Congress will extend authorizations for agencies accused of censoring conservative speech under language in a short-term spending bill released Tuesday.
Lasts over 1,500 pages solution The authorization of the Global Engagement Center (GEC), which was scheduled to end this year, will be extended until 2025.
Through the GEC, the State Department facilitated funding for the Global Disinformation Index, which created a blacklist of conservative media that advertising companies use to demonetize websites.
.@SpeakerJohnson He personally killed the bipartisan RECA agreement that expanded bicameralism and capped spending. It was just him. But he's going to spend billions on Ukraine and foreign wars and every pork barrel project known to man. https://t.co/7QD7orzVUI
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) December 18, 2024
Last week, State Department lawyers wrote in court: filing Citing the sunset clause in the GEC's legal authorization, it said it was “substantially” likely that the GEC would end on December 23. The GEC's authority under the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act was scheduled to expire in eight years.
In their filing, the lawyers said the State Department notified Congress of its plans to terminate the GEC and “reorganize the center's personnel and funding to other department offices and bureaus for foreign intelligence operations and interference activities.” said. (Related: Legal groups and conservative news organizations file lawsuit against State Department to stop 'censorship' activities)
🚨🚨🚨BREAKING: The Department of State has notified Congress of the closure and staff reassignment of the Global Engagement Center (“GEC”). 1/ pic.twitter.com/ptLHNiwIDq
— Margot Cleveland (@ProfMJCleveland) December 10, 2024
Last December, two conservative news organizations and the state of Texas sued the State Department for what they called “one of the most egregious government operations in the nation's history to censor the American press.”
The lawsuit alleges that the GEC is using “ostensibly dangerous or unreliable media for the purpose of discrediting and depriving unfavorable news outlets and diverting funds and audiences to news outlets that publish favorable views.” It alleges that he was funding an organization that “created a blacklist of U.S. news organizations.”
“Defendants are not legally authorized to fund or promote censorship technologies or companies targeting U.S. news organizations,” the complaint states.
The continuing resolution would fund the government through March 2025 and avoid a government shutdown due to Friday's expiration of funding.
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