▶ 0:16:26>> commerce, science, and transportation committee meeting to order. The author of "doon," frank herbert, set the table for what tech no totalitarian system look like. Once man turned everything over to machines in the hopes that it could set them free, it permitted other men with machines to enslave them. In the west we are headed down this path towards thought crime enslavement.
▶ 0:16:5430 british people are a read it arrested per day for speech related offenses. In the eu, the digital services act created a censorship regime that would make communist china blush. In the united states before the trump return to power, the vast censorship enterprise sought to control speech, how we think, and influence national discourse in elections.
▶ 0:17:20In 2022, as the attorney general of missouri, I filed a landmark lawsuit that justice alito called one of the most important cases in american history. Through the lawsuit I covered a vast censorship regime perpetrated by the biden administration.
▶ 0:17:38I saw all the emails, text messages, deposed senior government officials, a covering for the american people have the biden administration built one of the largest censorship operations in american history by working in secret through third parties, pressuring, bullying, threatening, jawboning big tech into suppressing viewpoints they disagreed with. Jen psaki boasted about flagging disinformation on facebook.
▶ 0:18:06The biden white house was revealed to have been back channeling with youtube about suppressing this favored speech, like the lab leave theory. The white house digital director pressure platforms like facebook and youtube to censor all kinds of covid related speech. Joe biden said that facebook was killing people.
▶ 0:18:26Last week, chairman cruz and the senate cut -- senate commerce committee released a report revealing more details about how the biden administration was part of a larger censorship operation that weaponize the cybersecurity infrastructure into an agent of censorship.
▶ 0:18:46The biden administration collusion with big tech and nongovernmental organizations to sensors of millions of americans to limit what they could say, what they could hear, and what they could read. Fortunately, trump won a historic victory and on the first day of his second presidential term he signed an executive order entitled restoring freedom of speech and ending federal censorship.
▶ 0:19:13The story of censorship does not begin and end with the federal government. Big tech was censoring long before presidential jawboning and will likely continue to censor long after. Here are instances of pre-biden censorship. All of big tech censor the hunter biden laptop sword. Google band covid skepticism. Twitter shadow and suspended conservatives.
▶ 0:19:40Facebook throttle posts from pages like the federalist, the new york post, flagging and removing posts questioning voter id laws and ballot harvesting. Two of today's witnesses were direct targets of this censorship operation and were deplatformed, shadow bands, and silenced for their viewpoints.
▶ 0:20:05Congress should address this problem with decisive legislative action, like my collude act, which holds big tech and government censors accountable. We look forward to hearing from our witnesses about what congress and this committee can do to make sure no american regardless of political leanings ever learns of the federal government is protracted -- is entrusted with protecting first amendment rights but working to undermine them.
▶ 0:20:34Founding fathers recognize that freedom of speech is vital and protecting it is first and foremost in the bill of rights. Some argue it was already protected because the constitution did not give power to censor, the framers went further, affirmatively restricting government intrusion. First amendment is the beating heart of our constitution. Free speech is not just instrumental, but an end to itself.
▶ 0:20:59In the digital age, with all the barrel at a possibility accompanying it, the struggle for free speech is this struggle for civilization itself. Thank you to the witnesses for being here today. I look forward to their testimony. I turn it over and out to the chairman's opening statement be entered into the record. >> thank you, Mr. chairman. Welcome to the witnesses. Thank you for joining us this morning.
▶ 0:21:28The issues of media and consumers in free speech are very important issues for us to discuss. In an era where consumers pay more and not enough competition exists in deals get done that need to fewer choices, less local news, I have an important question. Where is chairman car? Americans are paying and spending more money on content that used to be free more than ever before.
▶ 0:21:53Just a few weeks ago, we went a deeply troubling episode, demanding that abc take immediate action against jimmy kimmel saying that we can do this the easy way or the hard way, a line that senator cruz rightly criticized as something right out of goodfellas.
▶ 0:22:14Within hours, the largest abc affiliate announced they would preempt the show indefinitely and shortly thereafter they suspended him -- jimmy kimmel live altogether. Abc, next are, and sinclair had since returned him to the air, that chain of events should alarm every american. The power of the fcc was never meant to be weaponized against the political targets of presidents.
▶ 0:22:40The chairman does not have the authority to bully speech nor does he or the white house find offensive. He doesn't have the authority to threaten license based on content decisions, especially true in those same companies that have mergers and licenses pending before the fcc. That's exactly the kind of chilling effect on free speech that the first amendment was designed to prevent.
▶ 0:23:04We need to hold chairman car accountable for these threats and it is by I have called on us to have this hearing and hopefully that will happen sometime in the near future. There is a need to have oversight on this and I hope that this hearing happens without further delay. Professor, am I saying your name right? As he said in his testimony, the statement on retaliation would value -- violate the fit -- first amendment.
▶ 0:23:36The point on this, there is broad agreement, free expression is not a partisan issue, it is the bedrock of our democracy. So, this is a long list of issues about the first amendment that I think the president has made pretty much a standard issue. Last week the federal court found that the administration violated the first amendment by arresting, detaining, and deporting noncitizen students and faculty members for their advocacy.
▶ 0:24:05This follows the white house revocation of the associated press credentials for refusal to use the term "gulf of america." meanwhile, the administration continues to wield the full power of the federal government to retaliate against law firms the president doesn't like and funding he disfavors, and it is wrong to see them use their informal authority to unlawfully infringe on free speech, the free speech, the free press, and the first amendment.
▶ 0:24:37It is important we understand the broader context here, which is why I'm so glad to see you here today, Mr. kimmelman. The commerce committee has documented how online platforms monopolize advertising, siphon revenue away from local revenue and broadcasters, the result being newsroom closures across the country and even as the public trust in local journalism remains at an all-time high.
▶ 0:25:08At the same time, media consolidation has been concentrated into fewer hands. Since 2005 the U.S. has lost almost one third of its newspapers. This year alone 120 seven newspapers closed.
▶ 0:25:24Nearly 55 million americans have limited or no access to local news, disproportionately affecting rural areas, leaving outlets more vulnerable to corporate pressure and leaves the public without further resources of getting to true competition that gets us to the truth. If chairman car can threaten one network over a late-night host, what message does it send to local broadcasters in seattle in houston?
▶ 0:25:52Do they lose their license if they report that crosses the white house? This kind of intimidation undermines the foundation of the press. I want to be clear, protecting the free pet -- free press does not mean ignoring the dangers of harmful hate speech. I have expressed concerns about companies like facebook, google, and x on issues that threaten the lives of individuals.
▶ 0:26:17And I know that we will hear a lot about what the biden administration did in these areas. Let's not forget, the supreme court rejected allegations of censorship as the record show that social media companies continued to exercise their independent judgment and had independent incentives to moderate content. I'm sure we will talk a lot about this.
▶ 0:26:43Persuading companies to enforce their own content moderation policies is not the same, not the same, as threatening them with retaliation. Which is precisely what chairman car did when he publicly threatened abc, an entity over which the fb -- fcc holds direct regulatory power to take action over the speech they didn't like. Holding companies accountable for amplifying harm is not the same as expressing constitutional protected speech.
▶ 0:27:16Speech the president finds inconvenient. We should focus on the fcc as a federal agency not being able to threaten or intimidate the media and make sure that license decisions are based on law and not political coercion. I hope that today we can speak clearly about this and do what we can to make sure that we show that free speech is something we all agree on. Thank you, Mr. chairman. Look forward to hearing from the witnesses.
▶ 0:27:42Sen. Wicker: One point of clarification, murphy versus liz -- murphy versus missouri was sent back on standing, not on the merits. Our first witness for today is Mr. eugene volokh, professor of law emeritus at the ucla school of law, expert and first amendment law, his writings have been cited in over 300 court opinions.
▶ 0:28:12Sen. Wicker: Welcome. Our second witness is Mr. alex berenson, victim of the biden administration embargo on free speech. Look forward to hearing about his story and what we can do to preserve speech online. Our third witness is Mr. sean davis, cofounder of the federalist, a conservative news outlet subject to censorship and the monetization efforts for speaking out against the covid-19 shutdowns. Our final witness, Mr.
▶ 0:28:40Sen. Wicker: Jean kimmelman, at the yale economic policy center and senior research fellow at the harvard kennedy school center for business and government. At this point, I would recognize Mr. volokh for his opening statement.
▶ 0:29:05Mr. Volokh: I think that this topic is very important and something I've been very interested in myself. By sheer accident, it turns out that today is 50 years to the day since my parents brought me to the united states from the then soviet union. So, thank you to the united states of america for letting me in. Very, very glad to be here.
▶ 0:29:31Mr. Volokh: So, I wanted to speak briefly about the first amendment law on the subject, both that which is settled and that what is -- which is not entirely certain. One thing that is worth noting is that the word jawboning is used in two different scents infest senses. One is coercion, when the government is threatening someone with retaliation as a means of suppressing either that person's speech or getting that person to suppress someone else's.
▶ 0:29:59Mr. Volokh: The second one is one one my call persuasion or pressure short of coercion. When the government is urging people, some people might say again pressuring people to restrict either their own speech or other people's speech. Government coercion is generally unconstitutional. Indeed, in the remarks of, of chairman car, it seems to be an attempt of coercion.
▶ 0:30:27Mr. Volokh: Whether or not it caused the suspension of jimmy kimmel, they were an attempt to do something the constitution does not allow. Just last year the supreme court found that the national rifle association had adequately alleged coercion on the part of new york government authorities aimed at trying to get insurance companies to limit ties to the nra as a means of trying to interfere with their political advocacy.
▶ 0:30:57Mr. Volokh: That is pretty well settled as a constitutional problem. What about persuasion? In some situations the government is entitled to urge entities to not speak, right? You could imagine a situation where a police chief calls a newspaper and says I cannot coerce you, publish the article you are about to publish, but it will interfere with us catching the criminals and you wouldn't want that, right? Can I ask you, please, to do this. Some amount of that has got to be permissible.
▶ 0:31:28Mr. Volokh: To take another example, has to this information, someone calls up and says you are about to publish this article, this bed, and it's just false, just wrong. Don't you want to be corrected on this? Some amount of that seems like it has to be constitutionally permissible. At the same time there is a complication, because the line between coercion and persuasion is very hard to draw, particularly when the speaker has power over the listener.
▶ 0:31:59Mr. Volokh: This is most clear in the employment context. Including on unionization, they are entitled to explain why they think unionizing would be a mistake, employers are. But the court has recognized that in looking at what the employer says in seeing if the employer speaks coercively, one must appreciate that the employee is dependent on the employer in the pickup corset messages, even in situations where it is not expressed on the
▶ 0:32:32Mr. Volokh: Face of the statement. I think that the same thing is true when the government, which is a very powerful regulator, is talking to people within a regulated industry. There are times that one might sound on its face, or let's just say on the bare paper in my outlook coercive but in context is quite coercive.
▶ 0:32:53Mr. Volokh: Another concern is the merger of government when it's not just occasional conversations, but a systemic mechanism for trying to restrict speech. The analogy might be a few of the amendments. If you have a roommate and notice evidence of crime if you call the police, the police can use the evidence, it's not a government search. The police didn't search for it, you did.
▶ 0:33:24Mr. Volokh: But if the police call you up and say I'm not trying to coerce you but could you rummage through your roommate's papers? That becomes fourth amendment search subject to the fourth amendment. Precisely because it is substantially encouraged by the police. The police become enmeshed with the practice. Suggesting that the something similar may apply to the first amendment.
▶ 0:33:50Mr. Volokh: Let me close with suggesting that this is in fact the right body to be dealing with a lot of these concerns, that some of these problems can only be solved through statutory action. Laws that maybe limit attempts at systemic persuasion and systemic suppression of speech, even if it isn't technically coercive.
▶ 0:34:11Mr. Volokh: Laws that facilitate finding that information and laws that provide a cause of action, which congress has for essentially provided against the state governments.
▶ 0:34:22Sen. Wicker: Thank you. We will now recognize Mr. alex berenson to deliver his opening statement.
▶ 0:34:30Mr. Berenson: Thank you for giving me the chance to speak on this crucial topic. October 28, august 28, 20 21, twitter permanently suspended my account, supposedly for violating their covid-19 misinformation rules. It deprived me of my largest and most vital platform for my journalism at a time when many americans were eager to hear what I had to say about covid and mrna vaccines, I wrote millions of times per day.
▶ 0:34:59Mr. Berenson: The decision was no accident after a relentless campaign by the biden administration and one senior advisor board member to violate my rights. Led by an official in the biden white house, the administration started pressuring twitter to silence me almost as soon as biden took office with both public and private attacks on my reporting. Frontline and senior twitter employees look at what was happening with dismay, where they had defended my right to speak in 2020.
▶ 0:35:29Mr. Berenson: Twitter had believed that it should be a place where free speech and debate were encouraged. Twitter top executives, including jack dorsey, secretly believed the company should not have suspended me, but the twitter lobbyist facing the biden administration most dirt -- most directly went around them. In the words that he wrote days before he silenced me, the lobbyist helped to keep the target off the back. None of this is speculation.
▶ 0:36:00Mr. Berenson: Thanks to internal emails and other documents that twitter turned over before elon musk took over and more documents that must voluntarily turned over after he bought the company, I've had proof. After a suit in 2021, the company admitted they didn't -- that I didn't break the rules and that the tweets should not have led to my suspension.
▶ 0:36:25Mr. Berenson: The even reinstated me in july of 2022, before elon purchased twitter. By then I had already suffered, so that a lot of people that were depending on my reporting to help them think about covid vaccines and lockdowns. In losing my access to twitter I lost my best chance to offer americans my dissenting views on vaccine mandates. Mandates that the supreme court would later strike down.
▶ 0:36:52Mr. Berenson: Federal district judge jessica clark laid it all out this year in a 2023 lawsuit that I brought up against the biden administration and senior officials at pfizer for their censorship. In a ruling just last week, clark noted that on the merits, the federal government has conceded my claim that the biden administration violated my first amendment rights in 2021, but in the same ruling they dismissed my lawsuit.
▶ 0:37:17Mr. Berenson: It may sound impossible, federal judge agreeing that my rights had been violated and sent my lawsuit over to not move forward but it is true. The supreme court made it impossible for me or anyone to win monetary but damages for violation of the first amendment by the federal government. As the law stands, federal officials can run censorship campaigns like the one the biden administration carried out against me with impunity. At worst they might face injunction.
▶ 0:37:46Mr. Berenson: They will never have to pay for doing so, for violating our most basic right, the right to speak freely. It is open season for government censorship. The loophole is even more expansive and dangerous when it comes to federal efforts to jawbone, pressure, or threaten third parties like twitter. It's true whether these third parties are legacy media companies, new social media giants, or other types of businesses.
▶ 0:38:13Mr. Berenson: As a practical matter, users are not generally privily to these, so they have no way of proving pressure or that it led to censorship. My case is exceptional because of the documents I have proving that my rights were violated and even so I've been in -- unable to obtain remedy. Expecting companies to resist censorship on behalf of users or business partners is not realistic.
▶ 0:38:37Mr. Berenson: In my case, as well as the one unearthed by the house, showed that social media companies dislike these efforts of censorship but had many other interests and viewed sacrificing speech is the price they had to pay. Every company will face this calculus, democrat or republican in the white house.
▶ 0:39:00Mr. Berenson: Social media companies are the most important way that independent american citizens can get their speech out into the marketplace. That's why there is so much pressure. The truth is that as it stands, federal officials have every reason to believe they can coerce private third parties to suppress speech. A powerful loophole that is no doubt enticing to politicians and officials in both parties, but it's wrong.
▶ 0:39:27Mr. Berenson: No matter who it affects, or if it goes by jawboning, coercion, pressure, or threats, this kind of censorship is wrong. I urge you to take it back.
▶ 0:39:40Sen. Wicker: We will now recognize sean davis to deliver his opening statement.
▶ 0:39:45Sen. Davis: It begins with censorship. Moves to the destruction of statues and monuments, ends with the murder of people. Begins with censorship, moves to the destruction of statues and monuments, ends with the murder of people. The drive to silence speech does not end at the edge of a podium or the four corners of the page. It always advances towards the violent elimination of speakers.
▶ 0:40:13Sen. Davis: Because the authoritarian impulse to silence speech is driven by totalitarian desire to seize total power by any means necessary, up to and including the murder of political opponents. This dynamic was made clear on a tuesday afternoon in utah last month when my friend, charlie kirk, was assassinated in broad daylight by a left wing transgender ideologue who was enraged by the teaching of god. That boys cannot become girls and girls cannot become boys.
▶ 0:40:43Sen. Davis: Charlie was murdered by this left-wing assassin who had been radicalized by demonic transgender ideology because he was one of the most bolded affective's feature -- speakers in the country opposed to this ideology. Rather than see a nation united in permanently silenced speech, we saw the opposite. We saw people praising the murder of charlie. People think his assassin. We saw members of the U.S. congress all that say that he served it.
▶ 0:41:15Sen. Davis: -- he deserved it. The democratic candidate for attorney general in virginia was revealed last week to have called for the murder of one of his political opponents. Worse, he said he wanted his opponent to witness the murder of his own children, to watch them die in their mother's arms. Why? To make them feel pain for having different political opinions.
▶ 0:41:39Sen. Davis: How many here today condemned that insanity or publicly recognize that someone with such a broken moral compass is simply unqualified to be a top law enforcement officer. We heard the tired cliché that riots are the language of the unheard. The reality is that violence is the language of the unhinged. Far too many people in this room are fluent in it.
▶ 0:42:03Sen. Davis: My name is sean davis and I'm the ceo and cofounder of the federalist, a conservative digital media company that focuses on politics, religion, and the victim of illegal censorship. My company, my colleagues and I have been the target of a global multiyear censorship campaign. 2020, a foreign government connected outfit in the u.k. Colluded with google to d monetize us.
▶ 0:42:29Sen. Davis: We have published an article in 2020 called the media are lying to you about everything, including the riots. Later that year in the midst of a heated presidential election campaign, government funded efforts in the U.S. censored molly hemingway, our editor-in-chief and best-selling author here behind me today, and me because of our election reporting and commentary.
▶ 0:42:52Sen. Davis: I was censored for posting a screen shot of and a link to a pennsylvania supreme court decision requiring mail-in ballots lacking a postmark to be counted and presumed valid. Molly was censored for posting a link to an article published by the federalist, the headline being that america won't trust elections until the voter fraud is investigated. This censorship didn't stop there. We were targeted for bankruptcy and destruction by the U.S. state department and its global engagement center.
▶ 0:43:23Sen. Davis: Despite the fact that gec was explicitly prohibited by the first amendment and is an authorizing statute for targeting domestic speech, they sought to drive us out of business by developing and distributed technologies and tools to reduce our reach, bullying advertisers and to blacklisting us and many other conservative outlets and coercing big tech companies to throttle access to our content.
▶ 0:43:50Sen. Davis: In essence, our government secretly and without due process charged us with thought crimes, convicted us, sentencing the federalist to death. Government funded censorship efforts that are still being wielded against us today. I'm here today to testify about the unconstitutional and illegal censorship of my company and colleagues but here to help you understand the real world consequences in flesh and in blood of the drive to silence your political opposition. It doesn't stop at the end of the page.
▶ 0:44:21Sen. Davis: The effort to censor and silence political opposition is not the final step in the effort to usher in tyranny and authoritarianism. It begins with censorship. It moves to the destruction of statues and monuments. It ends with the murder of people in it has to stop. Thank you.
▶ 0:44:38Sen. Wicker: Thank you. We will now recognize Mr. gene kimmelman for his opening remarks.
▶ 0:44:44Mr. Kimmelman: Thank you, Mr. chairman, members of the committee. It's an honor to appear before you today. Digital technology is fundamentally transforming our media landscape and information system. The fundamental principles that our democracy has always relied upon them -- remain the same. First, we must prevent government from censoring protected speech, as has been stated.
▶ 0:45:16Mr. Kimmelman: Second, we must prevent media and information distribution platforms from concentrating in a power to block the competition and diversity that fuels open debate in our society. I am worried that the current fcc is heading down a dangerous path on both of these principles .
▶ 0:45:34Mr. Kimmelman: Recent statements from chairman car echoing the president, threatening to revoke broadcast licenses for presenting competent unfavorable to the administration has chilled protected speech. The fcc has pushed to eliminate or relax broadcast ownership rules and welcome consolidation threatens the independence and diversity of local media which is critical to an informed citizenry.
▶ 0:46:02Mr. Kimmelman: Consider, we have pending before us the next dark -- nextstar merger with technet, combining national broadcast companies with more than 250 broadcast agents. Combining multiple broadcast licenses in top markets that are the most popular broadcast television stations and have ownership in two thirds of all markets, covering almost 80% of all households in the country.
▶ 0:46:36Mr. Kimmelman: Even though this appears to violate the limit that congress set at half that level. Chairman car seems to be moving forward. This is on the heels of sky dance, backed by the oracle owner, larry ellison, purchasing cbs, paramount global, now seeking to purchase warner bros. Discovery, more studios, more networks, and Mr. ellison appeared to pick up about a 20% stake in tiktok.
▶ 0:47:09Mr. Kimmelman: The fcc is also considering allowing companies to own multiple national networks. These deals, certainly more to follow, likely threaten to build a form of private censorship through outsized media power. It is time to update the law and establish new guardrails to promote local, diverse, and independent media.
▶ 0:47:35Mr. Kimmelman: The threat to democracy also comes from the dominant information distribution systems controlled by google, meadow with facebook, instagram, whatsapp, and apple with the app store. Here the trump administration has done an excellent job challenging these companies monopolistic behavior. Continuing antitrust enforcement from the biden administration, however it antitrust is not enough to eliminate the enormous power of these text platforms.
▶ 0:48:09Mr. Kimmelman: Congress must give antitrust enforcers more tools to truly open up the tech information distribution platforms and modern media markets to robust competition. We need to reduce concentration of control in these markets. Private control can censor just as the government can censor.
▶ 0:48:31Mr. Kimmelman: In conclusion, I want to say it is really time for congress to update the communications act, to jump in and put an end to the threat of the bullying that we are seeing from the fcc that shows speech and eliminates open debate and information flow in the media. And it is time to stop media consolidation and monopolization that puts too much control over the marketplace of ideas into too few hands.
▶ 0:49:02Mr. Kimmelman: Thank you, Mr. chairman.
▶ 0:49:06Sen. Wicker: I will start there with a quick question. Mr. kimmelman, you are the ceo of a group called public knowledge, correct?
▶ 0:49:13Mr. Kimmelman: I was at one point, sir.
▶ 0:49:16Sen. Wicker: What years? Mr.
▶ 0:49:19Kimmelman: 14 to 19.
▶ 0:49:20Sen. Wicker: Yeah, ok. Let's just take a time machine to the covid era. What -- do you think it is appropriate for these sort of ngos or nonprofits to work hand-in-hand with the agencies to flag misinformation or disinformation, or bad information?
▶ 0:49:47Mr. Kimmelman: I have worked with ngos for many years and I think it's appropriate for them to present ideas to the government, to the major players in the marketplace about their views. That's what I was involved in.
▶ 0:50:00Sen. Wicker: Getting more specific, is it appropriate that the white house was working directly through a number of different agencies with the university of washington to outsource their censorship enterprise, to find out what the posts were that they didn't like and then collude with at least or coerce social media companies to punish those folks?
▶ 0:50:22Mr. Kimmelman: I've seen the government in many instances --
▶ 0:50:26Sen. Wicker: I'm asking about this instance. It wasn't like a galaxy far, far away, it was a few years ago.
▶ 0:50:33Mr. Kimmelman: I'm not familiar with those details.
▶ 0:50:36Sen. Wicker: What about that scenario I just gave you?
▶ 0:50:39Mr. Kimmelman: Working with a university?
▶ 0:50:42Sen. Wicker: To flag misinformation so that the government can coerce social media companies --
▶ 0:50:48Mr. Kimmelman: I don't think government should coerce social media companies. I can imagine an argument for it.
▶ 0:50:54Sen. Wicker: Your testimony described how in the summer of 2020 google attempted to do monetize the federalist following critiques of violent riots. It's documented that the center for countering digital hate work to do monetize the federalist for the use critiques. Can you describe the tactics, specifically, that were employed to do that?
▶ 0:51:18Sen. Davis: Thank you for bringing that up. In july of 2020 we started receiving emails from nbc news reporters based out of the u.k. I don't remember her name -- they were almost haunting, asking for comment, how does it feel noting that google is about to do monetize you for hate speech, something like that. Paraphrasing. This was news to us.
▶ 0:51:43Sen. Davis: We hadn't broken any news or gotten any notification that we had broken a rule or violated terms or conditions or whatever. So, we started calling around to contacts at google. We learned that yeah, you are about to be do monetized because of hate speech. That's what we were told. That we had racist, violent hate speech, which wasn't true at all. The ccd h was working with this nbc news verification unit.
▶ 0:52:15Sen. Davis: They were working together and colluding with executives at google, to this day I don't know who, to come in and secretly demonetized us. What I found most offensive about it was they were all in on it. They had news articles ready to be written crowing about how we got demonetized. We were able to fight back and had a pretty robust response to it and they ended up relenting.
▶ 0:52:39Sen. Davis: Largely what was interesting was that in that initial news article targeting us, they had cited the news article about how the media are lying to you about everything, they still edited that out and they worked with google to come up with a new rationale for the d monetization , which was that our comments were mean. We had an unmoderated comments section. We had to delete our comments section to avoid being demonetized because a bunch of foreign connected government outfits decided they didn't like
▶ 0:53:10What Are Sen. Wicker: Mr. berenson, it is clear now that during the biden administration sessa, which is mentioned a lot in this report. They flagged his favored from domestic sources for social media platforms. Based on what you have seen, how did sessa specifically do this? What was the abuse all about?
▶ 0:53:38Mr. Berenson: You laid it out, they redefined infrastructure so that it wasn't actual physical software infrastructure. It was things that people were saying. There was a time early in 2022 where they actually tried to redefined terrorism as misinformation. There is a bulletin from february of 2022 that I think that dhs put out and then retracted under pressure.
▶ 0:54:05Mr. Berenson: Once you start saying that people's speech is terrorism, you're going down a bad path. I don't think that's something either party should do.
▶ 0:54:15Sen. Wicker: Thank you so much.
▶ 0:54:18Sen. Cantwell: I'm going to yield to my colleague to make a statement that I will finish with my questions.
▶ 0:54:24Senator: I will do mine on the record because I have to leave. I wasn't going to speak and I appreciate senator cantwell's willingness to let me say a few years -- wear-and-tear given what happened in my state the summer. First of all, I think that Mr.
▶ 0:54:39Senator: Kimmelman knows I have been out front on monopoly issues and antitrust and making sure that we have true competition in the marketplace, working with senator cruz and senator lee and senator kennedy and many others on that issue and I continue to believe that that is a legitimate solution. Secondly, I think that what happened with the chair of the fcc was wrong. I appreciated senator cruz being out front on that, I truly do, calling it out.
▶ 0:55:08Senator: I'm looking forward to that hearing to try to get some sense into what is going on there with not just the jimmy kimmel moment, but many others. Third, I think that the ai piece, and I will have some questions about this, but to me it should not be that radical that we say -- number one, if speech is violent or incites violence, it's different than other kinds of speech, and with these ai videos where you can
▶ 0:55:38Senator: Even tell if it's yourself? I had this experience at a hearing, they could be labeled. There will always be litigation over whether something is violence or hate or whether it is the legally constitutionally allowed speech, but at the very least, these videos should say something about prepared for by ai or digitally created.
▶ 0:56:03Senator: I just happened to be on cnn last night and the robin williams family was on one of the show talking about how he is dead and they have created ai videos that people think a real. People should have the right over their own identity. The last thing when it comes to these horrific mass shootings and acts of violence, I have come to see it as all-purpose.
▶ 0:56:34Senator: Something that the fbi actually said after the announcement of the church shooting in minnesota. That shooter actually hated president trump. Had a manifesto. Hated wokeness, hated jews, hated muslims, hated hispanics, hated lax, and shot these two little kids, fletcher and harper, through stained glass windows in a catholic church.
▶ 0:57:03Senator: Then you go to the shooting of my dear friend, and I had a good discussion with the fbi director about this on the judiciary, he lost his friend charlie kirk. We mourn that. We lost our friend melissa hortman.
▶ 0:57:20Senator: That shooter literally had a manifesto and ramblings that targeted mostly, in fact all democratic officeholders and went to the houses of the people that he knew the addresses of and the ones that he didn't he wasn't able to go to. He went after law firms, businesses, went after planned parenthood.
▶ 0:57:46Senator: And then left an actual letter saying that he did it, because he was supposed to assassinate me, which is on x about every five minutes, my name with assassination, which I think is not a good idea for public safety, but I can't get it off.
▶ 0:58:05Senator: The point of all of this isn't to say it is one side or another , when you look at the cato institute report that came out this year, this extremism and what is triggering these basically mad of to commit these acts. Whether it is in the michigan temple or whether it is charlie kirk in utah. I just don't think it is the right approach to be like it is one side or the other.
▶ 0:58:34Senator: These people have been targeted in their heads and they go out and create these mass crimes and it's on us to figure out what is triggering them and do something about it instead of playing the blame game. One of my answers is an assault weapon ban or at least 21 years and under, that would have helped in uvalde, buffalo, parkland. Doing something about this instead of just blaming each other. Thank you.
▶ 0:59:02Sen. Wicker: Senator fischer?
▶ 0:59:07Senator Fischer: Thank you, senator schmitt. Mr. davis, government censorship in the name of fact checking is an unacceptable traveling on democratic values. How should social media companies respond if the government comes to them to deplatformed users based on
▶ 0:59:26Their: -- political opinions.
▶ 0:59:28Sen. Davis: Great question. If I could wave a magic wand and create a solution or a response, I would say that anytime a government goes to a social media platforms, google, youtube, twitter, whatever, and tell someone to take this down because it is hate speech or misinformation or the fancy label they want for speech that they don't like, first off those tech companies should tell them to take a hike, we don't censor
▶ 0:59:59Sen. Davis: Anyone, we are a platform, and then they should have to disclose it to the public and the people targeted. I would love to have known in 2020 who was behind the censorship of me and my colleagues. We knew we were being censored because we watched it happened. We didn't actually know why. To this day we don't actually understand the full extent of the government effort to censor us. So, I think there should be full disclosure following an absolute denial of any sort of censorship demands from government.
▶ 1:00:30Sen. Davis: It's totally inappropriate.
▶ 1:00:31Sen. Fischer: Thank you.
▶ 1:00:33Mr. Volokh: -- Mr. berenson:
▶ 1:00:38Mr. Volokh: -- Mr. berenson, thank you for sharing your experience of being deplatformed. It's valuable. You spoke of the huge influence you witnessed between twitter and the white house at the time in 2020 and you describe your understanding as the company lobbyist hoping to keep the white house target off of their back. Can you explain specifically what your understanding of that target was an are you aware of any specific threats that were made?
▶ 1:01:06Mr. Berenson: In july of 2021 as the biden administration was preparing vaccine mandates, and that's what you have to understand about the backdrop, they knew that those might be politically unpopular. They started pressuring the company's to deplatform people like me. They have been doing it but they upped the pressure in that is when president biden that facebook was killing people by allowing people like me or rfk jr. To speak.
▶ 1:01:35Mr. Berenson: You know, the biggest legal protection that social media companies have is section 230, which I'm sure you know, where they are essentially immune from content decisions. They have all of the immunity of a traditional publisher to make decisions over the speech they want to carry.
▶ 1:01:59Sen. Fischer: Did the white house -- do you have any kind of information or records? Did the white house specifically say what they would do?
▶ 1:02:08Mr. Berenson: So, they specifically publicly said that they were going to reconsider section 230. That was in july. They had privately said to twitter, based on twitter's on records, that they had said a really hard question about why I was still being allowed to speak. From my point of view, that was a first amendment violation.
▶ 1:02:39Mr. Berenson: It forced twitter to start looking at me in a way that it hadn't previously done. I will say this -- and I Sen.
▶ 1:02:46Fischer: And in the end there was no transparency?
▶ 1:02:49Mr. Berenson: No transparency. I don't like what brendan carded, and he did it publicly and he can have a debate about it. What is atticus when the government goes in secret to these companies and targets individual users with individual categories of speech. I think it should be allowed. Both parties should agree that targeting individual users or individual posts, if legal, is wrong.
▶ 1:03:17Mr. Berenson: Nobody ever said I said anything illegal. Most people now agree that a lot of what I said was confirmed. I think that's a pretty basic place to start.
▶ 1:03:26Sen. Fischer: Thank you. Mr. volokh, you mentioned a reporting mechanism that could be promising for companies who think the government is coercing them. Can you describe to the committee how such a mechanism might have prevented a situation like what Mr. berenson just described and how would you structure that mechanism?
▶ 1:03:48Mr. Volokh: The best disinfectant. There may in fact be certain kinds of requests to remove something that might be justifiable in certain served -- situations if they are not coercive but an appeal to someone's better instincts. Maybe, maybe not. Presumably, it is something that members of this committee, other members of congress, might be interested in.
▶ 1:04:19Mr. Volokh: That, that reporters were newspapers might say -- well, here is a list of all of these things the government has been asking that people removed. Is it justifiable, is it excessive, does it political bias? That's impossible to do if they own secrets.
▶ 1:04:37Sen. Fischer: Picking up -- I'm over time, can he finish? Thank you. Senator klobuchar said that she is worried, as are many of us, about ai and things that are happening there. To at least get a label, at least to get a label.
▶ 1:04:56Sen. Fischer: Do any of you know, are these social media companies, any of these companies capable of doing that, to be able to identify when something has been tampered with by ai? If it is totally false, to be able to do that?
▶ 1:05:14Mr. Volokh: A separate question but a very important question. What you are asking is I think a technical question. Even if they did on their own, can they do it? My understanding is that there are ways of determining that. They are hard to do at scale. Perhaps a forensic examiner could look at a video, but it doesn't mean you have an algorithm that could reliably do it and there will be false positives in negative and then there will be an arms race.
▶ 1:05:43Mr. Volokh: A better, better fake technology detectors, better technology to evade it. I'm not up on the details, but my understanding is that right now there is no guaranteed reliable mechanism.
▶ 1:05:57Sen. Fischer: Then maybe you get into the whole question on what's comedy, what's satire.
▶ 1:06:03Mr. Volokh: Yes.
▶ 1:06:05Sen. Fischer: Opening up another avenue.
▶ 1:06:07Mr. Volokh: Certainly right. There's no software that you can write this says that this is obvious parity and therefore shouldn't be taken down.
▶ 1:06:15Mr. Kimmelman: Thank you. -- Sen. fischer: thank you.
▶ 1:06:20Sen. Cantwell: Thank you, professor, for the statement you made about brendan carr's coercive tactics not being appropriate. And for your recommendations on transparency and rules that I think would be a good concept in terms of making sure we are clear.
▶ 1:06:42Sen. Cantwell: To my colleagues comment, senator klobuchar, one of the reasons I appreciate many of the things she said in one of the reasons I support the blackberry legislation enjoying her as a cosponsor, it gives the content holders some rights and it shows who the content holders are. Even in the case of compensation, which is an important issue, keeping competition with perfect information.
▶ 1:07:09Sen. Cantwell: I will note that during this debate, this committee in this body passed a public health emergency language related to deceptive practice language. It was unlawful to engage in deceptive practices related to the treatment, cure, prevention, mitigation, or diagnosis related to covid. Why did we that?
▶ 1:07:32Sen. Cantwell: Because there were a lot of crazy things online, like drinking bleach and what have you, and we wanted to make sure that we were protecting consumers against deceptive practices. That was passed in a -- with big, bright, bipartisan support by the senate and it became a law. Now, to this larger issue, Mr. kimmelman.
▶ 1:07:57Sen. Cantwell: Even my colleague on the house doesn't like the tiktok decision because he doesn't think it goes far enough in banning the actual algorithm. We have this attempt by carr to realign the deck chairs at this moment so that we have competition, but competition is shrinking, which is why it is also concerning to me.
▶ 1:08:17Sen. Cantwell: We had a hearing here from facebook whistleblowers who literally said the company knew that it was putting, it was elevating hate speech as a way to increase the revenue for advertisers. I feel like that is -- if a newspaper or a broadcaster puts false information in the paper, the community will respond.
▶ 1:08:43Sen. Cantwell: That person will no longer be able to continue their business, but online, you don't even know if that's happening. So, making sure that we don't have these challenges, what do we need to do to get people to understand that, that right now you could, in a very, in a very vertical way, have such an alignment that that influence that we are talking about now of not being coercive is actually done in major ways, even as my
▶ 1:09:15Sen. Cantwell: Republican colleague in the house says that he's concerned about this as it relates to what tiktok might be doing?
▶ 1:09:22Mr. Kimmelman: I think it's a critical issue, as that technology has changed, the media landscape has changed, and we have to update our understanding of where the excess power is being used. How is it being used? These examples that you have heard today all relate to a gatekeeper and the media landscape who is a tech company.
▶ 1:09:47Mr. Kimmelman: We haven't always thought of them as being a part of the same ecosystem and I think we need to do that. If you have such enormous power over the major ways in which the public gets news, information, can keep up on their community or members of public health or national affairs, we've got to make sure that they are playing by the reasonable rules or that there is full competition in the marketplace to give people the checks and balances in the media.
▶ 1:10:15Sen. Cantwell: You don't think that the statement about transparency is a bad idea, you think it's a good idea.
▶ 1:10:22Mr. Kimmelman: It's a good idea, transparency is one element, but it isn't enough to prevent the kinds of concerns about coercion and suppression if too few people have a megaphone and have the ability to turn on the microphone for the voices that need to be a part of our public debate.
▶ 1:10:43Sen. Fischer: R8 -- Sen.
▶ 1:10:47Cantwell: Are you worried about too much content being behind pay walls? In addition to that free speech, if you start using this power as the fcc chairman, you allow for all of this vertical integration, next thing you know it's like putting so much of it behind a pay wall, how is the consumer constantly being shortchanged by this whole change in the landscape.
▶ 1:11:13Mr. Kimmelman: Which means we need to make sure that we have adequate ways for these companies to present it so it isn't dumbs down. Diluted in an internet for massive information flow.
▶ 1:11:43Mr. Kimmelman: And it prevents the few companies that seem to have amassed quite a few power -- quite a much -- quite a bit of power already getting larger and acting as gatekeepers.
▶ 1:11:54Sen. Wicker: Thank you. Mr. chairman? If there is no objection I would like to present a letter sent from this committee in 2018 to the chairman of the fcc, requesting that sinclair broadcasting licenses be reviewed because in the minds of the 12 democrats, including two on this committee, they felt that sinclair was perpetuating this information. Let's put that in the record.
▶ 1:12:26Sen. Wicker: I find, given the conversations around commissioner car, I find it decently ironic.
▶ 1:12:34Sen. Cantwell: Can I just --
▶ 1:12:36Sen. Wicker: You have had your time. You came to the U.S. 50 years ago, Mr. volokh. To this day. Congratulations. I came here more than 50 years ago, which I hate to say publicly, makes me feel old. You probably had to learn english watching tv, like me. How many news sources were there back then? [inaudible]
▶ 1:12:59Sen. Wicker: You have to hit the button.
▶ 1:13:02Mr. Volokh: Sorry, when we came to l.a.? I think that there were maybe six or seven vhf. And then if I twiddled the antenna? I could get four or five uhf.
▶ 1:13:16Sen. Wicker: Did you listen to a lot of podcasts?
▶ 1:13:20Mr. Volokh: I believe that was a listen -- wasn't allowed to a 1975.
▶ 1:13:24Sen. Wicker: Didn't exist. Did you go online to get news from online sources?
▶ 1:13:30Mr. Volokh: No. I did not.
▶ 1:13:34Sen. Wicker: Facebook, instagram? I find it interesting that my colleagues are talking about how broadcast tv and monopolies him, if you talked about that, which was fascinating, all of a sudden this lack of resources to find information when there has never been in more ways to get information then there is today. Mr. kimmelman, question for you. You are over at the harvard school, correct?
▶ 1:14:00Mr. Kimmelman: Kennedy school. Yes.
▶ 1:14:03Sen. Wicker: So, you would agree with all of us, I think that free speech is important. You would agree with the george washington, that if freedom of speech is taken away, we could be led to the slaughter dumb and silent. What are you doing about the harvard operation on free speech?
▶ 1:14:21Mr. Kimmelman: I'm a fellow.
▶ 1:14:23Sen. Wicker: I mean have you spoken to your colleagues or made a protest, rallied the students to say how do we get rid of this f rating? I can't imagine harvard students would find it objectionable to have f in anything. What are you doing about fixing harvard?
▶ 1:14:42Mr. Kimmelman: There's a lot of discussion around me about making sure that there is an open environment for learning.
▶ 1:14:48Sen. Wicker: To be clear, harvard university has an f in free speech and you are giving us lectures on free speech. -- it rings hollow. What were the outrageous things you said in 2021? Were you planning to overthrow the united states government? Were you creating a militia? Give me a flavor of the outrageous things you must have said.
▶ 1:15:19Sen. Wicker: >> the tweet that got me banned from twitter -- it does not stop the infection.
▶ 1:15:26Chair Moreno: Are you saying a cloth mask does not stop the spread of covid? How dare you say those outrageous comments. >> I said it did not stop infection.
▶ 1:15:37Chair Moreno: When did it? >> I might be the only person in this room who was not vaccinated with the mrna vaccine.
▶ 1:15:45Chair Moreno: Did the vaccine stop infection? You were allowed to be wrong, but you were right. What has been in place for that? Who has been held accountable? >> twitter actually admitted it.
▶ 1:15:59Chair Moreno: That cost you money. >> correct.
▶ 1:16:04Chair Moreno: Money in your pocket book. What accountability? >> there has been none. I was getting hundreds of millions of views a month. People wanted to hear what I thought. The biden administration did not like it. They wanted to ban me.
▶ 1:16:23Chair Moreno: You are saying elected officials, who swore an oath to the constitution, told private media companies to terminate your account, which cost you your money? I assume you are not coming from five generations of wealth and had to work for a living. And that income was taken away from you because you dared to have an opinion on the vaccine.
▶ 1:16:46Mr. Berenson: I thought it was more important that I was not able to say what I thought. But I also have to say this. Pfizer made 100 billion dollars selling the vaccine. Riser officials who collaborated with the biden administration. It is a scandal.
▶ 1:17:04Mr. Berenson: If I had been reporting on plane crashes with the biden administration or the trump administration, it would be a national scandal that an official had loaned on a social media company. But --
▶ 1:17:21Chair Moreno: The ranking member talked extensively about protecting free speech. I think that what may be my colleagues mean to say is speech that they hate. Speech is -- hate speech is in the eye of the beholder.
▶ 1:17:40Mr. Berenson: -- >> I agree. These are fancy words people used to set -- shut down things they don't like.
▶ 1:17:49Chair Moreno: So several years ago, somebody could say, why did you say that? It could be considered hate speech, what I say.
▶ 1:18:01Mr. Davis: If you set it on twitter for several years, you ran the risk of being censored.
▶ 1:18:08Chair Moreno: We will talk more about this topic. I do find it interesting that my colleagues who were complicit with biden, that were applauding people being thrown off social media, that were saying that any commentary about the hunter biden laptop was -- but all of a sudden clench their pearls because anymore on got fired
▶ 1:18:41Chair Moreno: From his job for having atrocious ratings. I don't know that they have the moral high ground here. The senator from nevada. >> thank you. Thank you for being here today and speaking your mind. It is the first amendment.
▶ 1:19:07Chair Moreno: The freedom to express yourself and speak your mind is a cornerstone of america. It is one of the main ways we distinguish ourselves from other nations. In the united states, you are free to criticize whoever you want. You can criticize government leaders without government censorship. It is appropriate and necessary for this committee to hold oversight hearings focus on protecting this critical right for anyone.
▶ 1:19:37Chair Moreno: But that is not the focus of today's hearing. Rather than providing us with a forum that will evaluate truly government censorship, this has become increasingly commonplace for the trump administration, undertaking an effort to settle old political scores against an administration that is no longer in power. There are issues we have to deal with. We must support free speech.
▶ 1:20:09Chair Moreno: But this hearing is not the place. Two weeks ago I sent a hearing to chairman cruz calling for the fcc chairman to testify before this committee after he threatened broadcast licenses over jimmy kimmel's comments criticizing president trump. I was particularly concerned, as I know the chair was calling the threat mafia like, chairman cruz. This clear attempt to suppress speech.
▶ 1:20:38Chair Moreno: However, I am disappointed with today's hearing. Chairman cars later backtracking, claiming there is some sort of local community exception to the first amendment -- there are no exceptions. There is precedent for that.
▶ 1:20:57Chair Moreno: Chairman carper's comments were reprehensible and this demands a full accountability -- chairman carr's comments were reprehensible, and his denials have been country for two -- a been contradicted by the president. He said they should revoke licenses because of negative coverage of his administration. This is the clearest possible violation of the first amendment.
▶ 1:21:27Chair Moreno: The president of the united states directing an agency to revoke a license of networks that run a critical story of him. You could go back 250 years and not find a president who did this. This is government censorship by our president, plain and simple. It is what they do in russia. It is what they do in north korea. It is what they do in china. It is not what we do in a democracy that has a first amendment.
▶ 1:21:58Chair Moreno: These attacks on free speech harm not only our democracy, but our economy. There was interference in the private business decisions of large media companies, but it could be tech, energy, tourism. In any industry could be impacted. In las vegas, we are seeing fewer international tourists because people are afraid to come to the U.S. with this administration.
▶ 1:22:22Chair Moreno: They see the administration detaining people for posting something online that is critical of the president, and they canceled their trips to america out of fear of U.S. government retaliation. The consequences on our economy are substantial. Mr. kimmelman, can you discuss the direct impacts of infringement on free speech policy? Can you tell us what you see is the biggest threat to the first amendment?
▶ 1:22:49Mr. Kimmelman: The threats, coercion, chilled speech -- they either suppress it directly or make an environment in which everyone is afraid to speak his or her mind, to engage in debate. To have the kind of open discussion that our democracy requires.
▶ 1:23:14Mr. Kimmelman: Obviously, as you point out, when the government does it directly, it is horrible and is a first amendment violation. It needs to be stopped. It also can happen when tech platforms become too powerful, when they don't face competition, when they play a gatekeeper role. It can be the same if there is too much roll up in media. There is so much more out there.
▶ 1:23:44Mr. Kimmelman: But it is not just availability. What do people consider reliable? What is most popular? What do they read? Anywhere there is a chokehold, there is an appropriate question of is it too much power. That is where congress has a role.
▶ 1:24:04Sen. Rosen: Thank you. I see my time is up. I appreciate this hearing and wish we had chairman carper here to discuss. I look forward to chairman cruz working with us. To get that on the docket. Thank you. >> to do that, we need to open the government first. That is the first priority. I asked the chairwoman to have lena con come to the committee. Never came.
▶ 1:24:33Sen. Rosen: I asked for pete buttigieg to appear, the secretary of transportation. Never appeared. Senator blackburn?
▶ 1:24:43Sen. Blackburn: Thank you, Mr. chairman. That is exactly why I'm looking forward to being able to return to regular order and to do oversight. Just one item I want to mention. There was a comment that tourists are not coming because they are fearful. They are not coming because they are fearful of crime. There are so many stories that bear this out. If you look at new york city, if you look at chicago.
▶ 1:25:12Sen. Blackburn: You look at the effect that violent crime is having and some of these cities. I'm very grateful that president trump has made it a priority to address this. We are seeing fantastic results in memphis from the increased presence that is they are from the memphis task force of 15 federal agencies, the tennessee
▶ 1:25:43Sen. Blackburn: Bureau of investigation, the tennessee highway patrol, the national guard will be going in there this week to assist the memphis pd. They have arrested nearly a thousand gang bangers. They have already started the process with indictments. Moving these criminals into court. And indeed, we are very grateful for that.
▶ 1:26:10Sen. Blackburn: The crime level needs to come down in these big cities so people do want to go to these cities. Mr. davis, always good to see you. Grateful that you are here and for the good work that you all do.
▶ 1:26:27Sen. Blackburn: I want to talk with you a little bit because I know the federalist and your team at the federalist was constantly on the receiving end of some of these attacks and actions from the biden administration.
▶ 1:26:47Sen. Blackburn: And I would like to hear you talk about why you all were on the receiving end, why you felt like you were on that, and why you were accused of misinformation, and why their goal was to always shut you up. We know that the left made great sport out of shutting up conservatives and attacking conservatives.
▶ 1:27:16Sen. Blackburn: And as we learned this week, surveilling conservatives. Of course, some of my senate colleagues and I found out that the fbi was surveilling us and pulling our phone records. And I think it would be helpful if our colleagues across the dais wanted to join us in calling the fbi, the biden-led fbi, out about those actions.
▶ 1:27:45Sen. Blackburn: But lay up for me what you all experienced, and why you felt like it was such a repeated
▶ 1:27:53Attack On Mr. Davis: On you and the federalist.
▶ 1:27:59Mr. Davis: It is an honor to be here. You pose a great question. Why were we targeted? I'm reminded of the quote -- I think it was the baseball player reggie jackson. They don't boo nobodies. They don't censor nobodies either. It is the most effective voices which tend to be targeted for censorship. At the federalist, we are extremely effective in tearing down false narratives and reporting the facts.
▶ 1:28:25Mr. Davis: We have a team of courageous journalist to get up every day to tell the truth and report the facts, especially facts the government does not want people to hear. They targeted us because we were effective, because we were exposing the lies about the russia collusion hoax, the kavanaugh hoax, about covid-19 lies that came out of a wet market in china. We were exposing ridiculous new election laws that ignore the constitution in 20 20.
▶ 1:28:55Mr. Davis: We exposed to the whole hunter biden laptop thing, which was 100% real. It was not a hoax. Somebody remarked earlier that you have the market to take care of when a newspaper or network says something that is not true. We know that is not true because msnbc and cnn are still around. They lied repeatedly. They were not targeted for censorship.
▶ 1:29:21Mr. Davis: I have to say it is nice to be here, to hear a bipartisan support for free speech. I wish a lot of you were helping us when the biden administration was censoring us. We have spent two years trying to vindicate our free speech rights. I've got to tell you it's pretty aggravating being an american citizen to see illegal immigrants cap faster action in the courts than we have gotten. We are still awaiting vindication and relief.
▶ 1:29:51Mr. Davis: We were not targeted because what we were saying was false. We were targeted because what we were saying was true.
▶ 1:29:57Sen. Blackburn: Talk to me about the expense of having to be tied up with time to get your day in court for that period of time.
▶ 1:30:10Mr. Davis: It is expensive. Thankfully, we have lawyers representing us out of the kindness of their own hearts. If you look at the effect of censorship over years, alex made the great point that you cannot compensate someone for the crime of having shut them up. The speech that you should have been able to give four years and can never give, that opportunity is gone. But there is also a real cost in terms of money.
▶ 1:30:38Mr. Davis: I cannot even begin to think about how many tens of millions of dollars we lost out on because our advertisers were targeted, our readers were targeted, and facebook, twitter, and youtube were told to target us. It has to be in the tens of millions of dollars. Frankly, we are owed restitution. >> I am sure you would support my legislation that would give a private right to a citizen to sue, which turns the tables on the incentive structure.
▶ 1:31:08Mr. Davis: >> we have heard a lot today. Both the's suppose in censoring social media companies about misinformation. Republicans have wasted an enormous amount of time and resources over the past few years attempting to feed this theory, only for it to be repeatedly proven false.
▶ 1:31:33Mr. Davis: The supreme short -- supreme court shot down their fake lawsuit against the biden administration in a 6-3 vote. The investigation came up empty. The chairman's report last week of supposedly incriminating emails from biden administration officials to censor conservatives included explicit disclaimers that the officials were not threatening any action
▶ 1:32:03Mr. Davis: Against any platform. Strike one, strike two, strike three. You are out, republican theory of censorship. Because my republican colleagues seem confused about what actual government censorship looks like, I would like to show a few of them to you.
▶ 1:32:21Mr. Davis: It is not just the mafia boss threats from brendan carr of disney and abc, but six different occasions, donald trump took office and now has posted on truth social explicitly calling for the federal communications commission to revoke broadcast station licenses owned by major networks over their editorial decisions.
▶ 1:32:47Mr. Davis: On february 6, trump said cbs should lose its license over its interview of vice president kamala harris in the fall of 2024. Just over two months later, on april 13, trump again said cbs should lose its license for its interview. On july 20 six, trump wrote networks are not allowed to be political ponds to the democratic party. They have become outrageous. In my opinion, there licenses could and should be revoked.
▶ 1:33:18Mr. Davis: August 24 it was a big day for unconstitutional threats. Twice in under an hour, trump said that abc and nbc should lose their licenses. And then, just last sunday, trump said the fcc should look into the license of nbc. Mr.
▶ 1:33:37Mr. Davis: Kimmelman, do you agree that explicit threats from the president of the united states against broadcasters are far more dangerous than emails from biden administration officials identifying online misinformation? How many times did president biden threaten to revoke a broadcast license?
▶ 1:33:58Mr. Kimmelman: None.
▶ 1:34:03Sen. Markey: How many times did president biden publicly direct his fcc chairman to look into a broadcaster's license?
▶ 1:34:11Mr. Kimmelman: None, to my knowledge.
▶ 1:34:16Sen. Markey: Again, at zero. We are not focusing on the imminent threat to the first amendment, the bleeding heart of democracy. That is what this hearing should be about. What is going on at the fcc right now?
▶ 1:34:37Sen. Markey: Instead, we have every litigated an issue that the supreme court has already decided, that in fact, independent analysts have debunked, even as president trump and the federal communications chairman, brendan carr, and other trump officials, wage a war on free speech that we have not seen since the 1950's.
▶ 1:35:05Sen. Markey: Like during the red scare, if you are a voice of dissent in this country, you have a target on your back, and they let you know you have a target on your back. Law firms, universities, protesters, news media -- all have faced this administration's wrath. These threats are real and they are scary, and they undermine our democracy.
▶ 1:35:29Sen. Markey: The president is threatening the free speech of broadcasters in our country every time they dare to run some news story that questions the judgment of the administration.
▶ 1:35:45Sen. Markey: Yet we are wasting time here, trying to distract the american people with old emails from the biden administration, while chairman carper turns the fcc into the federal censorship commission, threatening free speech, censoring free speech in our country. Allowing donald trump to continue with his direct attacks on the first amendment in our country. This is an urgent crisis for our country.
▶ 1:36:16Sen. Markey: Our democracy is at risk when the first amendment is being challenged so fundamentally. For the president and the communications commission to revoke the licenses of anyone who dares run a program contrary to his administration -- that is what we should be focused on. Thank you, Mr. chairman. >> thank you, Mr. chairman. >> Mr. chairman, a quick question.
▶ 1:36:46Sen. Markey: Would you sign on to the letter asking the fcc to revoke the license of sinclair broadcasting?
▶ 1:36:57Sen. Markey: I will have to review that. From my perspective, what trump is doing at the presidential level, ordering the fcc to act, it is absolutely unacceptable. >> mixing sports metaphors, I'm going to through the red flag. The federal district court said that the biden administration engaged in the worst example of violation of the first amendment in american history. The supreme court did not rule against it.
▶ 1:37:27Sen. Markey: It sent it down. It did not rule on the merits. It sent it down for a standing issue. Senator peters.
▶ 1:37:37Sen. Peters: Thank you, Mr. chairman. First, I would like to start by making a very clear statement. Government censorship is wrong. Full stop. It never should be tolerated. No matter what side of the aisle that you are on, we can agree that when the government takes adverse action against speech that it dislikes, that is bad for all americans and it is counter to the fundamental values of this country.
▶ 1:38:08Sen. Peters: As ranking member of homeland security and government affairs committee, I have reviewed thousands of pages of documents and testimony from the cybersecurity and infrastructure agency employees. I will say that I simply don't agree that cisa the agency has worked with a coordinated effort to censor american speech. The supreme court has basically agreed with that finding. However, if there is evidence of wrongdoing on the part of anyone in previous administrations, I want to address it.
▶ 1:38:38Sen. Peters: I want to work with folks to do that. Free speech should not be a partisan issue. That is why I am disappointed that instead of having the fcc here today to discuss an urgent and I believe flagrant violation of america's first amendment rights, which my colleague mentioned before me, instead we are rehashing debunked claims about activities of cisa from 2018 to 2022.
▶ 1:39:07Sen. Peters: Since it was created in 2018, cisa has protected our nation against cyber criminals and foreign adversaries who are constantly seeking to breach critical networks and steal america's most sensitive personal information. Unfortunately, today, we are hearing claims that have been debunked by the agency's mission.
▶ 1:39:31Sen. Peters: The supreme court decision in murphy versus missouri with regards to sessa -- the evidence does not support the conclusions that the plaintiff made that sessa had violated first amendment rights. That is the supreme court. No documents included restrictions on flag content, nor did they attempt to cover up their interaction.
▶ 1:39:56Sen. Peters: So it is concerning to me that the committee would choose to focus on these backward looking claims at a time when today, currently, we are seeing unprecedented efforts from government power as a tool to suppress free speech and stifle legitimate criticism and legitimate political discourse.
▶ 1:40:17Sen. Peters: In recent months, the trump administration has revoked media access -- revoked media access, I will say it again -- over news coverage that did not flatter the president. My gosh, horrible. You did not flatter the president. That is a high crime and misdemeanor. It also sued media outlets who published content the president does not agree with.
▶ 1:40:44Sen. Peters: He has launched baseless investigations against perceived political enemies. In one instance, the president's fcc chairman, brendan carr, threatened to revoke the licenses of affiliates made by a comedian. My gosh, horrible. Comedian comments. Revoke that license. Let's be clear. These acts are unprecedented. Unprecedented in american history.
▶ 1:41:14Sen. Peters: It rightfully raises alarms for every american. Thousands of michiganders have reached out to my office. These abuses of power must not be left unchecked. I certainly hope the chairman of this committee and members of this committee devote their efforts to examining these abuses I mentioned, regardless of who commits them. We must all stand up for first amendment rights. We face unprecedented overreach.
▶ 1:41:43Sen. Peters: It is right to call out wherever we see it, no matter who is saying it, no matter what administration. Let's not ignore what we are seeing in front of us right now, constantly, in the media. After threatening regulatory action if they did not suspend jimmy kimmel, brendan carr said if you are going to have a license from the fcc, we expect you to broadly serve the public.
▶ 1:42:17Sen. Peters: Is there a precedent for the fcc using the public interest as a necessity standard in the communications act to stifle first amendment protected speech? How has the fcc historically interpreted that?
▶ 1:42:29Mr. Kimmelman: Not to my knowledge, senator. The fcc standard has been used very carefully. There are specific threats to the communications act. Beyond the constitution itself, there is a reminder to the fcc not to stifle speech, the first amendment rights, and the fcc has been very careful.
▶ 1:42:54Sen. Peters: So the comments made by the current fcc chairman are simply unprecedented with your knowledge of the past?
▶ 1:43:01Mr. Kimmelman: In my experience studying this for 45 years, I have never seen that.
▶ 1:43:08Sen. Peters: That is perhaps why it was so shocking to americans all over this country. But apparently not to some individuals here. Thank you, Mr. chairman. >> Mr. chairman, before I begin, one of my colleagues raised a letter that was sent to the fcc back in 2018 that was signed by democrats. I don't know how many of you know who the chair of the fcc was in 2018.
▶ 1:43:37Sen. Peters: This is a pie -- does ajit pai sound familiar? Do you know who was president in 2018? Donald trump. It was chairman pai who denied this. He said something along the lines of what was submitted to the fcc lacked candor. It is funny to me that there are so many legal ways to call a lie a lie.
▶ 1:44:08Sen. Peters: When the fcc says a submission lacks candor, it means intentionally provided false or misleading information omitting crucial facts. Just to set the record straight. Just a few weeks ago, the federal communications commission chairman brendan carr made several statements. You heard a lot of them today. Regulatory action over remarks made on jimmy kimmel if they did not take action.
▶ 1:44:37Sen. Peters: In his own's words, german car said we can do this the hard way. It is clear abc can suspend jimmy kimmel's show for whatever they want. However, the fact pattern that led abc to suspend jimmy kimmel's show involved a government official making direct threats.
▶ 1:44:57Sen. Peters: You have written that if the government coerced abc into suspending the show with threats of retaliation, that would have likely violated the first amendment. Yes or no -- abc suspended jimmy kimmel because of threats, with that action violate the first amendment?
▶ 1:45:16Mr. Volokh: Yes, I think so.
▶ 1:45:20Sen. Moreno: This is not the first time that chairman carper has spoken against broadcasters since he took office. I would like to get some facts on the record. I think you answered these to chairman markey.
▶ 1:45:36Sen. Moreno: Did president biden ever direct chair rosen were sold to investigate a media company and impose their license and impose the maximum fines and punish them for unlawful and illegal behavior immediately after threatening to sue that company?
▶ 1:45:51Mr. Volokh: No.
▶ 1:45:55Sen. Moreno: Did president biden suggest resin morsel should revoke licenses? Do chairman carper reinstate complaints about election coverage that were dismissed by the prior fcc? Did chairman carper launch investigations into npr and pbs stations, alleging they violated federal law by airing commercials? Has german car openly threatened to remove contact -- has chairman carr threatened to remove broadcast news licenses?
▶ 1:46:28Sen. Moreno: That is a small example of what has recently happened. I appreciate this hearing. I think it is a good hearing. We should say fcc, keep your hands off of these media companies. Protect the first amendment. Follow the law. I hope that is something you will look at. Maybe there is bipartisanship. If anybody is worried about doing it under this president, let's say the next president. I certainly hope that is something we can all do together.
▶ 1:47:00Sen. Moreno: President comp has developed a habit of suing media companies that report or publish content he does not like. He sued cnn, abs, washington post, washington journal. Even sued the pulitzer prize winner at the new york times and washington post about the report of interference in the 2016 election. Some media companies such as abc and cbs chose to settle. Others are still fighting.
▶ 1:47:28Sen. Moreno: Even if a lawsuit is baseless, what effect does it have?
▶ 1:47:32Mr. Kimmelman: It has an enormous chilling effect. As you heard from the panelists here in a different context, it is overwhelming to take on the government. To defend your rights -- it is daunting. It pulls people away from presenting their views, to trying to vindicate the rights. It is such a costly endeavor.
▶ 1:48:00Sen. Moreno: Did cbs pay? Yes. Did paramount pay as well? There was a merger approved within days as well. My team looked into the last time the president sued one of these media companies. They had to go back to teddy roosevelt to find it. Do you know how much the settlement was for? Six cents.
▶ 1:48:31Sen. Moreno: As my time concludes, Mr. davis, I don't know if you have ever been asked this. I cannot find anywhere where you have answered this -- who won the 2024 election in the united states of america?
▶ 1:48:41Mr. Davis: The 2024 election? Joe biden was elected president.
▶ 1:48:49Sen. Moreno: ? 2024? That is misinformation. Let's set the record straight. [laughter]
▶ 1:48:56Mr. Davis: I was in government censorship mode. Donald trump won the 2020 four election. Joe biden was elected in 2020.
▶ 1:49:06Senator Moreno: I appreciate that very much. >> could you name the last president that was a prosecutor attempted to throw in jail for the rest of his life and impoverish his family?
▶ 1:49:19Mr. Davis: I would call donald trump being threatened -- >> not even teddy roosevelt. Very quickly, the question was a president suing a news organization. You said the government taking that on would have a chilling effect. You are not arguing that an individual citizen, as president trump, suing a company for lies, is a threat to the first amendment. Senator blunt rochester.
▶ 1:49:47Sen. Blunt: Rochester to my
▶ 1:49:57Rochester: There was coverage of committee hearings and a shutdown clock. It was a tale of two realities. Republicans continue to call for hearings like it is business as usual while americans are literally living in the midst of a shutdown that jeopardizes their health. It jeopardizes their jobs and the services that americans rely on.
▶ 1:50:20Rochester: So the issues before us are vitally important, but our number one priority in this moment should be reopening the government in restoring people's health care. Today, I want to use my time to remind all of us what is at stake. We are in a pivotal moment. Energy costs are up. Food prices are up. The rent has gone up.
▶ 1:50:46Rochester: Millions of americans in red states and blue states alike are on the brink of their health care costs doubling, or losing it altogether. From small businesses to farmers to ranchers to moms and dads, at this very moment, americans across our nation are making some very difficult decisions about how to make ends meet. We can fix this, but it requires negotiations.
▶ 1:51:14Rochester: It requires us all to do our jobs and to find a path forward together. We can reopen the government. We can restore health care for the millions of americans who are counting on us. But it requires urgency and it requires trust, and it requires willingness to come to the table . My republican colleagues control the white house, the house, and the senate. The ball is in your court. Let's make a deal.
▶ 1:51:45Rochester: Thank you and I yelled back, Mr. chairman. >> senator, I want to ask a couple of questions before we close out because this is a topic of great interest to me. Mr. davis, obviously, this agenda cost you a lot -- critical resources for your publication. Given organizations like -- I mean, there are so many of these that I do not have time to go into them.
▶ 1:52:16Rochester: The truth of the matter is that the cdc had approved words and phrases that social media companies could use in this secret portal that was established between the government and social media companies. If people after this phrase -- this is prior restraint. This is what we will take down ahead of time. Cisa was very much involved in this.
▶ 1:52:43Rochester: You had an alphabet soup of agencies most people have not heard of that were weaponized against millions of voices in this country. We talk about president trump a lot, but there were a lot of people who were online who had questions about the forced masking of kids or the vaccine mandate, all these sorts of things. They were throttled and taken down. Given what you know about organizations like the election integrity project -- that is another one.
▶ 1:53:09Rochester: In collaboration with sessa and taxpayer funding, how are those still working currently to harm individuals from speaking their minds?
▶ 1:53:18Mr. Davis: It is a great question. The thing about these censorship tools and technologies and efforts is they are a little bit like injecting something into the body's bloodstream. It is injected. Just because you pull the needle out does not mean the effects are gone.
▶ 1:53:37Mr. Davis: A lot of the organizations are still out there, using technologies and tools that were deliberately funded by the federal government to censor people like me, people like alex berenson, like my colleague molly hemingway. I don't know if we will have a look -- ever actually be free of the effects of this censorship industrial complex this administration created.
▶ 1:53:58Mr. Davis: I don't know who will ever be free of the horrible effect it created, the horrible dampening enrichment of our speech that we were forced to endure secretly for years. >> Mr. berenson, in your view of all of this stuff after the fact, what is the single -- it is hard to pick one. What is the most shocking thing you uncovered or found out about this experience?
▶ 1:54:29Mr. Berenson: That the white house directly targeted me. I think the white house, the federal government, has tremendous power. It can promote whatever it wants to promote. It has a right to do that. But to target individuals or entire classes of speech -- I just don't understand how anybody thought that was ok. I will tell you what the worst thing was.
▶ 1:55:02Mr. Berenson: You had private companies saying we are worried about the first amendment. You had a british politician, the former deputy prime minister of britain, saying to the white house I think there is a problem here. The white house said don't worry about it.
▶ 1:55:17Mr. Berenson: >> lastly, I want to ask -- the ai risk management framework guidance advises developers to mitigate risks related to harmful bias, content that may not distinguish fact, opinion, or fiction.
▶ 1:55:43Mr. Berenson: From a first amendment perspective, what is the danger of the government suggesting these ai companies or platforms should filter out quote unquote bias.
▶ 1:55:58Mr. Volokh: If the government were to mandate that ai companies restrict, I think that would violate the first amendment, partially because of the rights of the companies. There are users as listeners, users as people who want to use the ai to create. At the same time, when it comes to government procurement of services, the government needs ai for its own purposes. It has to insist that the ai's are providing accurate information.
▶ 1:56:29Mr. Volokh: >> you understand the danger of that.
▶ 1:56:30Mr. Volokh: There is a danger, but at the same time, the government as a buyer -- the purpose of ai is to provide accurate information. Social media is to provide information that users supply. I think it should be a largely unfiltered channel. >> a pass-through platform which is why it has section 230 protections in the first place.
▶ 1:56:55Mr. Volokh: I do think that is a good model as a pass-through platform, but ai cannot be. It has to make decisions that we hope our decisions in favor of more accurate information. Otherwise, the government as a user of ai will be constantly deceived. I think in its procurement capacity, the government needs to be able to insist that ai companies do what it takes to provide more accurate information and fight this information in their own output.
▶ 1:57:26Mr. Volokh: That is something that is required. And ai companies do not have section 230 immunity. >> I think this is going to be a big issue, whether you call it woke ai or whatever. I actually agree on this point. To lock-in the incumbents, in exchange was to have algorithms that locked in this bias. That is a very dangerous road to go down.
▶ 1:57:55Mr. Volokh: It is not for the purpose of this hearing, but since we are having the discussion, it is interesting. Senator hickenlooper?
▶ 1:58:02Sen. Hickenlooper: Mr. chair, I agree completely that what we should be looking at is the algorithms. Algorithms are going to control what we get. In a funny way, that is abrasive and intrusive speech that has almost nothing to do with your freedoms. Let me start by saying that the first amendment, to most of us, is the bedrock of our country.
▶ 1:58:36Sen. Hickenlooper: It is the bedrock of a healthy democracy. It protects people from government censorship at every level. It provides free speech. But it is not unlimited. We know that if speech encourages violence, spreads lies, is foreign enemies, defraud's people, fire in a crowded theater -- that is not protected.
▶ 1:59:05Sen. Hickenlooper: But this freedom should be nonpartisan. The way -- whether republicans or democrats are in power, we should all remain united in stopping these genuine threats to the fundamental civil rights of our society. People in this country should be free to speak their minds without censorship. Not from government. Not from government agencies or policies. Not from republicans acting under political influence.
▶ 1:59:35Sen. Hickenlooper: What worries me is that some claim to defend free speech only when it hurts their political party, and ignore it when it silences others. I think it is worth reiterating that we are not here to pick sides. It is to make sure that we protect everyone's rights to speak freely, no matter who they are, what they believe in, or what they say. Let me start by talking a little bit about the campus.
▶ 2:00:02Sen. Hickenlooper: I went to a small liberal arts college in middletown, connecticut. They, like every school, had to navigate a lot of this in the last couple years. We have seen an increase in people calling for bands on peaceful organizing related to issues such as the war in gaza or black lives matter. I think we also need to recognize our duty to protect the rights of conservative views that are expressed on college campuses.
▶ 2:00:33Sen. Hickenlooper: And work very hard to make sure they get both sides. Not everyone has. Whether we agree or disagree with each other, that freedom of speech should be defended loudly and consistently. I think that as long as we all feel that our safety is protected from threats of violence, unconscionable violence. Mr.
▶ 2:01:01Sen. Hickenlooper: Berenson, regardless of ideology, as long as individuals and groups are not inciting violence, should they not have the same rights to free speech?
▶ 2:01:12Mr. Berenson: Yes.
▶ 2:01:18Sen. Hickenlooper: Not a complicated question, but it is one of those I want to ask on the record. Each time we do that, it builds a little bit of a better foundation. Mr. davis, you have defended conservative speech online. Would you extend that same two color students expressing their views about U.S. foreign policy if their sense -- there speech was censored by a state government?
▶ 2:01:40Mr. Davis: Yes, I think americans should object to censorship by their government anywhere, for any reason.
▶ 2:01:48Sen. Hickenlooper: I was pretty sure what that answer would be. We have seen some disinformation campaigns from foreign governments. The U.S. government under both republicans and democrats worked hard to limit counter farm propaganda. These efforts are especially important when it comes to stopping these disinformation campaigns that often times are trying to interfere in our elections.
▶ 2:02:19Sen. Hickenlooper: In the first trump administration, the fcc proposed to require the mandatory disclosure of all foreign sponsored content on broadcast tv or radio. Some argued that that disclosure would be a limitation. Would you support the government having zero communication with companies about foreign disinformation campaigns with respect to public safety?
▶ 2:02:45Mr. Volokh: I haven't really thought about that. -- Mr. berenson: I have not thought about that. You said foreign, right? So the first amendment is not implicated. The problem is we have seen in the last 10 years it is very easy to go down a slippery slope when you start interfering with american speech.
▶ 2:03:09Sen. Hickenlooper: That is where that question comes from. Our foreign rivals or adversaries -- china. Last question. Is there a difference between coercive threats and agencies sharing actual information about foreign disinformation campaigns? One example would be russia's 2016 interference efforts. Would you recommend the U.S.
▶ 2:03:40Sen. Hickenlooper: Government simply stop investigating foreign interference in our elections altogether? If we do that, when that help or harm our democracy?
▶ 2:03:48Mr. Volokh: So, there is a difference between coercion and noncoercive communication. Coercion would be a first amendment violation. The others may or may not be, depending on how extensive they are.
▶ 2:04:06Mr. Volokh: I do think that indeed we see lots of situations where attempts to try to suppress foreign influence have turned into attempts that suppress domestic dissent, including in the examples you gave. Some people were wrongly trying to suppress speech on campuses, arguing these people are the cats paws of foreign influence.
▶ 2:04:30Mr. Volokh: I think even to the extent it is permissible for governments to communicate with platforms, it is important there be as much transparency as possible. It is especially dangerous when the government is trying to do that and nobody finds out about it for years, until suddenly we break the logjam and there is a lawsuit.
▶ 2:04:54Sen. Hickenlooper: If I could ask one more question that would be a yes or no -- this is something I never really followed until I was partners with a remarkable woman I sat next to in denver. She was a great defender of free speech. She looked at it with the sense of your speech is part of what you read it, and you should be able to read whatever you want without government interference.
▶ 2:05:24Sen. Hickenlooper: And there was a domestic terrorist who had blown up -- they were sure he had purchased the book on how to make this bomb at her bookstore. She was asked for information about what her customers had purchased. I want to see with each of you whether you think that in that situation, whether that is appropriate or not. That is pretty much what it was.
▶ 2:05:53Sen. Hickenlooper: They wanted to find out whether this guy had bought the book from her bookstore as part of the case. She said, you could want a million other things. This is freedom of information.
▶ 2:06:09Mr. Volokh: As I recall, I think she prevailed in that case. I'm not sure the court got it right there. All sorts of information may need to be turned over, and I'm not sure there could be a prohibition on disclosure of that information.
▶ 2:06:33Mr. Berenson: I think that is a very smart answer and I will go with it. [laughter]
▶ 2:06:38Mr. Davis: I'm not familiar with the facts of that case as you are. It is a complicated one. So I'm going to have to decline on that one because I do not have enough information. But that is a tricky one.
▶ 2:06:52Senator Hickenlooper: You guys would have made good senators. All of our cases are pretty tricky.
▶ 2:06:56Mr. Kimmelman: I can understand the sentiment she expressed and why she did it. I think I agree that there is a good legal cause.
▶ 2:07:07Sen. Hickenlooper: I think they dodged pretty well. They would be excellent material for senators. >> they pivoted.
▶ 2:07:17Sen. Hickenlooper: The supreme court did support her that this was part of free speech that should be protected. I guess most of you disagreed with that. You can feel some comfort that president does not seem all powerful the present court. So it is possible that in a similar situation we would get a different ruling. >> thank you all. I want to thank all the witnesses for testifying today.
▶ 2:07:44Sen. Hickenlooper: Senators will have until the close of business on october 15 to submit questions for the record. Witnesses will have until the close of business on october 29 to respond to those questions. That concludes today's hearing. The committee stands adjourned.