1 00:00:17,359 --> 00:00:21,320 We're back with another edition of the Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Emily Joshinski, 2 00:00:21,359 --> 00:00:24,399 culture editor here at the Federalist. As always, you can email the show 3 00:00:24,399 --> 00:00:28,719 at radio at the Federalist dot com, follow us on exit fdr LST, 4 00:00:29,000 --> 00:00:32,399 make sure to subscribe wherever you download your podcasts, and of course to the 5 00:00:32,399 --> 00:00:36,640 premium version of our website over at the Federalist dot com as well. We're 6 00:00:36,679 --> 00:00:41,079 joined today by one of our favorite reporters in the business. That would be 7 00:00:41,359 --> 00:00:45,119 Margo Cleveland, who is an attorney. She is with the New Civil Liberties 8 00:00:45,119 --> 00:00:49,920 Alliance and is representing The Federalist and the Daily Wire in such an important case 9 00:00:50,200 --> 00:00:53,799 that we are going to break down. First, Margo, thank you so 10 00:00:53,880 --> 00:00:57,960 much for joining the show. Thanks so much, Emily, you are a 11 00:00:58,039 --> 00:01:00,679 busy woman. First, Margo, just I want to ask how you do 12 00:01:00,759 --> 00:01:06,680 it. You do so much work, and I don't know how you keep 13 00:01:06,719 --> 00:01:12,200 track of everything. I have not it's everywhere to keep track, and I 14 00:01:12,239 --> 00:01:17,879 think my brain just does not stop. And I love this. I love 15 00:01:17,920 --> 00:01:23,400 what I'm doing. I love the law, and I love breaking down and 16 00:01:23,879 --> 00:01:30,879 telling stories to the public, which doesn't often get that from the so called 17 00:01:30,920 --> 00:01:34,040 mainstream media. You know, I think, and this is this case is 18 00:01:34,040 --> 00:01:38,400 such a good example because so much of the work that you do is focused 19 00:01:38,480 --> 00:01:45,640 on abuses by the government that in other news cycles and previous versions of the 20 00:01:45,680 --> 00:01:51,920 media and previous eras in American politics, would be the top story on the 21 00:01:52,040 --> 00:01:56,040 nightly news, it would be the headline in American newspapers. Not to say 22 00:01:56,040 --> 00:02:00,040 the media has always been perfect, but these are huge stories. And so 23 00:02:00,040 --> 00:02:04,000 speaking of these huge stories that you're working on, Margo, we mentioned that 24 00:02:04,079 --> 00:02:07,639 you're an attorney with the New Civil Liberties Alliance. They do such fantastic work. 25 00:02:07,680 --> 00:02:13,080 They've represented the Federalists before, and you guys are representing the Federalist again 26 00:02:13,240 --> 00:02:19,039 in this incredibly important suit that was filed in the Eastern District of Texas. 27 00:02:19,439 --> 00:02:22,919 If I'm not in, Margo, you are a legal person, I am 28 00:02:23,000 --> 00:02:27,000 not, and that will be very clear as we start this conversation. But 29 00:02:27,719 --> 00:02:34,439 this was filed on behalf of NCLA, filed this on behalf of Federalist Daily 30 00:02:34,479 --> 00:02:38,680 Wire in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. And man, 31 00:02:39,479 --> 00:02:43,960 is this an important one huge news that this lawsuit was filed. The 32 00:02:43,960 --> 00:02:47,280 State of Texas is joining in a lawsuit, Margo, can you just do 33 00:02:47,439 --> 00:02:53,240 a basic breakdown, you know, the elevator pitch for what's being argued in 34 00:02:53,240 --> 00:02:58,919 this case. Absolutely, so I'm going to give a basic breakdown, but 35 00:02:59,319 --> 00:03:05,439 the facts behind what is going on are so complex and convoluted that that's going 36 00:03:05,479 --> 00:03:09,280 to take a little bit more. But the basically breakdown is, our State 37 00:03:09,319 --> 00:03:19,479 Department, with our tax dollars, has been funding helping the development of promoting 38 00:03:20,360 --> 00:03:31,039 marketing, acting as a sales company to market censorship technology to big tech, 39 00:03:31,360 --> 00:03:40,960 to the social media companies, to the web browsers. And this censorship technology 40 00:03:42,960 --> 00:03:53,240 is designed to silence the speech of ordinary Americans but also us and it's the 41 00:03:53,280 --> 00:04:00,479 State Department that is doing this. Its authority is limited to foreign affairs, 42 00:04:00,879 --> 00:04:06,479 but they're not looking at foreign affairs. They are looking at anything that involves 43 00:04:06,520 --> 00:04:14,240 what they call misinformation, disinformation or mail information, which Americans are now wise 44 00:04:14,400 --> 00:04:19,839 enough post COVID to know means anything that the government does not want us to 45 00:04:19,879 --> 00:04:27,639 know. So the Federalists and the Daily Wire are making several different types of 46 00:04:27,759 --> 00:04:34,439 arguments, starting with the First Amendment, which protects the right to the press 47 00:04:34,480 --> 00:04:39,959 and the right to free speech, and it protects us from the government abridging 48 00:04:40,000 --> 00:04:45,759 those rights. And then it also is highlighting how the State Department is acting 49 00:04:46,399 --> 00:04:50,879 ultra virus, which means beyond their authority. Our State Department is supposed to 50 00:04:50,879 --> 00:04:59,680 be dealing with foreign issues, not that there's somebody talking about COVID spreading from 51 00:04:59,720 --> 00:05:04,519 a li in China. It's a tweet from Molly Hemingway that Vladimir Putin sent 52 00:05:04,720 --> 00:05:10,079 her and said, please Molly post this information. And that's why it's so 53 00:05:10,120 --> 00:05:14,279 important, Margot for the State Department to be on top of this. It's 54 00:05:14,360 --> 00:05:20,240 just nuts. And you'd think that the general public would care. You would 55 00:05:20,279 --> 00:05:26,879 think that the press would care. I think that you have a segment of 56 00:05:26,920 --> 00:05:31,920 the press who thinks that it will never come to them. It's just those 57 00:05:32,360 --> 00:05:39,240 other people that are being targeted. One that's not going to happen. Two, 58 00:05:39,519 --> 00:05:43,639 you should care that these other people are targeted. The First Amendment is 59 00:05:43,759 --> 00:05:51,040 designed to protect the press, and the State Department has so crossed the line 60 00:05:51,120 --> 00:05:59,240 it has to be stopped. And yeah, I want to read from the 61 00:05:59,360 --> 00:06:03,600 NCLA press release here because you know this is, to your point, convoluted, 62 00:06:03,600 --> 00:06:06,240 and I'm excited. I know you've been neck deep in this, just 63 00:06:06,480 --> 00:06:10,720 buried in all of these wonderful details, which are I think, you know, 64 00:06:10,720 --> 00:06:15,000 we can get into this intentionally convoluted. But the way I really like 65 00:06:15,040 --> 00:06:17,519 the way the press release puts it, they say the State Department uses its 66 00:06:17,600 --> 00:06:24,560 Global Engagement Center, So that's the GEC to finance the development and promotion of 67 00:06:24,680 --> 00:06:30,879 censorship technology and enterprises, including NewsGuard and the Global Disinformation Index. These government 68 00:06:30,920 --> 00:06:36,560 funded and government promoted censorship technologies and enterprises target many conservative media outlets, including 69 00:06:36,600 --> 00:06:44,120 The Daily Wire and The Federalist. These organizations create blacklists to discredit and demonetize 70 00:06:44,160 --> 00:06:49,279 American media outlets they brand quote risky or unreliable, aiming to redirect advertiser money 71 00:06:49,279 --> 00:06:55,879 and audiences to outlets that publish favorite viewpoints. So, Margo, correct me 72 00:06:56,199 --> 00:06:59,759 if my interpretation of this is wrong. But you know, we've seen from 73 00:07:00,040 --> 00:07:03,319 reporting from people like yourself and Gabe Kaminski who's been on top of the story, 74 00:07:03,759 --> 00:07:10,600 that news Guard and the GDI, which are funded by the GEC. 75 00:07:10,920 --> 00:07:15,079 So many acronyms, but these two groups are getting a lot of their funding, 76 00:07:15,199 --> 00:07:18,639 if not most of their funding, from the State Department, and what 77 00:07:18,720 --> 00:07:28,360 they do is consistently down rank so they credential you know, let's say leftist 78 00:07:28,519 --> 00:07:34,040 sites, corporate media, regime friendly media, and downgrade their critics which often 79 00:07:34,079 --> 00:07:39,560 to be often happen to be conservative. And they do this with our tax 80 00:07:39,600 --> 00:07:44,759 payer money that was given to them by the State Department. So with news 81 00:07:44,800 --> 00:07:47,959 Guard, I think that more of their funding is coming from the Department of 82 00:07:48,000 --> 00:07:56,279 Defense than from the State Department. Sure, but that we have still NewsGuard 83 00:07:56,319 --> 00:08:03,879 being promoted, marketed. All of that is still coming from the State Department. 84 00:08:03,680 --> 00:08:09,319 I don't know where also getting their money from. They are selling licenses, 85 00:08:09,800 --> 00:08:16,560 but you're seeing news releases coming out that NewsGuard is entering into contracts with 86 00:08:16,759 --> 00:08:24,680 other governments as well. But the lawsuit isn't focusing on NewsGuard and GDI, 87 00:08:24,959 --> 00:08:30,600 even though those are two examples, and this kind of takes us a step 88 00:08:30,639 --> 00:08:37,080 back to what was GEC doing. There were over three hundred and sixty five 89 00:08:37,559 --> 00:08:48,039 different tools or technologies that the State Department tested. So the REMS and NewsGuard 90 00:08:48,120 --> 00:08:54,159 and GDI are featured here is we know those are two of them, and 91 00:08:54,200 --> 00:09:00,879 we know that they blacklisted the plaintiffs, But how many of those other three 92 00:09:00,919 --> 00:09:05,360 hundred and sixty five tools and technologies, we're doing the same thing, or 93 00:09:05,440 --> 00:09:11,360 maybe something worse. We do not know that because the State Department doesn't tell 94 00:09:11,440 --> 00:09:18,919 us what they're doing, but we do have enough open source information that shows 95 00:09:20,440 --> 00:09:28,759 the State Department is using government funds to help promote and develop not technology that 96 00:09:28,919 --> 00:09:37,399 is limited to foreign affairs, but that is right in the marketplace of American 97 00:09:37,519 --> 00:09:43,639 press and American ideas. And that is what the focus is on in this 98 00:09:43,759 --> 00:09:50,039 lawsuit, not what these other enterprises are doing. It's that the State Department 99 00:09:50,919 --> 00:09:56,720 wants that done and it's helping that be done well. And maybe this is 100 00:09:56,759 --> 00:10:00,240 a good place, Margo, if you can, you know, do the 101 00:10:00,840 --> 00:10:03,120 we I imagine you know, some law schools force people to do. And 102 00:10:03,960 --> 00:10:11,000 you know, if you are the State Department and you are defending these practices, 103 00:10:11,240 --> 00:10:15,879 you know, what is there? What's their argument? You know, 104 00:10:15,919 --> 00:10:18,519 obviously this was just filed, so we haven't seen any sort of formal response, 105 00:10:18,600 --> 00:10:24,360 But what is their argument as it's been presented from the press, from 106 00:10:24,399 --> 00:10:28,360 their own representatives over the course of the last year or so, as some 107 00:10:28,440 --> 00:10:33,120 of these issues have come to the fore, Why do they think it's important 108 00:10:33,159 --> 00:10:35,879 for them to be engaged in this? So I think we're going to see 109 00:10:37,120 --> 00:10:41,559 several different points that the State Department does. I think you're going to have 110 00:10:41,639 --> 00:10:45,480 them actually claim oh no, no, no, no, we don't do 111 00:10:45,679 --> 00:10:50,480 this, And that's going to be a hard, hard argument to make given 112 00:10:50,600 --> 00:10:58,759 that the Open Source Information them on video talking about this these grants, So 113 00:10:58,919 --> 00:11:03,120 they do. I think that you're also going to have a pivot where they 114 00:11:05,080 --> 00:11:13,519 change any discussion about the American press to foreign disinformation. So if you pose 115 00:11:13,559 --> 00:11:22,639 a question about what is the State Department doing funding the censorship of the American 116 00:11:22,679 --> 00:11:26,360 press, the State Department doesn't do that. We are very concerned though, 117 00:11:26,480 --> 00:11:33,080 with foreign influence, just as we saw in the twenty twenty election that caused 118 00:11:33,399 --> 00:11:39,399 the insurrection, you're going to have it completely pivoted to a non sequit or 119 00:11:39,440 --> 00:11:46,080 something that has nothing to do with this case. The State Department understandably is 120 00:11:46,200 --> 00:11:54,360 concerned when you have foreign propaganda. When you have and this is where we 121 00:11:54,399 --> 00:12:00,759 need to go back to the history, when you have foreign terrorists in Hamas, 122 00:12:01,279 --> 00:12:07,759 think about Hamas spreading lies, the State Department should be concerned about that. 123 00:12:09,960 --> 00:12:16,279 But that's not what it ended up doing. It ended up using that 124 00:12:18,320 --> 00:12:26,519 to open the door to look at anything it thinks to harms Americans' interests in 125 00:12:26,559 --> 00:12:31,559 the State Department's own view. So you saw that with COVID, they literally 126 00:12:33,039 --> 00:12:41,399 helped co sponsor an event on technology to counter COVID disinformation. And now we 127 00:12:41,440 --> 00:12:48,320 know who was peddling the COVID disinformation, our government. So that's I guess 128 00:12:48,440 --> 00:12:56,080 one of the ironies here. It isn't it's just the irony and just the 129 00:12:56,200 --> 00:13:03,440 HUTSPA for the government to think it has the ability to decide what is disinformation 130 00:13:03,679 --> 00:13:11,240 or misinformation or mail information. We actually have the government admitting that true information 131 00:13:11,480 --> 00:13:18,360 can be disinformation misinformation in their guys and under their eyes. So from a 132 00:13:18,440 --> 00:13:26,440 legal perspective, I expect the State Department to argue that this is not us. 133 00:13:26,559 --> 00:13:31,919 This is third parties that are doing that what they are arguing in the 134 00:13:31,919 --> 00:13:37,600 Missouri versus Biden case that's before the Supreme Court. But this case is very 135 00:13:37,639 --> 00:13:45,120 different. We are not arguing the State Department is responsible for what these third 136 00:13:45,159 --> 00:13:52,799 parties did. The argument is very clear the State Department bridged the First Amendment 137 00:13:52,919 --> 00:13:58,200 rights of the Daily Wire and the federalists by what the State Department did. 138 00:13:58,720 --> 00:14:07,720 When the State Department funded the development of censorship technology. The State Department abridged 139 00:14:07,120 --> 00:14:15,440 the plaintiff's First Amendment rights When the State Department created a platform technology that was 140 00:14:15,519 --> 00:14:22,799 designed for the government and the military and put over three hundred different technologies on 141 00:14:22,960 --> 00:14:28,399 it that it that it explained how it worked, and then went to the 142 00:14:28,519 --> 00:14:35,480 private sector and invited big tech to come on to this government platform and to 143 00:14:35,720 --> 00:14:39,960 test the technology to see how they could use it for their quote needs. 144 00:14:39,679 --> 00:14:46,519 The State Department abridged the First Amendment rights of the Daily Wire and the Federalist. 145 00:14:46,600 --> 00:14:52,600 It's all about what the State Department did, which was abuse its power, 146 00:14:52,279 --> 00:15:01,759 act outside of its authority and abridge the First Amendment. 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And I'm curious, 156 00:15:35,960 --> 00:15:39,600 you know, you mentioned the history of this too. I'm curious, not 157 00:15:39,720 --> 00:15:45,360 just I think this is probably related. There's the history of the government's maybe 158 00:15:45,399 --> 00:15:50,240 similar tempts that we've seen from as you mentioned with NewsGuard the Pentagon, but 159 00:15:50,320 --> 00:15:54,759 in this case we're focused on the State Department legal encroachments. Are any legal 160 00:15:54,960 --> 00:15:58,759 maybe skirmishes that have happened in the past over State Department censorship, I'd be 161 00:15:58,799 --> 00:16:03,840 curious if you haven't fallen that. But also that question, that legal question 162 00:16:03,919 --> 00:16:07,120 of censorship technologies, as we're digging into, you know, the State Department 163 00:16:07,240 --> 00:16:15,799 knowingly abridging the speech rights of the Federalists and the Daily Wire, I imagine 164 00:16:15,799 --> 00:16:21,639 that pertains to, you know, the fundamental nature of these technologies as being 165 00:16:21,960 --> 00:16:25,120 for the purpose of censorship. So could you get into Marco just a little 166 00:16:25,120 --> 00:16:30,399 bit about why that is. Ultimately, you know the essence of what the 167 00:16:30,399 --> 00:16:36,279 State Department was doing is it is essentially about censorship when it comes to these 168 00:16:36,279 --> 00:16:41,240 technologies. Sure, so all you have to do is look at the GEC 169 00:16:41,440 --> 00:16:48,120 web page, listen to some of their presentations, and look at how they 170 00:16:48,159 --> 00:16:53,519 describe the technology. Now, they don't call it censorship technology. They call 171 00:16:53,559 --> 00:17:03,839 it technology to fight just information misinformation. So what you need to do is 172 00:17:03,880 --> 00:17:07,279 look at it. Okay, how do you fight it? And again the 173 00:17:07,319 --> 00:17:12,880 State Department tells us this when they list the types of technology that are available. 174 00:17:14,480 --> 00:17:22,079 They have social listening technology that what it does is it looks for what 175 00:17:22,240 --> 00:17:26,440 people are talking about on social media to figure out what these topics are. 176 00:17:26,839 --> 00:17:30,200 Well, why are you listening to what people are talking about? Why you 177 00:17:30,359 --> 00:17:36,680 the State Department do you care? Well they should care if they're talking about 178 00:17:37,559 --> 00:17:45,319 terrorism. They shouldn't care if you are talking about COVID, And we're seeing 179 00:17:45,839 --> 00:17:52,279 what the technology was designed to do was to monitor what people are talking about. 180 00:17:52,039 --> 00:17:59,519 They also are looking at these rating organizations, and the State Department considers 181 00:17:59,640 --> 00:18:07,319 that helpful to fight disinformation and misinformation. So the two that we know of, 182 00:18:07,519 --> 00:18:11,160 and there probably are more, but we know of NewsGuard and we know 183 00:18:11,240 --> 00:18:18,400 of Global Disinformation Index. So what is the purpose of those organizations? They 184 00:18:18,440 --> 00:18:26,039 tell us themselves. It is to take money from what they call fake news 185 00:18:26,160 --> 00:18:33,160 or risky outlets or unreliable outlets, and to shut down the flow of money 186 00:18:33,759 --> 00:18:41,039 so that it can be redirected to what they call reliable outlets. So how 187 00:18:41,160 --> 00:18:48,759 is that anything more than the censorship of speech? They are abridging the right 188 00:18:48,880 --> 00:18:55,000 of the press by the State Department saying here, these are technologies to do 189 00:18:55,079 --> 00:19:00,319 what you need to do, which is to blacklist, to censor, to 190 00:19:00,599 --> 00:19:07,960 silence speech that we the government do not think is helpful. And how has 191 00:19:07,039 --> 00:19:11,519 this harmed the Federalist and the Daily Wire. I mean, it sounds like 192 00:19:11,559 --> 00:19:15,279 such an obvious question, but you've been working on this again for a while. 193 00:19:15,279 --> 00:19:19,759 What are the sort of material consequences of the scheme? Right? So, 194 00:19:21,279 --> 00:19:27,920 the scheme broadly is designed to starve media outlets, to starve them. 195 00:19:27,960 --> 00:19:36,119 So, but this lawsuit is not seeking money, and it's not targeted again 196 00:19:36,319 --> 00:19:41,039 at those who are doing that. What the lawsuit is seeking is the State 197 00:19:41,119 --> 00:19:52,359 Department to stop their unconstitutional conduct. One thing that we can't know is one 198 00:19:52,359 --> 00:19:59,720 thing that we cannot know is exactly the extent of this. We don't know 199 00:20:00,079 --> 00:20:04,559 what all this technology did. We don't know if the State Department was helping 200 00:20:04,720 --> 00:20:14,519 build algorithms in which when people do searches, they can't discover the articles that 201 00:20:14,920 --> 00:20:23,400 are contrary to governments, right, think, we don't know if it automatically 202 00:20:23,480 --> 00:20:32,160 will trigger the down ranking of certain publications. So there's a lot that discovery 203 00:20:32,279 --> 00:20:40,440 needs to show. But we do know that the State Department is abridging the 204 00:20:40,480 --> 00:20:47,319 First Amendment by doing any of this. Yeah, and did you like? 205 00:20:47,599 --> 00:20:49,000 I mean, I actually don't know if there's a good answer to this question. 206 00:20:49,039 --> 00:20:55,359 Are there previous instances or legal skirmishes with the State Department specifically, or 207 00:20:55,440 --> 00:21:00,440 is there precedent when it comes to the government more generally. That's salient here, 208 00:21:00,119 --> 00:21:06,759 sure. So the one case where the State Department was sued was actually 209 00:21:06,799 --> 00:21:11,680 the Missouri versus Biden case. And in that case, even though the lower 210 00:21:11,799 --> 00:21:21,799 courts held that the individual plaintiffs in the states had proven for a preliminary injunction 211 00:21:21,960 --> 00:21:26,000 stage a violation of their rights, they said that there wasn't enough evidence that 212 00:21:26,079 --> 00:21:33,519 the State Department was involved in causing the private censorship of speech. So in 213 00:21:33,559 --> 00:21:38,559 that case, the State Department actually got tossed out. But that case, 214 00:21:38,559 --> 00:21:47,799 again was looking at the transition from the government asking censorship of individual posts, 215 00:21:48,079 --> 00:21:52,839 which is a very different case than what we have here. In this case, 216 00:21:52,960 --> 00:21:59,839 it is looking at the State Department and what the State Department did in 217 00:22:00,000 --> 00:22:04,240 their censorship scheme. And I call it a censorship scheme because there are so 218 00:22:04,359 --> 00:22:10,279 many components to it. It would take me three sentences to describe it. 219 00:22:10,920 --> 00:22:15,519 But the funding, the marketing, the promotion, the assistance, all of 220 00:22:15,559 --> 00:22:22,039 that together is very different. And what you need to kind of look back 221 00:22:22,119 --> 00:22:26,640 it is at the bottom line, it's the First Amendment. The First Amendment 222 00:22:26,759 --> 00:22:33,640 tells the government it cannot abridge freedom of speech or freedom of the press. 223 00:22:33,079 --> 00:22:40,640 A bridge is to lessen, to lower, and it's right there in the 224 00:22:40,640 --> 00:22:47,240 Constitution. It's clear. There are other cases that talk about the government's responsibility 225 00:22:47,519 --> 00:22:55,440 for harming the press by limiting the reach of the press. So for instance, 226 00:22:55,759 --> 00:23:00,599 tax dollars, where excuse me, a tax system which was taxing the 227 00:23:00,640 --> 00:23:07,039 press was an abridgment of the press where it was targeted only at the press 228 00:23:07,079 --> 00:23:15,279 as opposed to other outsiders. Or for instance, where you had local officials 229 00:23:15,359 --> 00:23:22,039 trying to prevent the publication of a book or the promotion of let's say some 230 00:23:22,079 --> 00:23:27,559 illicit types of advertisement. The thing is, though there isn't a case that 231 00:23:27,759 --> 00:23:34,279 is all squares here for the very simple reason that the government has never done 232 00:23:34,319 --> 00:23:40,559 something this outrageous before. And that's why I keep coming back to it's right 233 00:23:40,599 --> 00:23:45,880 there in the First Amendment. They shan't abridge the right to freedom of speech 234 00:23:45,039 --> 00:23:51,160 or freedom of the press. We have lots of precedent out there that shows 235 00:23:51,200 --> 00:23:57,240 in abridgment has occurred when it has been something so minor. But here we 236 00:23:57,440 --> 00:24:10,680 have a entire State Department together combined to try to destroy speech and the press. 237 00:24:11,640 --> 00:24:17,119 And I'm sure they'll argue, you know, we're not abridging the speech 238 00:24:17,240 --> 00:24:19,960 we are. You know there's no speech that's you know that nobody is saying 239 00:24:21,400 --> 00:24:27,039 Federalist or Daily Wire can't write X, Y and z. Of course we 240 00:24:27,160 --> 00:24:30,200 know that's not exactly what's happening. So could you speak to that a little 241 00:24:30,200 --> 00:24:33,720 bit, Margo. You know, if the State Apartment comes back and says 242 00:24:33,880 --> 00:24:37,119 they're allowed to say whatever they want, we're not saying, you know, 243 00:24:37,160 --> 00:24:41,319 they can't say whatever. You speak to that a little bit, sure. 244 00:24:41,559 --> 00:24:48,359 So first, the word a bridge does not say you shall not completely silence 245 00:24:48,400 --> 00:24:52,599 the press, you shall not make it illegal to speak. It says a 246 00:24:52,599 --> 00:24:59,559 bridge, and again that can be something that is very very broad to a 247 00:24:59,599 --> 00:25:03,000 bridge, and in case law has shown it doesn't have to be a huge 248 00:25:03,039 --> 00:25:08,359 abridgment, such as when we have cases of tax dollars. But the other 249 00:25:08,519 --> 00:25:15,799 part is there is no difference between the State Department going to social media saying 250 00:25:15,640 --> 00:25:26,119 these companies are blacklisted and you should not publish, promote, allow web browser 251 00:25:26,200 --> 00:25:33,759 searches to give high rankings to that. There's no difference between that and the 252 00:25:33,799 --> 00:25:41,759 government helping the technology to be developed, funding it, and or taking the 253 00:25:41,880 --> 00:25:51,440 technology and going to Google and saying this technology will help you prevent disinformation. 254 00:25:52,039 --> 00:25:57,720 It's the same thing. The government does not have to stick a sop in 255 00:25:57,759 --> 00:26:07,559 the figureative mouth to silence the press. It doesn't have to make the internet 256 00:26:07,599 --> 00:26:11,839 illegal to the federalist to a bridge speech. So you're absolutely right, that's 257 00:26:11,880 --> 00:26:17,920 what we're going to see from the State Department is going to be completely disingenuous. 258 00:26:18,400 --> 00:26:22,319 They would not have undertaken this scheme if that was not their goal. 259 00:26:23,119 --> 00:26:30,200 And then you have the added point that the State Department has no business doing 260 00:26:30,480 --> 00:26:37,839 anything about the American press anyway. So you also have the fact that the 261 00:26:37,960 --> 00:26:44,359 State Department is going much beyond its authority when it is doing any of this 262 00:26:44,519 --> 00:26:51,920 promotion in the United States that targets the American press, and Margo, you 263 00:26:51,960 --> 00:26:56,000 mentioned Missouri Vie Biden and some of the key differences between this and Missouri v. 264 00:26:56,119 --> 00:27:00,759 Biden. Could you get a little bit more go into that a little 265 00:27:00,799 --> 00:27:03,000 bit more, and maybe just for people who have, you know, in 266 00:27:03,119 --> 00:27:07,759 all of the alphabet soup of the last few years when it comes to following 267 00:27:07,960 --> 00:27:15,039 government censorship, maybe people who have lost track of missourifi Biden or haven'tdug too 268 00:27:15,039 --> 00:27:18,519 deeply into it, could you just give a sort of overview of what that 269 00:27:18,680 --> 00:27:22,759 case is doing and then how it's different from this one. Absolutely, And 270 00:27:22,119 --> 00:27:27,160 first off, just because I'm saying this is different than for Missouri versus Biden, 271 00:27:27,480 --> 00:27:34,119 I am not in any way saying that that case is not usually important. 272 00:27:34,640 --> 00:27:41,559 It's just attacking two different parts of the censorship industrial complex. So Missouri 273 00:27:41,640 --> 00:27:45,880 versus. Biden, which I am still calling it that at the Supreme Court 274 00:27:47,000 --> 00:27:52,400 now it's called Murphy versus Missouri. They switched the names because of who lost 275 00:27:52,480 --> 00:27:57,200 below. But in that case, the lawsuit was brought against, as you 276 00:27:57,240 --> 00:28:06,039 said, the alphabet soup of federal agency. So you had the FBI involve, 277 00:28:06,160 --> 00:28:12,680 you had the CDC involved, you had the CISC involved. So I 278 00:28:12,759 --> 00:28:17,400 want to say there must have been up, you know, five to ten 279 00:28:17,559 --> 00:28:26,359 different federal agencies that were all working with social media companies and likely other tech 280 00:28:26,400 --> 00:28:33,599 companies such as Google or Microsoft, those who have the browsers. And what 281 00:28:33,680 --> 00:28:44,440 they were doing is they were passing off and triggering the censorship of specific speech 282 00:28:44,640 --> 00:28:52,599 and specific people. And it would have been in maybe spreadsheets or emails where 283 00:28:52,640 --> 00:28:56,279 they said that this should be taken down, that should be taken down. 284 00:28:57,039 --> 00:29:04,680 So that is a huge problems and the First Amendment absolutely prohibits that too, 285 00:29:06,200 --> 00:29:10,240 because it wasn't them just saying hey, would you mind, which, by 286 00:29:10,319 --> 00:29:15,359 itself, the government should not be doing. And depending on how they did 287 00:29:15,359 --> 00:29:19,599 it, it could be a violation. But here or in miserveri versus fiety, 288 00:29:21,279 --> 00:29:30,759 it wasn't merely oh this is wrong. It was constant pressure, ordination, 289 00:29:33,400 --> 00:29:40,119 constant threats. So in many ways, the government violated the First Amendment 290 00:29:40,839 --> 00:29:51,079 by causing these third parties to quiet individual speakers, individual tweets, individual posts, 291 00:29:51,200 --> 00:29:56,559 individual articles. And we're seeing more and more of that as the House 292 00:29:56,640 --> 00:30:03,839 is actually doing investigations on it. In this case, it is only against 293 00:30:03,839 --> 00:30:10,880 the State Department. The State Department, unlike the FBI and the CDC, 294 00:30:11,680 --> 00:30:19,359 who have some authority nationally, the State Department's reach is only by statute for 295 00:30:19,440 --> 00:30:25,720 an affair. So right there, we've got one difference. Secondly, we 296 00:30:25,799 --> 00:30:33,160 are not talking about holding the State Department liable for what third parties posted. 297 00:30:33,359 --> 00:30:42,319 We're talking about the State Department abridging the First Amendment rights by their own conduct 298 00:30:44,319 --> 00:30:49,599 and their own funding, and their own promotion and their own development of this 299 00:30:49,839 --> 00:31:00,119 censorship technology. Third what we're looking at here is how the State Department and 300 00:31:00,799 --> 00:31:12,119 gave government resources to private companies by virtue of either funding grants or by giving 301 00:31:12,160 --> 00:31:19,799 them access to this government platform and all of this government research on these technologies 302 00:31:21,319 --> 00:31:29,480 that help to quiet speech. So they are both horrendous First Amendment violations, 303 00:31:30,000 --> 00:31:34,160 and the NCLA, the New Civil Liberties Alliance, is representing plaintiffs in both 304 00:31:34,279 --> 00:31:41,680 cases. It is just that the cases are distinct from each other and present 305 00:31:41,119 --> 00:31:48,960 different types of arguments. Hey, y'all, this is Sarah from the Sarah 306 00:31:48,960 --> 00:31:52,039 Carter Show. Thanks for listening to the Federalist Radio Hour. 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As we're kind of 323 00:33:05,519 --> 00:33:09,079 winding down here, maybe you could give us sort of a thirty thousand foot 324 00:33:09,240 --> 00:33:17,559 view perspective on why this case is so important? What is about this case 325 00:33:19,160 --> 00:33:24,279 so powerful as it pertains to the climate of censorship, as it pertains to 326 00:33:24,359 --> 00:33:30,599 the direction of the federal government and especially the executive branch and their approach to 327 00:33:30,839 --> 00:33:37,519 dissident viewpoints and dissident journalism. How important do you see as somebody who's covered 328 00:33:37,559 --> 00:33:42,319 this, who's researched, who's worked in this space for years, how important 329 00:33:42,400 --> 00:33:49,400 is this case? This case is hugely important from a First Amendment perspective and 330 00:33:49,519 --> 00:33:58,079 also from a totalitarian government perspective. Every journalist should be appalled at what the 331 00:33:58,160 --> 00:34:06,559 State Department did. And the State Department was actually housing the GEC as a 332 00:34:06,880 --> 00:34:15,480 multi agency organization, So the GEC was helping do all of this with all 333 00:34:15,559 --> 00:34:22,679 of these other ABC type organizations, so they were working GEC was working with 334 00:34:22,760 --> 00:34:29,079 the FBI, and was working with the DoD They're not part of this lawsuit, 335 00:34:29,440 --> 00:34:35,639 but the State Department is kind of the center to everything that was happening. 336 00:34:36,280 --> 00:34:42,000 And I think that this case is also really important because Americans need to 337 00:34:42,119 --> 00:34:50,719 wake up to what is actually going on. And it is not merely trying 338 00:34:50,760 --> 00:35:00,000 to combat foreign propaganda, but it's trying to control not just what Americans want 339 00:35:00,079 --> 00:35:05,559 read and say, but what they think. And this you can discover if 340 00:35:05,599 --> 00:35:10,320 you just look at the types of grants being funded for research. It is 341 00:35:10,360 --> 00:35:20,320 including grants to psychiatrists or psychologists on basically info warfare. And what they're trying 342 00:35:20,400 --> 00:35:27,440 to do with these technologies is to figure out what people are talking about and 343 00:35:27,800 --> 00:35:34,559 then how to counter that message. Maybe if the message was it is good 344 00:35:34,639 --> 00:35:37,840 to do a terrorist attack, yeah, that's something we want to counter, 345 00:35:38,639 --> 00:35:45,920 but that's not what they're countering. They're countering anything that is contrary to who 346 00:35:46,599 --> 00:35:52,639 the leaders are in see and we're not just talking about the Biden administration. 347 00:35:53,079 --> 00:36:00,360 This happened under the Trump administration and it started under the Obama administration. It 348 00:36:00,400 --> 00:36:07,960 is, to use the phrase deep state, it is those who think they 349 00:36:07,559 --> 00:36:15,960 know the decisions that should be made and not the American public. And when 350 00:36:15,840 --> 00:36:22,800 the Internet became so prolific for allowing people to talk and to educate and to 351 00:36:22,960 --> 00:36:31,119 learn and to read it terrified those who used to have control, and that's 352 00:36:31,119 --> 00:36:37,920 why this is so important to make sure that they never have that control again, 353 00:36:37,559 --> 00:36:45,320 and that the Americans and the American press have the ability to speak and 354 00:36:45,360 --> 00:36:51,880 to debate and to educate the country. You know. Yeah, this case 355 00:36:51,960 --> 00:36:57,199 really forces the forces the court to confront one of the biggest problems in our 356 00:36:57,679 --> 00:37:02,079 country anymore, which is that people don't have obvious they don't share obvious consensus 357 00:37:02,079 --> 00:37:07,280 definitions of things like terrorism. We see the FBI weaponizing terms like that, 358 00:37:07,440 --> 00:37:14,079 what is disinformation? What is a fact? These are serious problems in our 359 00:37:14,079 --> 00:37:17,280 society. I think the more people like you Martin forced this issue in courts, 360 00:37:17,360 --> 00:37:22,480 you know, where there's such obvious problems, glaring problems with the way 361 00:37:22,480 --> 00:37:30,199 the government is choosing to weaponize and interpret some of these terms against its against 362 00:37:30,239 --> 00:37:34,199 its critics, against the press. It's just a scary time. So Margot, 363 00:37:34,239 --> 00:37:37,639 thank you so much for all your work on this. Well, thank 364 00:37:37,719 --> 00:37:42,400 you so much for having me and for taking their time to let me walk 365 00:37:42,480 --> 00:37:45,719 through all of the details. And I look forward with the new Civil Liberties 366 00:37:45,719 --> 00:37:52,840 Alliance to really putting an end to these abridgments of the Federalists and the Daily 367 00:37:52,880 --> 00:37:57,800 Wires Free speech rights. Oh absolutely, we're going to be following the case 368 00:37:57,800 --> 00:38:04,320 obviously very closely. And CLA as we mentioned earlier, NCLA legal dot org. 369 00:38:04,400 --> 00:38:07,719 That's the website for the New Civil Liberties Alliance. They have represented the 370 00:38:07,719 --> 00:38:12,800 Federalists before and done excellent work, and we're looking forward to to following this 371 00:38:12,880 --> 00:38:17,559 Clay this case very closely. Here because I'll just say I concur and have 372 00:38:17,639 --> 00:38:22,239 been fascinated to hear your perspective on how important this case is. Marco. 373 00:38:22,320 --> 00:38:24,400 So thank you so much for your time. You're very very busy. We're 374 00:38:24,440 --> 00:38:29,719 just very grateful you stop by Federalist Radio Hour. Thanks so much. Emily, 375 00:38:30,239 --> 00:38:32,880 of course you've been listening to another edition of the Federalist Radio Hour. 376 00:38:32,960 --> 00:38:37,800 I'm Elisashinski, culture editor here at the Federalist. We'll be back soon with 377 00:38:37,960 --> 00:38:52,800 more. Until then, be lovers of freedom and anxious for the fray right.