Political Quotes

“This bill purports to protect free speech from government censorship. I agree, it is a great idea. It is such a good idea, in fact, that the Founding Fathers put it in the Constitution. It is called the First Amendment. We don't need a new bill to protect free speech because that is currently the law of the land, so we must ask ourselves: What is the point of this bill? As our esteemed ranking member observed last night, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping probably don't make a habit of watching congressional proceedings, but we are willing to bet that this floor debate is of keen interest to Russian and Chinese agents bent on destabilizing our democracy and influencing our elections to serve their interests. H.R. 140 would effectively allow these and other foreign malign actors--who have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into online propaganda to create chaos, mistrust, hate, and confusion for Americans--to continue using social media platforms unfettered to wreak havoc on our democratic institutions, including the integrity of our elections. It would do so by undermining the only defense that we have against these operations, which is the ability of our national security, intelligence, and law enforcement agencies to warn social media platforms and the public about the deployment of counterfeit accounts, disinformation, and cyber surveillance by malign actors.…”