{"id":1370914,"date":"2022-03-11T08:35:52","date_gmt":"2022-03-11T13:35:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1370914"},"modified":"2022-03-11T08:35:56","modified_gmt":"2022-03-11T13:35:56","slug":"exclusive-house-republican-leaders-send-letter-to-surgeon-general-over-big-tech-censorship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/exclusive-house-republican-leaders-send-letter-to-surgeon-general-over-big-tech-censorship\/","title":{"rendered":"Exclusive: House Republican Leaders Send Letter to Surgeon General over Big Tech Censorship"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">26<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fexclusive-house-republican-leaders-send-letter-to-surgeon-general-over-big-tech-censorship%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1370914&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p class=\"subheading\">A group of House Republican ranking members sent a letter exclusively obtained by Breitbart News to U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy over growing concern that the Biden administration is\u00a0pressuring Big Tech to censor Americans online.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe write with significant concerns that the Biden Administration continues to undermine the First Amendment by pressuring technology companies to censor specific users and certain speech,\u201d the group of Republicans <a href=\"https:\/\/republicans-energycommerce.house.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/3.11.22-Letter-to-Surgeon-General-Murthy-Final.pdf\">wrote<\/a> in the letter to Murthy.\u00a0\u201cThe First Amendment prohibits the government from directly censoring speech it finds objectionable.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"D-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"gmxrevmore\" class=\"H\"><\/figure>\n<p>The group of Republicans consists of House Energy and Commerce Committee\u00a0Ranking Member Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), House Minority Whip and Select Committee on the Coronavirus Crisis Ranking Member Steve Scalise (R-LA), Judiciary Committee\u00a0Ranking Member Jim Jordan (R-OH), and Oversight and Reform\u00a0Committee\u00a0Ranking Member James Comer (R-KY).<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_15772834\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/media.breitbart.com\/media\/2021\/02\/Kathy-McMorris-Rogers.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) attends a House Energy and Commerce Environment and Climate Change Subcommittee hearing on Capitol Hill on April 2, 2019, in Washington, DC. (Photo by Zach Gibson\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u201cThe Biden Administration continues to attack our fundamental right to free speech as they collude with Big Tech to carry out their censorship campaign,\u201d\u00a0McMorris Rodgers told Breitbart News as part of their reasoning for sending the letter. \u201cThis is the type of behavior we would expect from an authoritarian dictator, not a sitting U.S. President and his Surgeon General.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The group added that Biden\u00a0administration officials continue to pressure private Big Tech\u00a0companies to do what the administration is unable to do \u2014 censor Americans \u2014 expressing that the administration\u2019s\u00a0intimidation practice, also known as \u201cjawboning,\u201d could be considered\u00a0unconstitutional behavior.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B2\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cIn <em>Bantam Books v. Sullivan, <\/em>the Supreme Court held that a government agency violated the First Amendment by sending letters to private booksellers to \u2018inform\u2019 them they were selling books and magazines the agency found objectionable,\u201d the lawmakers explained. \u201cThe agency\u2019s letters thanked the booksellers for their \u2018anticipated cooperation\u2019 and reminded them of the agency\u2019s duty to recommend prosecutions.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Court found that such behavior amounted to \u2018informal censorship\u2019 because the effect of the letters was to intimidate the booksellers into suppressing the sale of the certain books and magazines,\u201d they continued. \u201cThe Court found that such behavior amounted to an unconstitutional \u2018scheme of state censorship.\u2019 Here, the Biden Administration appears to be engaged in similar behavior.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The group, in the letter, laid out what they believe to be similar\u00a0behavior by the Biden administration:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>On July 15, 2021, you issued a Surgeon General Advisory on \u201chealth misinformation\u201d in which you demanded \u201ctech and social media companies must do more to address\u201d perceived health misinformation.\u00a0At a press conference that same day, you decried technology companies facing \u201clittle accountability\u201d for the spread of health misinformation.\u00a0At the same press conference, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki disclosed that your office is monitoring content on technology platforms and that the Administration has been in \u201cregular touch with\u201d social media platforms to pressure them to \u201cmove more quickly to remove harmful, violative posts.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Additionally, on February 1, 2022, Press Secretary Psaki applauded Spotify for adding Disclaimers to certain episodes of <em>The Joe Rogan Experience<\/em>, but implicitly suggested Spotify deplatform Joe Rogan by demanding \u201cmore . . . be done.\u201d\u00a0Subsequently, on March 3, 2022, you formally requested that technology companies submit information about COVID-19 misinformation.\u00a0You demanded information about the \u201cCOVID-19 misinformation policies on individual technology platforms\u201d and, even more alarming, specific information about individuals who are considered to be \u201csources of COVID-19 misinformation.\u201d\u00a0Your objective is clear: ensure private actors implement policies that censor certain speech and silence certain individuals.<\/p>\n<p>Similar to the \u201cinformal censorship\u201d in <em>Sullivan<\/em>, the Biden Administration continues to pressure private actors to censor speech it finds objectionable. Like the implicit threat of prosecution in <em>Sullivan<\/em>, you have suggested accountability is needed and Press Secretary Psaki has demanded \u201cmore . . . be done\u201d about Joe Rogan. Your most recent action is even more appalling. To demand information about Americans engaged in \u201cwrongthink\u201d and ask that private actors identify individuals who the government considers to be a \u201csource[s] of COVID-19 misinformation\u201d is un-American and an affront to free speech and expression. It seems the Biden Administration may be engaged in its own \u201cscheme of state censorship.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<div id=\"attachment_16731608\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/GettyImages-1231107184.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-16731608\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/GettyImages-1231107184.png\" alt=\"White House Chief Medical Adviser on Covid-19 Dr. Anthony Fauci (C) looks on as US President Joe Biden (L) tours the Viral Pathogenesis Laboratory at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland, February 11, 2021. (Photo by SAUL LOEB \/ AFP) (Photo by SAUL LOEB\/AFP via Getty Images)\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">White House Chief Medical Adviser on Covid-19 Dr. Anthony Fauci looks on as President Joe Biden tours the Viral Pathogenesis Laboratory at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland, February 11, 2021. (Photo by SAUL LOEB\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>The four ranking Republicans stated that, as defenders of free speech, they are \u201cdeeply troubled\u201d by the efforts of the administration to silence Americans and by Murthy\u2019s\u00a0\u201cspecific role\u201d in the\u00a0administration\u2019s attempt to suppress \u201cfree speech and expression under the guise of \u2018public health.&#8217;\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUnfortunately, Big Tech has shown it is willing to do the bidding of the Democrats, which makes your ongoing pressure campaign even more alarming,\u201d they added, asking him to respond to a series of questions that they want to be answered.<\/p>\n<p><i>Jacob Bliss is a reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow him on <\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/jacobmbliss\"><i>Twitter<\/i><\/a><i>.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A group of House Republican ranking members sent a letter exclusively obtained by Breitbart News to U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy over growing concern that the Biden administration is\u00a0pressuring Big<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1370914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1370914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1370914"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1370914\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1370914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1370914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1370914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}