The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) has become a censorship battleground, with reports that Democrats in the Senate may attempt to add provisions that would make it easier for the federal government to control online speech, after Republicans in the House passed a version of the bill that would make it harder.
Breitbart News previously reported that Rep. Rich McCormick (R-GA) successfully amended the NDAA to prevent the military from funding efforts to censor American citizens.
The McCormick amendment covers organizations like NewsGuard and the Global Disinformation Index (GDI), which facilitate the financial blacklisting of conservative news through their advice to advertisers. The amendment also forbids the military from working with such organizations, along with any advertising agency that makes use of their services.
Rep. Rich McCormick (R-GA) (Bill Clark/Getty)
The House’s version of the NDAA, which contains Rep. McCormick’s amendment, was recently passed. But while Republicans seek to reduce the U.S. government’s ability to censor Americans, it seems Democrats in the Senate are still intent on increasing it.
Per reports, Sen. Mark Warner (R-VA) is attempting to add the RESTRICT Act, which died amid bipartisan condemnation over the heavy-handed censorship powers it granted to the government, to the NDAA.
Reuters is reporting that Democrat Senator Mark Warner is trying to revive the anti-free speech RESTRICT Act and sneak it into the NDAA. As Tucker explained, the bill would lead to mass censorship online. Republicans need to stand strong against it!pic.twitter.com/4pOp75JW7b
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) July 12, 2023
Pitched to Republican voters and lawmakers as a “TikTok ban” aimed at containing Chinese influencer, the RESTRICT Act would have enabled draconian punishments for Americans.
As Breitbart News reported at the time:
The bill has been revealed as something far more expansive that a mere TikTok ban. It grants sweeping powers to the federal government to restrict the online activities of Americans, imposing heavy penalties on any citizen who circumvents it, including criminal fines of up to $1 million, jail sentences of up to 20 years, and the seizure and search of hardware and online accounts, including cryptocurrency accounts.
Fox News host Tucker Carlson eviscerated the bill in a segment this week, saying: “This bill isn’t about banning TikTok. It’s never about what they say it is. Instead, this bill would give enormous and terrifying new powers to the federal government to punish American citizens and regulate how they communicate with one another.”
Other Democrat priorities were revealed in last year’s NDAA battle, when the party unsuccessfully attempted to include the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA), a bailout bill for big media corporations that would have enabled greater collusion between the media and tech companies.
Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News. He is the author of #DELETED: Big Tech’s Battle to Erase the Trump Movement and Steal The Election. Follow him on Twitter @AllumBokhari.