Political Quotes

“My esteemed colleague from North Carolina says that lawful speech on the internet should never be prohibited by Federal agencies, by the government. We agree. It is called the First Amendment. It has existed long before H.R. 140 was written. What H.R. 140 does and what this amendment does even further is it makes it impossible for unlawful speech to actually be policed. What the private companies do not have is access to the intelligence agency information, national security information, law enforcement information that can determine whether or not the speech that is on the internet is being used in furtherance of crimes or is in and of itself a crime. They recognize this because there is an exception. There is an exception to this prohibition on law enforcement agencies or Federal Government agencies from actually communicating with social media. There is an exception for child pornography, human trafficking, and drug trafficking. I gather this amendment also deals with obscenity, but I think it is trying to close this loophole. Clearly, there is a recognition that law enforcement needs to coordinate to some degree with our social media sites. What this law does is that, but for those very narrow categories, law enforcement has to wait 72 hours. Everything is around the internet and over again many times within 72 hours. It is an exception that eats the rule. There is no way that law enforcement can do its job because of this bill.…”