Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I rise today not in defense of TikTok but in defense of TikTok's users, especially the 170 million American users. Congress is rapidly heading towards passing legislation that will likely result in the blocking of the most popular application among young people in this country--an app whose fundamental purpose is to facilitate and promote speech; an app that has revolutionized how people connect, share, do business, and communicate online; an app that is bringing competition to the heavily concentrated social media market. It should be a serious flag that a bill with such significant implications for freedom of speech and online competition has gone from being an idea in the House of Representatives to all of a sudden being passed on the floor of the Senate in a matter of weeks, just weeks. So when political elites who otherwise fiercely disagree with each other come together to pass legislation that may result in significant censorship--yes, censorship--often in the name of national security, we should be hypervigilant about the true intentions of this legislation. Episodes in history of using national security as a pretext to crack down on dissenting or unpopular speech loom as warnings about the ease of compromising our values when national security is supposedly at stake. I want to be clear. I rise today on this greatest of debate floors not to defend TikTok. I don't deny that TikTok poses some national security risks.…”