Posted on 10/23/2019 9:08:19 AM PDT by LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget
The House will vote today on the SHIELD Act, a Democrat-led and misguided effort to deter foreign interference in American elections. While both parties agree that foreign interference, especially online, was a serious issue in the 2016 election, in fact, the GOP has its own bill, this Democratic effort fails in two major ways. First, it threatens First Amendment protections on free political speech, and second, it fails to address the major issue in 2016 interference. Free Speech Limitations
One of the major problems with the SHEILD Act regarding free speech is a provision that allows the federal government to determine what is and is not “legitimate journalistic activities” for the purposes of protecting them from the provisions of the act. The obvious problem with this is that should the federal government decide a journalistic activity is not legitimate, it will have broad powers to silence it.
In addition to this concern, the bill creates a wide array of hoops for United States citizens wishing to engage in political speech to jump through. By making it more difficult to purchase online ads, the bill threatens to chill speech. Regular Americans should not fear federal prosecution for engaging in the political process.
It is not only the GOP that opposes these illiberal elements of the bill, and the bill itself, but also the ACLU, which in a statement said, “The SHIELD Act, as it currently stands, strikes the wrong balance, sweeping too broadly and encompassing more speech than necessary to achieve its legitimate goals.” Addressing The Wrong Problem
Much of the bill reads like a fantasy recap of what Democrats want to believe happened in 2016. It focuses on communications and interactions between foreign individuals and American political campaigns. Not only are many of these provisions redundant and needless, they also fail to strike at the root of Russian (and other nations’) interference in our elections, the bulk of which come via free social media platforms.
Russia spent very little money actually buying ads on social media platforms, the vast majority of its effort, which may have reached more than 100 million Americans was directed toward a social media presence that was free. They created vast troll farms of users who studied and mimicked American social media users to create discord on platforms.
The effort was alarmingly successful, sometimes even leading to “in real life” events organized by followers of the fake accounts. According to the Mueller report, it also led several media outlets to report on these fake, often offensive accounts, as if they came from regular Americans. Unfortunately, unlike the GOP bill that lays out punishments for foreign governments that engage in these activities, the SHIELD Act does nothing to deter them.
The Democratic bill frankly looks like a rehashing of the collapsed allegation of collusion against the Trump campaign. In short, it is a solution to something that we now know was not the problem. The House should go back to the drawing board and pass a bill that contains measures that can actually make a difference, or simply pass the Republican bill.
As it stands, the badly flawed SHIELD Act looks to be playing politics while stripping Americans of speech rights, more than it looks to actually protect American elections.
“was a serious issue in the 2016 election”
Only if you consider Mexican interference in our elections.
All the other attempts were insignificant.
This tripe comes from the Federalist?
Looks like they’re parroting the party line now too.
They say "the government" but the mean "the Democrats". If Trump were to try to exercise this kind of power it would be an impeachable offense, even if he strictly adhered to the letter of the law.
DOA
EVERYTHING the Democrats pass in the HOUSE should be DOA until the impeachment nonsense ends.
The DemonRat agenda is simple—silence all those who oppose them.
Full stop.
It is up to each voter to determine what does or does not make sense, what is or is not beleivable, what is truly actionable and what is is suspicious.
That is the very essence of the market place of ideas.
Freedom of the press is not about protecting journalism, it's about protecting the right of the people to publish. Journalism is but one form of publication, and anyone can publish "news" if they wish.
What happens when "journalism" is petitioning the government for a redress of grievances? Will the government try to shut that down?
-PJ
First of all foreign interference in the 2016 was of no consequence. All the KGB facebook and twitter propaganda they could create wasn't a drop in the torrent of noise produced by citizens. The "issue" was an hotly debated issue, but it wan't serious. It was a lame demented joke and a scam.
Your demand for 2nd amendment rights is due to foreign agitation, we assert, and therefore you demand is fake news, we deem. Begone you proxy for a foreign agitator, spawn of Putin. WE are a DEMOCRACY.
-PJ
Was the “democrats’” SHIELD act written in German, Russian or Chinese?
Was the “democrats’” SHIELD act written in German, Russian or Chinese?
What a bunch of BS. The Russians spent about $4,000 on a few Facebook ads that probably few people saw.
The Party of Hate, Violence, and Evil wants a totalitarian government controlling everything, especially the press. That's what they had under Hitler and Stalin. Democrats can't wait to go back to that.
It's spelled P-R-A-V-D-A!!!
Started with NDAA in 2016:
Scumbag rats
No free speech for you!
It’s parody PJ.
Is your answer supposed to be parody? I thought The Federalist is a straight-news site.
If your answer is parody, was it directed at what I wrote?
-PJ
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