting a robust debate as promised by the spirit of our 
Founders.
  Mr. BUCK. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania 
(Mr. Meuser), whose district borders the sweetest place on Earth, 
Hershey Park.
  Mr. MEUSER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague and friend, Mr. Buck, 
for his leadership on this issue. This is quite a somewhat disturbing 
issue, I think, to all of us, Republicans and Democrats.
  For the last 2 years, Americans have often been led to believe that 
anything they see and hear that does not comport with the stance of the 
Biden administration is somehow ``misinformation,'' whether it is 
criticism of COVID mandates, the fact that our border is not secure, or 
the authenticity of Hunter Biden's laptop.
  Thanks to the Twitter files, we know that social media companies 
actively exploited their ideology and suppressed speech with which they 
disagreed. Nice, in America.
  Two years ago, two of our Democrat colleagues sent letters to every 
cable and satellite provider calling conservative news channels FOX 
News, Newsmax, and One America News purveyors of disinformation and 
asked specifically: ``Are you planning to carry FOX News, Newsmax, both 
now and beyond any contract renewal date? If so, why?''
  Last year, DIRECTV announced that it was deplatforming One America 
News and just last week they deplatformed Newsmax.
  Over a million DIRECTV subscribers in Pennsylvania, hundreds of 
thousands in my district, no longer have access to Newsmax through 
their TV. Dozens and dozens of my constituents have written or called 
my office to voice their concern and anger about DIRECTV's actions to 
deplatform Newsmax. This is unacceptable.
  The Committee on Oversight and Accountability will be, I very much 
hope and will be supporting, investigating private companies that have 
circumvented the First Amendment for ideological purposes, and this  
investigation should not be limited to social media platforms alone.

  Mr. BUCK. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Utah (Mr. 
Owens), my good friend and a Super Bowl champion.
  Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend,   Ken Buck, a leading 
voice on demanding accountability from Big Tech and big media, for 
bringing us together tonight.
  I am here to speak against the censorship of conservative outlets by 
AT&T and DIRECTV.
  On April 16, 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr., was confined in a 
Birmingham, Alabama, jail. His crime? Fighting Jim Crow segregation and 
showing the injustice to the American people through peaceful, 
nonviolent protest.
  He shared his thoughts through a letter titled: ``Letter from 
Birmingham Jail.'' He gave millions of Americans the opportunity to 
read the thoughts of reason and one of faith in the Judeo-Christian 
values upon which our Nation was founded. Dr. King was someone who 
believed in the innate goodness of American's justice-seeking heart.
  He stated in that letter: ``Injustice anywhere in this country is 
injustice everywhere.''
  We see injustice in the canceling of conservative voices by board 
members and executives who cowardly hide in secret behind closed doors, 
using the power granted to them through the corporate name built by 
other American-loving business leaders. AT&T and DIRECTV have in the 
last 2 years deplatformed two very prominent and successful 
conservative platforms, OAN and Newsmax.
  The cancel culture is driven by the insecure, the weak, and the 
intellectually lazy who work in the shadows to control the American 
heart. This is because they feel inept and unable through meritocracy 
to compete and change the American heart.
  We are standing in Congress today to fight against injustice. It is 
an injustice that literally threatens our freedom. The power brokers of 
the early 1900s focused on controlling the marketplace of property, 
wealth, and industry. Today's power brokers are focused on controlling 
the marketplace of thoughts, ideas, and communication. In doing so, 
they steal the American people's opportunity for unity.

                              {time}  1900

  There will never be American unity without the freedom of speech, to 
be heard, and our thoughts to be judged by one another.
  Ignorant and free can never be. Those who seek to keep us ignorant, 
regardless of how powerful and popular they are, are not the friends of 
freedom. They are not friends of the American way.
  I call on all Americans to join us in this fight against censorship 
and preserve our freedom.
  Mr. BUCK. Mr. Speaker, I recognize the gentlewoman from Wyoming (Ms.

[[Page H564]]

Hageman), my neighbor to the north from the Yellowstone State.
  Ms. HAGEMAN. Mr. Speaker, in today's America, conservatives are 
constantly under attack. Attempts to silence us take many forms and are 
perpetuated by numerous people, agencies, and corporations.
  Conservatives are more often audited by the IRS, and conservative 
organizations are more often denied tax-exempt status than are 
liberals. This is an indisputable fact and has been happening at least 
since the Obama administration. This is, in part, the reason why voting 
to stop the hiring of 87,000 new IRS agents was so critical.
  Conservatives are more often investigated and harassed by the 
Department of Justice than are liberals. The DOJ has even gone so far 
as to seize the cell phone of a sitting Congressman. It has raided 
residents of conservatives, while ignoring liberals whose actions are 
far worse. It has aggressively advocated for holding right-leaning 
Americans in jail without due process.
  How many liberals have been banned or shadow-banned on Facebook, 
Twitter, Google, and other social and digital media sites. Scores of 
conservatives have been so banned, including our former President.
  How many times do we see the so-called ``fact checks'' on the social 
media posts of conservatives while never seeing them on the posts of 
liberals. These ``fact checks'' have covered such topics as COVID, 
climate change, gun rights, crime, and actions of protestors. The fact 
checks are dubious at best and downright dishonest at worst.
  Financial platforms such as PayPal, Venmo, and GoFundMe routinely 
refuse service to or censor conservatives. In the past year alone, 
GoFundMe has taken down fund-raisers for Kyle Rittenhouse, conservative 
students at Arizona State University, and from the freedom trucker 
convoy after having raised $9 million.
  Finally, just this last week, we saw that YouTube and Facebook have 
censored Project Veritas in some of the most important investigative 
research that we have seen come out of a media company.
  While all of this sounds like an impossibility to overcome, we must 
fight to end this bias. Through my assignments to the Judiciary 
Committee and the Select Committee on the Weaponization of the Federal 
Government, we will do exactly that.
  Mr. BUCK. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for her comments. I 
yield to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Gaetz), the best Florida 
podcaster from the Sunshine State.
  Mr. GAETZ. Mr. Speaker, does it feel sometimes like we are living in 
a crazy sci-fi movie where powerful entities and interests are trying 
to control what we see and what we hear and what we read? Because they 
ultimately want to dominate what we think and how we behave.
  My fellow Americans, there is a broad effort underway to deplatform, 
demonetize, and destroy anyone who has a conservative America First 
perspective. We have seen this with ``Newsmax,'' with ``One America 
News.'' We saw Google work to demonetize ``The Federalist'' and my 
question is this: When did we become so frail as a country? When did we 
take the position that if we saw something we didn't agree with that 
somehow that would dehumanize us and limit our ability to participate 
in meaningful dialogue? I think we became that frail when the left 
started to say that words were violence, which they are not.
  Speech is what liberates us from violence. It gives us an alternative 
path, but people get frustrated and concerned when they see that the 
choices that they want to make in telecommunications or the digital 
world are deemed unacceptable by the powers that be.
  When did this realignment happen? I remember when I was in school, it 
was always the liberals, the classical liberals that wanted this robust 
marketplace of ideas, and it was a few conservatives who didn't want 
you to see certain things or look at certain things or read certain 
things. Now it has like totally flipped the script because they have 
such a low view of our fellow Americans.
  So what are we going to do about it? The Energy and Commerce 
Committee should be holding hearings on this. The Department of Justice 
antitrust entities should be looking into whether or not this is too 
much of a concentration of power in entities like AT&T and DIRECTV that 
are stifling ``Newsmax'' and ``One America News'' and even Google's 
terrible work to try to demonetize ``The Federalist.''
  I also believe that in the House Judiciary Committee we should ask 
these questions seriously and encourage the Department of Justice to 
take action.
  By the way, if you are a shareholder out there in AT&T, I would 
encourage you to pursue a derivative suit. Why is it that some of these 
woketopians that sit on these boards in these senior leadership 
positions are devaluing the stock you own, limiting access to popular 
channels because they don't like the viewpoint? They don't like you, 
and they don't care about an America where the values that undergird 
the Constitution are more important than the terms of service that we 
see at Big Tech companies.
  I thank my colleague,   Ken Buck, for having led on these issues for 
many years. There is much work ahead for the Biden administration, for 
Article III courts, and for this very Congress.
  Mr. BUCK. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Florida. I yield to 
the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr.  Grothman).

  Mr. Grothman. Mr. Speaker, I am honored that Congressman Buck has 
asked me to be a speaker this evening as we defend the U.S. 
Constitution.
  Our U.S. Constitution is under attack like never before. I am not 
talking about the Second Amendment, which, of course, is disliked by so 
many people on the other side of the aisle. I am not talking about the 
right to a speedy trial, as we see in Washington, D.C., itself, people 
spending months and months in jail without ending their ordeal there.
  I am talking about the First Amendment. Throughout my life, the First 
Amendment is almost the amendment that would have been most unanimously 
agreed to. Nevertheless, in part, I assume, because of the popular 
culture and in part because of our educational system, we are in a 
situation in which the Pew Research Center found 76 percent of 
Democrats support tech companies censoring online.
  Even more amazing, 65 percent of the Democrats support censorship by 
the government. How in the world did such a large, important party in 
this country it become apparently the accepted view of the First 
Amendment to be that it is obsolete?
  Just last year, the then-chairman of the Intelligence Committee wrote 
to Meta, the parent company of Facebook, threatening congressional 
action if Facebook did not continue to censor conservative views and 
maintain bans on conservative figures, such as the former President. 
Can you imagine people in this body saying the way we are going to deal 
with political disagreements in the future is we are just going to 
censor one side?
  That is what is going on here.
  Their message is loud and clear: Get in line, or we are going to use 
the levers of government to silence you. It is a chilling message, 
reminiscent of the practice of communists in China or Russia or Cuba.
  It surprises me what open criticisms of the government you can find 
in Russia. In China, the Communist Party exercises complete control 
over the internet, restricting what its citizens can search for. It is 
hard to believe people in this country want this country to become more 
like China.
  It is not unfounded. You can even bleed into freedom of religion.
  In Canada, recent court rulings have held LGBTQ rights trump an 
individual's right to freedom of religion. Freedom of speech should be 
a given. Liberal college students when I was in college used to pride 
themselves on defending free speech.
  Look at Canada, censoring views that come from the Bible. In other 
words, censoring religion in Canada. That is what it is coming down to 
in our country.
  I thank my friend from Colorado for giving me an opportunity to 
defend the Constitution, and I hope anybody back home listening to this 
educates their children and grandchildren. We do not have the 
government censoring free speech.
  Mr. BUCK. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's passion. I yield 
to the

[[Page H565]]

gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Burchett), the gentleman from the 
Butternut State. That is a new one for me.
  Mr. BURCHETT. Mr. Speaker, I believe it is the Volunteer State. The 
Butternut State, I never heard that.
  Dadgummit, Mr. Speaker, here I am again bringing attention to yet 
another example of our woke telecom companies targeting conservative 
speech. I am very glad though that they did not censor my good friend 
Mr. Buck's new book ``Crushed,'' which is actually on the best seller 
list, I have heard. I am fired up about that, brother.
  DIRECTV, of course, is co-owned by AT&T and TPG, and they have taken 
``Newsmax'' off the air as we have heard.
  DIRECTV says this was purely a business decision, but nobody believes 
that, Mr. Speaker. Big media corporations don't exactly have the best 
record of protecting conservative speech.
  Last year, Democrats in Congress wrote letters to AT&T and other 
telecom companies demanding they deplatform ``Newsmax''--which is 
really just a fancy way of saying we are going to deny your First 
Amendment rights, Mr. Speaker--along with ``Fox News'' and ``One 
America News'' because of so-called disinformation.
  After these letters were sent, DIRECTV dropped ``One America News,'' 
and now it appears to be doing the same thing to ``Newsmax.''
  This fits a disturbing pattern, Mr. Speaker, of these woke 
corporations using their market dominance to censor conservative 
networks to appease Washington politicians and further their demands on 
woketopia.
  After receiving lots of criticism from the American people about this 
decision, DIRECTV announced it would launch a new conservative network. 
That is great, but it is still not an excuse for deplatforming another 
popular network, Mr. Speaker.
  Our country was built on freedom of speech, and Americans benefit 
from having access to a wide range of viewpoints, not just the ones 
approved by the liberal Democrats.

  Mr. Speaker, one day they will be coming after the liberal media, and 
then it will be too dadgum late.
  Mr. BUCK. Mr. Speaker, if the stenographer needs help with dadgummit, 
we will try to get a spelling for her on that.
  I yield to the gentlewoman from Colorado (Mrs. Boebert). She is from 
my home State, and she is a young person who has set this place on fire 
since she has been here.
  Mrs. BOEBERT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I 
have not literally lit this place on fire.
  At midnight Tuesday, January 24, 2023, ``Newsmax'' was removed from 
DIRECTV, DIRECTV STREAM, and U-verse, denying 13 million customers this 
highly rated news channel.
  This is not the first time that we have seen this, and I am afraid 
that it won't be the last time that we are seeing this here in our 
great country. OAN was deplatformed by DIRECTV in April of 2022.
  So what is next? FOX News? Will The Weather Channel be canceled next 
if they refuse to bow to the left's altar of climate change? What about 
The History Channel? We see on a regular basis the left wants to erase 
history and deny truth. How about TBN? There has definitely been an 
increase in disdain and intolerance by many liberals for Christian 
beliefs, simply by saying we love Jesus. So is TBN next?
  Americans are tired of cancel culture. Conservatives are not being 
treated fairly. We are the ones who are censored by Big Tech. We are 
the ones targeted and called domestic terrorists when moms and dads 
show up at school board meetings.
  We are the ones targeted by the IRS because our organizations have 
the word ``patriot'' in their name.

                              {time}  1915

  Mr. Speaker, if you are a conservative pastor, the government 
persecutes you. If you are a liberal pastor, Joe Biden shows up to your 
church, whether he realizes he is there or not.
  Yet, now we are faced with Newsmax, a conservative news organization 
followed and watched, again, by millions of Americans, and it has been 
removed from DIRECTV. Newsmax is the fourth most watched news channel, 
but they have been removed for hyperpolitical reasons.
  What can be done? I have been asked time and time again: What do we 
do to rein in the censorship and the oppression of conservatives 
because free and open speech is worth fighting for?
  The First Amendment in our Constitution defends our freedom of 
speech. That is something that we will continue to pursue, to preserve, 
and to never let the left take away from us entirely. So, here is where 
we will start.
  AT&T: As long as you continue to censor conservatives and attack the 
press, I will make it my personal mission to strip the wasteful, 
ridiculous Federal subsidies you receive.
  To AT&T, DIRECTV, and all the woke corporations: This isn't a threat. 
It is absolutely a promise. If you continue to stifle free speech in 
this great country and muzzle the press corps, Congress will have no 
choice but to hold you accountable. I promise you that my colleagues 
and I are happy to take you on to preserve free speech for all 
Americans.
  Mr. Speaker, I thank Congressman Buck for organizing this tonight. I 
thank the gentleman for being a defender of free speech from the 
censorship that is going on. I thank the gentleman for fighting against 
that.
  Mr. BUCK. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman and wish her safe 
travels back to our great State.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Burlison), 
who is a hunter, a fisherman, and a great American.
  Mr. BURLISON. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Colorado (Mr. Buck) 
for yielding.
  I am from Missouri, the Show Me State, and the home of Harry Truman, 
who said: ``Once a government is committed to the principle of 
silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that 
is down the path of increasingly repressive measures until it becomes a 
source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where 
everyone lives in fear.''
  This sounds like a nation that we see with China or Russia. Sadly, it 
is something that could happen in the United States if we are not 
vigilant here.
  The First Amendment is this country's foundation. The diverse and 
competitive marketplace of ideas is the heartbeat that keeps this 
Republic alive. People need to be able to debate and to be able to 
challenge one another.
  Yes, free speech means that people have the right to sometimes be 
wrong. Yet, over the last few years, we in the United States have ceded 
power as a Federal Government to Big Tech and Big Tech entities. We 
have executives from San Francisco to New York who have crowned 
themselves the free speech police for the rest of our Nation.
  When Elon Musk purchased Twitter last year, he took a great step in 
the right direction by allowing an independent journalist to review the 
company's records, and their findings are now what we call the Twitter 
files.
  It has confirmed what conservatives nationwide already knew what was 
going on, that Big Tech and Big Government were working together with 
the left to silence conservative views and voices and to relegate them 
to being a second-class citizen.
  In one instance, the reporter found that Twitter censored the Hunter 
Biden laptop scandal in the middle of the Presidential election. Bari 
Weiss revealed that Twitter was, indeed, silencing conservative voices 
and shadow banning individuals. Perhaps what was most disturbing was 
that the FBI gave Twitter a list of accounts to shut down.
  It doesn't stop there. Last year the DHS, our own Federal Government, 
tried to set up its own disinformation board. We see entities and 
businesses that the Federal Government has given special privileges to 
provide over-the-air television, cable television, right-of-way to 
deliver entertainment to the homes of individuals across America. These 
companies choose to silence conservative speech by first deplatforming 
and eliminating One America News Network and now going after Newsmax.
  There is a famous quote about what happened during the Holocaust when 
the Nazis first came for some individuals and people said nothing. 
Then, eventually, they will come for you.

[[Page H566]]

  I say this not as a Republican or a Missourian but as a concerned 
citizen for a country that has these rights that were here because of 
the blood that was shed by thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of 
patriots from the time of the American Revolution until today, who 
fought and died so that you and I would have free speech. We must fight 
all the attacks against the First Amendment and uphold the values that 
make this country so very special.
  Mr. BUCK. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his remarks, and I 
thank all 18 of our speakers. All 18 felt so strongly that they came 
here during their evening and dedicated themselves to making sure that 
a message was heard in America, a message that we will not tolerate 
censorship in this country and that we will not tolerate the left. 
Whether it owns a corporation or whether it is colluding with the 
government, we will not tolerate the unacceptable behavior of taking 
news shows off just because they reflect a conservative viewpoint.
  Mr. Speaker, I must say that many of the speakers today, many of the 
Members of Congress who spoke, made it absolutely clear that they are 
going to dedicate time, energy, and staff resources to make sure that 
we look into this further.
  Mr. Speaker, I appreciate your patience and the patience of the staff 
here. I very much appreciate being able to speak directly to the 
American people.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________