Eighty years ago, the US government launched a war bond campaign with a Norman Rockwell painting depicting the struggle against authoritarian threats in Europe. The government chose Rockwell’s “Freedom of Speech,” a painting of a man standing up in a Vermont assembly to speak his mind. The painting rallied the nation to what Louis Brandeis called “essential rights.”
Now that very right is under attack again from another European government asserting the right to censor what Americans say about politics, science and other subjects. In fact, the European threat may succeed in restricting American freedoms to a degree the Axis powers never imagined. They may win, but our leaders have not said a word about it yet.
In my book,An Essential Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage,” I discuss the inspiration for Rockwell’s painting: a young Vermont town mayor, James “Buddy” Edgerton. A descendant of a Revolutionary War hero, Edgerton was the sole opponent of the plan, citing a lack of funds to build a new school building.
To Rockwell, the scene was a riveting example of how one man in this country can stand alone and make his voice heard despite overwhelming opposition to his views. For Rockwell (and for many of us), it was a quintessentially American moment.
In the 1940s, people like Edgerton had to go to small boardrooms and public forums to voice their opinions. Today, most political speech happens on the internet, especially social media. That’s why the internet is the greatest advancement for free speech since the printing press.
This is also why governments have spent decades trying to control speech on the Internet, regulating what people can say and read.
One of the biggest threats to free speech today is the European Digital Services Act, which bans speech deemed “disinformation” or “incitement.” Celebrating the law’s passage, European Commission Vice-President Margrethe Vestager declared, “It is no longer a slogan that what is illegal offline should also be considered illegal and dealt with online. It is now a reality. Democracy is back.”
Freedom of speech is in steep decline in Europe. Countries such as Germany, France and the UK have eviscerated it by criminalizing any speech deemed to be inciting or insulting to individuals or groups. As a result, the neo-Nazi movement in countries such as Germany, which is reaching record numbers, has had little impact, but the rest of society has been silenced.
According to opinion polls, only 18 percent of Germans feel free to express their opinions in public. 59 percent feel they cannot express their opinions freely even among friends. Only 17 percent of Germans feel free to express their opinions on the Internet.
They have silenced the wrong people, but Europe now has a vast censorship bureaucracy and an insatiable desire to silence dissent.
Some in this country love to censor speech. Many on the left were outraged after Elon Musk bought Twitter and dismantled much of the company’s censorship programs, and their anger intensified when Musk released the “Twitter Files,” confirming long-denied government cooperation and support for the targeting and suppression of speech.
In response, Hillary Clinton and other Democratic figures He turned to Europe, urging them to use the Digital Services Act to enforce censorship on Americans.
The EU responded immediately, threatening Musk with expropriation penalties not only against his company but also against Musk himself, which would be ruinous if he did not reinstate wholesale censorship.
It was a case of an irresistible force meeting an immovable object: the anti-free speech movement had finally found the one person it could not bully, coerce or threaten into submission.
Musk’s defiance will only intensify the relentless attacks on him by the media, academia and governments, who, if they can bring him to his knees, will once again effectively control large swaths of global speech.
This campaign came to a head recently when Musk made the bold move to interview former President Donald Trump, a move that drew outrage from one of the world’s most notorious anti-free speech figures.
European Commissioner for Internal Market and Services Thierry Breton sent a threatening message to Musk: “We are monitoring potential EU risks associated with the dissemination of content that may incite violence, hatred or racism in the context of major political or social events around the world, including election-related debates or interviews.”
While he lightly acknowledged freedom of speech, he warned Musk that “all appropriate and effective mitigation measures are being taken with regard to amplifying violence.”Harmful contentin relation to related events.’ In other words, be afraid, be very afraid.
Musk responded, “Bonjour!” and then proceeded to suggest that he perform a physically challenging sexual act on Breton.
In summary, the EU is currently working to enforce censorship on the American people to satisfy its demands for anything false, offensive, or inflammatory, including the censorship of leading candidates in our presidential elections.
The Biden administration’s response was not a presidential statement warning any foreign government against trying to restrict our rights, nor was Secretary of State Antony Blinken summoning the EU ambassador to his office to express his displeasure.
That’s because Biden and Harris support, rather than complain about, allowing the EU to do things prohibited by the Constitution. It’s no exaggeration to say that this administration is the most anti-free speech administration since John Adams signed the Sedition Act. They have supported a massive system of censorship, blacklisting, and targeting of dissenting voices. Democrats have fully supported censorship, including forcing social media companies to expand in areas ranging from climate control to gender identity.
So, after just 80 years, our leaders remain silent when European governments threaten to restrict our political voice to a minimum common standard set by their own values. Not a single shot will be fired as Biden and Harris simply cede our rights to a global governance system.
But we don’t have to go through this night quietly. Freedom of speech is a human right that is part of our DNA as Americans. We can fight back and defend the millions of Edgertons who want to express their opinions regardless of the judgment of the majority.
I have previously called for legislation to get the U.S. government out of the domestic censorship business. We also need new laws to prevent other countries from censoring the speech of their citizens and companies. The U.S. has long threatened retaliation to fight market barriers in other countries, and we need to do the same with free speech. We need federal legislation to oppose the intrusion of digital services into the U.S.
If free speech is truly an “essential right” of all Americans, then we need to treat this threat as an attack on our very existence. This is not only the most blatant form of foreign interference in an election, but a foreign attack on our very freedoms. That’s why we must pass the Digital Freedom Act.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. He says:An Essential Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage” (Simon & Schuster).
