[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 11]
[House]
[Pages 15403-15404]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        ATF CENSORS FREE SPEECH

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. Poe) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. POE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, as we continue to talk and discuss and 
debate the issues of the debt ceiling, of the continuing resolution, 
there are still things taking place in government. Some of them aren't 
so good.
  Just to give a little background, which you are certainly aware of, 
we have our Constitution with the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights is 
a section in the Constitution that protects citizens from government 
abuses.
  The First Amendment is first because it contains the most important 
rights. If those rights are abridged, the rest of the Bill of Rights--
to me--is meaningless, and we all know that two of those provisions 
have to do with the freedom of speech and the freedom of press. We 
traditionally honor those because they are so important.
  Historically, the most controversial of all speech and press was 
political speech and religious speech. Those are especially protected 
in the First Amendment, and there are historical reasons for that. The 
colonists, our forefathers, they were an ornery bunch, and they were 
constantly hammering, through the press and through speech, King George 
III, Great Britain, and their abuses on individuals in the Colonies--
and rightfully so.
  Therefore, when our Constitution was written and the Bill of Rights 
was written, we wanted to ensure that, under our philosophy and under 
our democracy in the United States, freedom of speech, and freedom of 
press were protected.
  Over the years, the Supreme Court has ruled on free speech and press 
cases; but they have gradually limited

[[Page 15404]]

speech, which is another issue. The prevailing rule is that, if there's 
a compelling State interest--whatever that means--and we'll talk about 
that some other time--then speech can be prohibited. Never mind, Mr. 
Speaker, the First Amendment doesn't say anything about limiting speech 
when there's a compelling State interest.
  But the Supreme Court said, if there's a compelling State interest, 
speech can be limited, and, of course, the Supreme Court decides what 
that compelling State interest is.
  There are also two types of punishment for speech. One is censorship, 
which is the most egregious. That is to prevent someone from saying 
something or publishing something. Then there's the other type of 
punishment for speech, after the speech is made. Then there is 
punishment sometimes for what is said, such as a threat or yelling 
``fire'' in a crowded theater. But the most egregious is preventing 
someone from saying something or printing something or publishing 
something. That is censorship.
  So that brings us to what is taking place. We've all heard of Fast 
and Furious. That's the situation where our government sent guns to 
Mexico under the theory that they're going to track the guns. Americans 
were killed; Mexican nationals were killed. We're over in court because 
Eric Holder won't give us information about Fast and Furious. Now one 
of the ATF agents wants to publish a book, called, ``The Unarmed 
Truth,'' and it's about Fast and Furious. He is an agent in the ATF and 
whistleblower.
  The ATF has a policy that says, Well, we, the ATF, decide whether 
someone in our organization is allowed to publish or have some type of 
outside employment, and we use our own discretion. It's just up to us. 
We don't have any policy rules. We just arbitrarily decide. And they 
have decided that because Dodson wants to publish this on his own time, 
not on company time, or government time--he went and tried to get 
permission--they said, You can't publish that book. Here's the reason 
he was given, Mr. Speaker. The reason given to him was, well, it might 
hurt the morale in the ATF.
  Now, do you think that's a compelling State interest to prevent a 
person from printing something and violating his right of free speech 
because the government says it might hurt the morale in the ATF?
  Absolutely not. You've got somebody that wants to tell the truth 
about the ATF, and it's a violation of his constitutional right not to 
be able to discuss openly what took place. It's a denial of the First 
Amendment freedom of speech. It is a denial of freedom of press.
  These individuals of the ATF, censor police, ought to be furloughed. 
They ought to be sequestered, specifically those that are denying the 
freedom of press, the freedom of speech to someone who just wants to 
talk about what took place in the ATF. This ought not to be, but that's 
what has taken place by the ATF coverup squad. Unchain the freedom of 
speech and press.
  And that's just the way it is.

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