Opinion
Judge Andrew P. Napolitano: Can Congress Ban TikTok?
From Heartland Daily News
“Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech.”
–First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
When James Madison set about to draft the Bill of Rights — the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution — he was articulating what lawyers and philosophers and judges call “negative rights.” A positive right grants a privilege, like a driver’s license. A negative right restrains the government from interfering with a preexisting right. In order to emphasize his view that the freedom of speech preexisted the government, Madison insisted that the word “the” precede “freedom of speech” in the First Amendment.
If the freedom of speech preceded the government, where did it come from?
Speech is a natural right; it comes from our humanity. The framers of the Constitution and the ratifiers of the Bill of Rights understood and recognized this. Congress doesn’t grant the freedom of speech; rather it is prohibited absolutely from interfering with it. In the years following the ratification of the 14th Amendment, the courts began applying the restrictions in the First Amendment to the states and their municipalities and subdivisions.
Today, the First Amendment bars all government — federal, state and local — and all branches of government — legislative, executive and judicial — from interfering with the freedom of speech.
You’d never know this listening to Congress today. The same Congress that can’t balance a budget or count the number of foreign military bases the feds own, that thinks it can right any wrong and tax any event, that has borrowed over $34 trillion and not paid back any of it; the same Congress now wants to give the President of the United States — whomever might occupy that office — the lawful power to suppress websites he thinks are spying on their users or permitting foreign governments to influence what folks see on the sites. All this is an effort to ban the popular website for young folks called TikTok and force its owners to sell its assets.
Here is the backstory.
Throughout American history, we have suffered from mass fears. In the 1790s, it was fear of the French and of Native Americans. In the 1860s, it was fear of African Americans and fear of Confederates. In the 1900s, it was fear of anarchists, Nazis and Communists. In the first quarter of the present century, the government has whipped up fear of terrorists, Russians, Saddam Hussein, Vladimir Putin and now the Chinese.
In his dystopian novel, “1984,” George Orwell analyzed the totalitarian mind and recognized the need that totalitarians have for fear and hatred. They know that when folks are afraid, they will bargain away the reality of liberty for the illusion of safety. Without fear and hatred, totalitarians have fewer tools for control of the population.
What is the government’s problem with TikTok? The feds want to use fear and hatred of the Chinese government in order to regulate the sources of data and information that Americans can consult. They have projected upon the government of China the very same unlawful and unconstitutional assaults on natural rights that the feds themselves perpetrate upon us.
Thus, in order to gain control over the American public, the deep state — the parts of the government that do not change, no matter which political party is in power — and its friends in Congress have advanced the myth that the Chinese government, which commands the loyalty of the owners of TikTok, might use the site to pass along misinformation or to spy on its users. The key word here is “might,” as the intelligence officials who testified to Congress on this were unable to produce any solid evidence — just fear — that the Chinese government is doing this.
You can’t make this up.
Remember the bumper stickers from the 1970s: “Don’t steal. The government hates competition!” I thought of that line when analyzing this. Why? Because the federal government itself spies on every American who uses a computer or mobile device. The federal government itself captures every keystroke touched on every device in the U.S. The federal government itself captures all data transmitted into, out of and within the U.S. on fiber-optic cables. And the federal government itself told the Supreme Court earlier this week that it needs to be able to influence what data is available on websites in order to combat misinformation.
The federal government basically told the court that it — and not individual persons — should decide what we can read and from what sources. What the federal government did not reveal is its rapacious desire to control the free market in ideas.
Now back to the First Amendment.
The principal value underlying the freedom of speech is free will. We all have free will to think as we wish, to say what we think, to read what we want, to publish what we say. And we can do all this with perfect freedom. We don’t need a government permission slip. The whole purpose of the First Amendment is to guarantee this freedom by keeping the government out of the business of speech — totally and completely. This is the law of the land in modern Supreme Court jurisprudence.
Were this not the law, then the government could suppress the speech it hates and fears and support the speech of its patrons. And then the values that underly the First Amendment would be degraded and negated. The government has no moral or constitutional authority to spy on us or to influence our thoughts. Period.
Does the government work for us or do we work for the government? Have we consented to a nullification of free speech in deference to whomever might be living in the White House? Why do we repose the Constitution into the hands of those who subvert it?
To learn more about Judge Andrew Napolitano, visit https://JudgeNap.com.
COPYRIGHT 2024 ANDREW P. NAPOLITANO
DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS.COM
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Christopher Rufo
How Gender Ideology Captured the State Department
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In a job posting for a security escort position at the U.S. Consulate General in Lagos, for example, applicants are told that “[t]he U.S. Mission in Nigeria supports Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility (DEIA),” and that “[a]ll genders are welcome to apply.” Some two-thirds of the job summary is dedicated to DEI, as if U.S. security officers should be more concerned with gender pronouns than terrorist attacks.
The U.S. Department of State is charged with advancing American interests abroad through complex and delicate diplomatic missions, as well as maintaining the safety of those missions and the Americans serving them.
The institution’s lodestar should be the national interest, but under President Joe Biden, the State Department has demoted that critical objective in favor of a new global agenda: to spread radical gender theory to foreign nations.
The shift began at the top. President Biden and, in turn, the apparatus beneath him led America’s leftward charge on the world stage. Upon taking office in 2021, the administration used the previous year’s racial unrest as a pretext to issue a slew of executive orders and memoranda entrenching left-wing ideologies in all levels of the federal government, under the guise of “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” or DEI.
As part of this initiative, the White House required each federal agency to submit detailed DEI progress reports regularly, appoint a chief diversity officer, and create “Agency Equity Teams,” whose leaders were tasked with “delivering equitable outcomes.” These requirements contributed to what the president called “an ambitious whole-of-government equity agenda.”
The gender component of this agenda spread to the State Department through the president’s “Memorandum on Advancing the Human Rights of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Intersex Persons Around the World.” Published in February 2021, this memorandum directed State and other agencies to monitor closely and report on the “LGBTQI+” policies of our allies, to “broaden the number of countries willing to support and defend” the radical Left’s understanding of gender—for example, by funding pro-transgender “civil society advocates” in order to shift public opinion in those countries—and to tie in the principles of gender theory to America’s foreign-aid programs.
If necessary, the memo maintained, agencies should use “the full range of diplomatic and assistance tools” to ensure foreign governments’ compliance with this agenda, including “financial sanctions, visa restrictions, and other actions.”
The policy’s most visible expression was Secretary Antony Blinken’s 2021 authorization allowing American embassies to fly rainbow flags. This symbolic gesture was just the tip of the iceberg, however. Under Blinken’s leadership, State has woven critical theory into the fabric of America’s foreign policy. “I want to be crystal clear about this,” the secretary said upon appointing the agency’s first chief diversity officer in June 2021. “Promoting diversity and inclusion is the job of every single member of this department. It’s mission critical.”
To that end, Blinken spearheaded the adoption of an internal diversity plan that commits the department to hiring “a workforce that reflects the diversity of the United States . . . and implementing a comprehensive recruitment plan that targets underrepresented groups”; conducting a sophisticated “DEIA Climate Survey”; and, bizarrely, producing a “crowdsourced digital storytelling campaign” called #FacingDiplomacy, a self-flagellating chronicle of “the historic impact of discrimination in the Department.”
Material incentives ensure compliance with this official ideology: the “advancement of DEIA” is now considered “as an element for all employees as part of their job performance criteria, career advancement opportunities, and senior performance pay.”
The heart of the department’s effort, though, is not to increase adherence at home but to spread it abroad. State recruited a cadre of gender activists to entrench these theories into foreign policy.
One key figure is gender activist Jessica Stern, whom the president appointed as special envoy to advance the human rights of LGBTI+ persons. She was previously the executive director of OutRight Action International, helped to found the United Nations LGBTI Core Group, and was responsible for the first UN resolution to include the term “gender identity.”
Another key figure is Zakiya Carr Johnson, who stepped in as the department’s chief diversity officer earlier this year. Like Stern, Johnson also has a history of activism, having spent six years at a left-wing NGO in Brazil, as well as at other “inclusive” organizations, such as Atlantic Fellows, ODARA Solutions, and her own start-up, Black Women Disrupt.
These women are not figureheads. They aggressively press gender theory into foreign policy. Johnson, in particular, regularly promotes the State Department’s ideological agenda on social media, spotlighting her exchange with the Brazilian high representative for gender issues, meeting with the Chilean ambassador to applaud his “#FeministForeignPolicy,” or speaking at the Colombian embassy about “diversity” and “inclusion.”
The diversity agenda has been translated to the day-to-day operations at embassies around the world. Some embassies are even screening security positions for adherence to DEI. In a job posting for a security escort position at the U.S. Consulate General in Lagos, for example, applicants are told that “[t]he U.S. Mission in Nigeria supports Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility (DEIA),” and that “[a]ll genders are welcome to apply.” Some two-thirds of the job summary is dedicated to DEI, as if U.S. security officers should be more concerned with gender pronouns than terrorist attacks.
Inside the embassies, gender has become a near obsession. State’s latest annual LGBTQI+ progress report lists countless present and future efforts across all foreign agencies to make the world safe for queer theory, from “Pride Events at Headquarters” to “Gender Equity in the Mexican Workplace.” Among these is a department-wide partnership with the Global Equality Fund, a public-private entity “dedicated to advancing and defending the human rights of LGBTQI+ persons around the world” that has directed funds to 116 “grassroots” LGBTQI+ organizations in 73 countries.
State itself asserts that U.S. diplomatic efforts should reflect progressive ideology. In a special report on “DEIA Promotion” by the department’s advisory commission on public diplomacy, State evaluates “how U.S. missions adapt existing programs to DEIA principles,” which are to inform “all aspects of the Department’s policymaking as well as efforts to address barriers to opportunity for individuals historically and currently burdened by inequality and systemic discrimination.” Realpolitik, in other words, should give way to critical theory.
These efforts raise a critical question: Does gender theory advance the U.S.’s national interests? The answer appears to be no. But that is hardly an obstacle for State’s gender activists. They want to hang the rainbow flag throughout the benighted parts of the world. This mission trumps all others.
Christopher Rufo is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
This article was originally published in City Journal
Catherine Herridge
CBS News insider says the network knew the Hunter Biden Laptop was verified
How Hunter Biden Laptop Got The CBS News Treatment
In the 60 Minutes interview with then President Trump, correspondent Lesley Stahl said of the Hunter Biden laptop, “It can’t be verified.” As I watched the broadcast, I felt sick.
I knew the laptop records could be vetted and confirmed. I was confused by what seemed a disconnect between the CBS News division and 60 Minutes.
TOP LINE: | ||
With new allegations this week about suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story in the last Presidential election, I can’t help but reflect on my own experience at CBS News — what I believe was a missed opportunity to rebut false claims it was Russian disinformation. | ||
DEEP DIVE | ||
This week, our investigative team revealed new evidence on X from IRS whistleblowers about alleged double standards at the IRS and Justice Department in the Hunter Biden probe. | ||
Case agent Joseph Ziegler told us they were blocked from taking actions that could have revealed the investigation’s existence prior to the 2020 election. | ||
“There were a lot of overt investigative steps that we were not allowed to take because we had an upcoming election,” Ziegler explained “And related to the President’s son. So not even the candidate. And we weren’t allowed to do certain investigative steps.” (IRS,DOJ and others declined to comment) | ||
The findings from our investigation on X, called “Bucking the Bureaucracy: The Cost of Coming Forward in the Hunter Biden Tax Case,” were amplified by new reporting from the republican-led House Judiciary committee. | ||
They allege the Hunter Biden laptop reporting was suppressed leading up to the 2020 election to curry political favor, “Facebook executives discussed calibrating censorship decisions to please what they assumed would be an incoming Biden-Harris administration…” | ||
With these new developments, I can’t help but reflect on my own experience with the Hunter Biden laptop in the fall of 2020 after the New York Post broke the story (and bravely stayed with it.) | ||
It’s the question I get asked the most. | ||
“What happened with the Hunter Biden story at CBS before the 2020 election?” | ||
I believe it’s best that the account comes directly from me. | ||
On October 23rd, 2020 about 10 days after the story surfaced, I was contacted by senior CBS News executive Ingrid Ciprian-Matthews for “confirmed reporting” on the Hunter Biden story. She said the confirmed reporting was for Evening News Anchor and Managing Editor Norah O’Donnell. | ||
Days earlier, I had been tasked with vetting the laptop and its contents after multiple platforms had suppressed the story. Due diligence included working the phones, reaching out to people on the Hunter Biden emails for corroboration and cross-referencing court records. The vetted documents I collected also indicated the laptop belonged to Hunter Biden. | ||
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I told Ciprian-Matthews the vetted materials included a million dollar retainer from a Chinese energy firm, emails with Hunter Biden’s former business partner Tony Bobulinski as well as Hunter Biden text messages. | ||
Asked by Ciprian-Matthews if there was a “Hunter connection,” I responded, “Yes, all of them.” | ||
I then provided some of the vetted records directly to Ciprian-Matthews. We did speak briefly on the phone. I don’t know at this point what happened next. | ||
QUESTIONS FOR CBS NEWS/SEEKING A RESPONSE | ||
This weekend, on Saturday, I reached out to CBS News PR with questions for Ciprian-Matthews and Norah O’Donnell. I followed up with a voice mail, and text message to confirm CBS had received our questions as well as the Sunday noon deadline. | ||
When there was no response, Sunday morning, I forwarded our questions, adding the head of CBS PR and O’Donnell’s agent, writing: | ||
“We are taking the extra step this morning of reaching out to you for comment and as a courtesy, extending the deadline until 2pm eastern. | ||
We have copied Ingrid and Norah. If the email addresses are not accurate, we ask that the queries be shared with them so there is full opportunity to respond. | ||
Thank you in advance for the consideration and confirming receipt of our questions.” | ||
As of this writing, there has been no response, nor the courtesy of acknowledging receipt of our questions. For transparency, you can read the questions here. | ||
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Based on my reporting, and as the network’s senior investigative correspondent, the CBS News investigative unit was not tasked in October 2020 to develop more reporting on the laptop. That would have been standard practice. | ||
In the 60 Minutes interview with then President Trump, correspondent Lesley Stahl said of the Hunter Biden laptop, “It can’t be verified.” As I watched the broadcast, I felt sick. | ||
I knew the laptop records could be vetted and confirmed. I was confused by what seemed a disconnect between the CBS News division and 60 Minutes. | ||
OUR FORENSIC REVIEW OF HUNTER BIDEN LAPTOP DATA | ||
It took an additional two years for the network to broadcast a forensic review of the Hunter Biden laptop data. I advocated for the report which determined that both the data belonged to Hunter Biden and it had not been tampered with. Our report was broadcast in November 2022, after the midterm elections. I may have more to say about the delay in the future. | ||
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By contrast, in October 2020, there seemed little push back to claims from 51 former intelligence officials that the laptop had “classic earmarks” of a Russian information operation. | ||
According to the published transcript of the edited 60 Minutes interview with then candidate Joe Biden, Norah O’Donnell asked, “Do you believe the recent leak of material allegedly from Hunter’s computer is part of a Russian disinformation campaign?” | ||
Candidate Biden responded, “… And so when you put the combination of Russia, Giuliani– the president, together– it’s just what it is. It’s a smear campaign because he has nothing he wants to talk about. What is he running on? What is he running on?” | ||
CBS News executives make the final call on editorial. In October 2020, I believe the preliminary reporting provided to senior CBS News executive Ciprian-Matthews showed the laptop was worth digging into, and more facts should be gathered. I saw it as an opportunity for CBS News to lead on a major story and to rebut disinformation claims. | ||
I was eventually assigned to the Hunter Biden case. I was encouraged that the most senior corporate executives told me privately they wanted reporting that spoke truth to power on both sides of the aisle. They even provided additional resources, but based on my experience, it seemed their corporate objectives were frustrated by CBS News executives and other employees who were reluctant to take on a story about the President’s son. | ||
INTEREST WANES | ||
In 2023, the CBS investigative unit did exclusively interview the same IRS whistleblowers, Shapley and Ziegler. But I found, after the July 2023 plea deal for Hunter Biden fell apart and he faced felony gun and tax charges, that the network’s interest waned. | ||
As a senior investigative correspondent at CBS News for more than 4 years, our award winning reports were a catalyst for legislative change, impacting a million service members and their families. | ||
We helped secure 50 Purple Hearts for soldiers who were wrongly denied the award under the Trump administration after an Iranian ballistic missile attack on their base in January 2020. | ||
We obtained the audio tape of former President Trump seeming to brag and discuss secret documents about Iran at his New Jersey golf club. CNN was first to report the recordings. | ||
We helped right a decades’ old wrong so that retired Col. Paris Davis, one of the first Black officers in the elite Green Berets, could be recognized with the Medal of Honor for his heroism in Vietnam. | ||
Two weeks before my position was terminated in February, army whistleblower Nick Nicholls came forward with new evidence that service members were exposed to toxic agents at their overseas base after 9/11. | ||
Since, with the help of veterans’ advocates, Nicholls’ courage has opened the door to long overdue VA benefits and recognition. | ||
While I remain proud of these projects, I also believe that prior to the 2020 election, the Hunter Biden laptop was a missed opportunity for CBS News. |
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