WASHINGTON – Alliance Defending Freedom’s Center for Free Speech sent the first two of what will be more than a dozen public records requests to federal government agencies seeking information related to possible free speech violations.
The two Freedom of Information Act letters sent Friday request that 1.) the National Science Foundation disclose information related to its funding of tools that may be used to censor Americans’ speech, and 2.) provide information regarding its cooperation with organizations to moderate online speech.
“Free speech is essential to a free society,” said ADF Senior Counsel Phil Sechler, director of the ADF Center for Free Speech. “The U.S. government should defend our First Amendment right to free speech, not be its greatest threat. But the Biden administration established a censorship regime that aimed to suppress so-called ‘misinformation’ and other speech deemed unfavorable to the government. NSF and other government agencies must be transparent with the public about their operations and activities. The American people have a right to know if their tax dollars were used to create censorship tools to suppress certain voices and how involved state actors were—and are—in social media and online censorship.”
One of the FOIA requests ADF sent to NSF seeks production of all communications between any NSF personnel and any personnel of Meta, Facebook, Instagram, Alphabet, Google, YouTube, Snap, Twitter, X, Reddit, or Wikipedia containing terms including, “disinformation,” “hate speech,” “election integrity,” “lab leak,” “misinformation,” and others.
ADF plans to send several more FOIA requests to multiple government agencies in the coming days seeking information on government collusion with organizations that may work to censor Americans’ speech.
- Pronunciation guide: Sechler (SECK’-lur)
Alliance Defending Freedom is an alliance-building, non-profit legal organization committed to protecting religious freedom, free speech, parental rights, and the sanctity of life.
# # #