[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 2]
[House]
[Pages 2392-2393]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




              TWITTER AND FOREIGN TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. Poe) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. POE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, this week we learned that three 
British school girls between the ages of 15 and 16 left their families 
and have gone to fight with ISIS in Syria.
  How were they recruited to join? Well, apparently through social 
media. And they are not alone. Terrorists have used Twitter to 
radicalize thousands of young impressionable minds throughout the world 
and recruit new jihadists. They have also used it as a way to fundraise 
millions of dollars for their reign of terror. ISIS also uses Twitter 
to broadcast its barbaric acts and propaganda to the world.
  On February 3, ISIS tweeted a video of its evil, horrific burning of 
a captured Jordanian pilot. Last August, when ISIS released a gruesome 
beheading of American journalist James Foley, it did so on, yes, 
Twitter. There are many more examples.

[[Page 2393]]

  All of these groups--ISIS, AQAP, AQIM--are officially listed as 
designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations by our government. Federal 
law prohibits giving aid or helping a designated Foreign Terrorist 
Organization. These FTOs use Twitter, an American company, as a tool, 
and no one is stopping them.
  Why are American companies and the U.S. Government allowing social 
media platforms to be hijacked by terrorists? Some suggest that if the 
U.S. Government were to shut down terrorists' social media accounts, 
such measures would be violating terrorists' free speech rights. They 
are wrong. There are no constitutional protections to those who incite 
violence. No one supports the Bill of Rights more than I do, but free 
speech has its limitations, just as there are no constitutional 
protections for child pornography.
  Terrorists should not have access to an American-controlled social 
media platform so they can kill, rape, pillage, and burn. There is 
precedence for this position. The Supreme Court has already ruled and 
held in the case of Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project that if someone 
has aided a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization, they do not have 
constitutional protections of free speech.
  Twitter has argued that the Feds do not want the terrorists' Twitter 
accounts taken down because they, the Feds, want to track the bad guys. 
However, keeping these Twitter accounts up has neither stopped nor 
slowed the terrorists' recruitment, propaganda, calls for violence, or 
fundraising efforts. Instead, allowing the terrorists to continue using 
Twitter has helped radicalize hundreds of foreign fighters and raised 
millions of dollars for them.
  The sad reality is that today, there are more terrorists using social 
media than ever before. Private American companies should not be 
operating as the propaganda mouthpiece of designated foreign terrorist 
organizations.
  Mr. Speaker, during World War II, we never would have allowed 
America's foreign enemies to take out ads in The New York Times 
recruiting Americans to join the Nazis and go abroad and fight and kill 
Americans. Today is no different. Social media companies need to do 
more. Private companies not only have a public responsibility but a 
legal obligation to be proactive.
  Section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act states that it is 
unlawful to provide a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization--like 
ISIS--with ``material support or resources,'' including ``any property, 
tangible or intangible, or services.'' That is about as comprehensive 
as you can get. You don't need to be a law school professor to 
understand this law actually applies to Twitter.
  It is mind-boggling to think that those who behead and burn others 
alive are able to use our own companies against us to further their 
cause. This is nutty. But that is exactly what is occurring. As a 
result, there are more than 15,000 foreign fighters, many of whom have 
been radicalized online, now fighting in Iraq and Syria. That is more 
than there were in the 14 years of war in Afghanistan.
  Designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations should not be allowed to 
use private American companies to reach billions of people with their 
violent hate propaganda and recruitment. It is time to put a stop to 
this. It is time for Twitter to take down terrorists' accounts.
  And that is just the way it is.

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