McCAUGHEY: The biggest issue in this election

Published Sep 04, 2024  •  3 minute read

This combination of photos shows Vice President Kamala Harris, left, on Aug. 7, 2024 and Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump on July 31, 2024. Photo by Charles Rex Arbogast /THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Free speech is under attack across the globe. Last week, a Brazilian judge shut down X for refusing to obey government censorship demands, France arrested Pavel Durov, CEO of the unregulated app Telegram, and a Hong Kong court convicted two journalists of sedition for publishing material critical of the government.

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The U.S. is the next front in the battle over free speech. Voters here must decide if they want the government to limit what they can hear and read, the scientific information they can get and the political views they’re exposed to. That’s Vice President Kamala Harris’ definition of “freedom.”

Harris claims she’s campaigning for freedom, but her track record shows she’s the enemy of the most important freedom — free speech. She uses government power to muzzle those who disagree with her.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s letter to the House Judiciary Committee last Monday should serve as a red flag to everyone who values freedom. Better late than never, Zuckerberg called it “wrong” for the Biden-Harris administration to strongarm Facebook to take down postings indicating masks don’t work and COVID-19 vaccines might produce side effects. “I regret we were not more outspoken about it,” Zuckerberg wrote.

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Zuckerberg’s letter confirms evidence already presented to the U.S. Supreme Court and in congressional testimony showing that the Biden-Harris administration repeatedly pressured social media companies to censor — getting them to do the dirty work the First Amendment prohibits the government from doing directly.

Three days after Zuckerberg’s letter made headlines, CNN’s Dana Bash interviewed Harris but never asked about her role in censoring social media. That’s journalistic malpractice.

She did tell Bash that her “values haven’t changed.” That’s for sure.

Harris chose as her deputy campaign manager Rob Flaherty, who was formerly the White House director of digital strategy — the person who called the shots about what got censored. Promoting Flaherty is another red flag that your freedom will be snuffed out in a Harris/Walz administration.

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Elon Musk, CEO of X, isn’t mincing words about the threat Harris poses to free speech.

On Friday, Brazilian Judge Alexandre de Moraes shut down X, imposing fines on anyone there who tries to use the platform. The judge’s rationale will sound frighteningly familiar — to protect democracy. In 2022, Moraes was given sweeping powers to take down “disinformation” about the outcome of a highly contested presidential election there. Musk had repeatedly flouted Moraes’ censorship commands.

After the shutdown Friday, Musk issued a warning to Americans: “The attacks this year on free speech are unprecedented in the 21st century. It will happen in America too if Kamala/Walz gain power.”

Moraes’ justification for shutting down X is identical to what Harris has said to defend censorship. In 2019, as California attorney general, she wrote to then-Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, asking him to deplatform then-President Donald Trump. When CNN’s Jake Tapper asked her if that would violate the First Amendment and lead to a slippery slope with half the nation eventually getting censored, Harris doubled down, insisting censorship is necessary to defend democracy from those who spread “misinformation.”

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That’s the vernacular of tyrants. And what about her deeds?

In 2016, as California attorney general, she tried to enforce a state law compelling religious pregnancy centers to post information offering state-funded abortions. In short, compelling the centres to advertise what violates their beliefs. Harris defended the law in federal court, but ultimately the Supreme Court ruled against it.

In another unsuccessful end run around the First Amendment, Harris tried to compel conservative nonprofits in California to release their donors’ names, but the Supreme Court ruled her demand an unconstitutional intimidation of donors, violating their First Amendment rights. Even the usually ultraliberal American Civil Liberties Union opposed Harris’ demand.

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Harris has been an enemy of the First Amendment throughout her career.

On Aug. 18, as he suspended his campaign, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. assessed Biden-Harris, warning that “what alarms me is the resort to censorship, media control, and weaponization of the federal agencies,” which he called “an attack on our most sacred right of free expression.”

Zuckerberg, Musk and Kennedy — unlikely bedfellows but all identifying the same danger.

Trump pledges to end government censorship. Harris is promising a $6,000 handout to new parents for “a crib, car seat, and baby clothes.”

Don’t sell out your children’s freedom.

Betsy McCaughey is a former lieutenant governor of New York and chairman of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths.

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