Techs and Balances
The rest of the country knows it as the 2020 election. To the leaders at Google, it’s the “Trump situation.” And based on new undercover video, they’ll do anything to prevent this president’s history from repeating.
The rest of the country knows it as the 2020 election. To the leaders at Google, it’s the “Trump situation.” And based on new undercover video, they’ll do anything to prevent this president’s history from repeating.
Americans knew there was a censorship problem at places like Google and Pinterest. Now, thanks to James O'Keefe and Project Veritas, they see just how bad it is. Turns out, platforms like this search engine aren’t in the browsing business — they’re in the political business. And not as an unbiased observer. In the footage released Monday, Jen Gennai, head of Google’s Responsible Innovation team, has been innovative all right — especially when it comes to trying to alter the president’s reelection chances.
“Elizabeth Warren is saying we should break up Google,” Gennai was caught saying on tape. “And I love her, but she’s very misguided. That will not make it better, it will make it worse, because now all these smaller companies who don’t have the same resources that we do will be charged with preventing the next Trump situation.” And according to the footage, those resources have been hard at work since 2016 “to make sure that we are ready for 2020.”
To conservatives like Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), the surprise is not that companies like Google are trying to interfere with the election. The surprise is that they’re being so candid about it. There’s plenty of evidence from three years ago, he told me on “Washington Watch” that the search engine had rigged their algorithms to favor Hillary Clinton results over Donald Trump’s. But here’s the scary thing, he said. “More and more voters, especially undecided voters, get their news from Google search right? So this platform with its monopoly power has the ability to swing undecided voter could potentially swing an election… [T]his is something that we should all be concerned about.”
It’s time to take seriously what liberals in Big Tech are doing, he insisted — “let alone what they’re doing that we don’t know about.” After all, “we’re talking about democracy. I mean, "You’ve got Google executives and Google employees saying, ‘We want to manipulate the information that goes to voters, so that they will vote the way that we Google want them to vote. That’s not democracy. That’s not the rule of the people. That’s rule by this multinational corporation.”
If people were unconvinced about these leaders’ motivations before, Project Veritas is making believers out of more every day. This morning, most of us woke up to the headlines that one leaked Google document compared conservatives like Ben Shapiro, PragerU, and others to “Nazis using dog whistles.” And just as O'Keefe’s post was approaching a million views, guess what? YouTube, which happens to be owned by Google, pulled it.
Here’s the thing, Senator Hawley told me. Google is a private company, and it can do what it wants. But it certainly shouldn’t be getting special deals and immunity from the federal government if they’re going to try to influence the outcome of an election or silence conservatives. Under his new bill, the Internet Censorship Act, major tech platforms would have to start being politically neutral toward what content they allow or disallow. If they want to keep operating under this unique status, they should have to submit to an audit that proves they aren’t discriminating against conservatives or the conservative viewpoint.
“And if Google doesn’t want to do that because they’re private company and they want to be out there as a progressive Left-wing company, that’s fine. But then they shouldn’t [get this special status from the] government…” And it’s not just Google, Senator Hawley explains. It’s Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, and others too. Right now, he points out, “If Twitter takes away your account or Facebook takes down your post because they don’t like that it’s pro-life, there’s currently nothing you could do to Facebook or to Twitter. They have immunity from liability.” The traditional media, on the other hand, doesn’t. “Whether it’s television or newspapers or even online journalists… if they print stuff that’s not true, if they slander you, if they discriminate against you, you can sue them [to hold them] accountable.”
Every platform should be playing by the same rules. Either Google and the rest of Big Tech need to embrace the First Amendment and treat people fairly or they can wave goodbye to their cozy government deals.
Originally published here.
Unchartered Territory: Voucher School Fined for Faith
Don’t say America wasn’t warned. During the oral arguments for same-sex marriage in 2015, a question came up about the fallout for Christian education. Asked if religious schools could be punished for holding a natural view of marriage, U.S. Solicitor Donald Verrilli was surprisingly honest. “…[I]t’s certainly going to be an issue. I don’t deny that, Justice Alito. It is going to be an issue.”
Four years later, that prophecy is coming to pass. Out in Maryland, a Christian charter school was told by state officials that can’t participate in the voucher program anymore because of its biblical beliefs on marriage and sexuality. The leadership of Bethel Christian Academy was stunned. After all, it relied on that money to serve the school’s 280 low-income kids. For two years, those vouchers were what made their option to public school possible. Now, intolerant bureaucrats are telling Bethel that not only is it barred from the program, but it has to pay back the $100,000 it received — which, to a small academy like this one, is a financial death sentence.
“Bethel Christian Academy offers an academically rigorous and caring Christian education in a diverse environment,” said the school’s attorney from Alliance Defending Freedom. Nothing about its programs should be controversial. And until last year, nothing was. That’s when the Maryland Department of Education disqualified the academy after looking through the school’s handbooks. In them, officials found statements of Bethel’s biblical beliefs on marriage and sexuality. And according to state officials, that’s discrimination.
But if there’s any discrimination, it’s not from Bethel Academy. As ADF’s Christiana Holcomb explained, the school has never turned anyone away based on their sexuality. All they do is ask that students maintain a biblical standard of intimacy, as the Bible teaches. “Maryland let its hostility toward Bethel’s religious views, not the law, decide the school’s eligibility,” said legal counsel. “Maryland’s families deserve better.” And hopefully, with this lawsuit against the state, they’ll get it. Until then, every private school is on notice: when it comes to state programs, Christians need not apply.
Originally published here.
A Leap over Faith by House Dems
If you thought House Democrats would slow down after six months of LGBT-open borders-infanticide socialism, think again. Based on Tuesday’s hearing, the new majority is just warming up. Apparently, it’s not enough to try to strip away people’s privacy, speech, liberty, and dignity. Now, the Left is coming for the biggest prize of all: our freedom to believe.
Common ground used to be a lot more common on things like religious liberty. But, like born-alive protections, the transgender agenda, and taxpayer-funded abortion, those areas of bipartisanship have evaporated in a cloud of the Left’s new radicalism. Suddenly, areas that used to be political no-brainers are back under the microscope — including a law so popular that it passed by voice vote in the House and with just three objections in the Senate: the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA).
“Since the beginning of the Trump administration,” Chairman Robert Scott (D-Va.) insisted in his Education and Labor subcommittee, “this troublesome trend has only gotten worse.” By “troublesome trend,” of course, he means the free exercise of religion, which Democrats are no longer interested in defending. Under their new bill, called — ironically — the Do No Harm Act, the party of Pelosi tries to do away with this little nuisance called the First Amendment, gutting RFRA and leaving every man and woman of faith at the mercy of their government on matters like health care, adoption policy, housing, education, and small business.
“While religious liberty remains a fundamental value, it cannot and should not be used as a weapon to cause harm to others,” Scott went on. That’s ironic, most Christians would tell you, since it’s their freedoms that have come under increasing attack. And in those cases, as ADF’s Matt Sharp testified to the committee, RFRA has hardly been the shield for religion that liberals like Scott make it out to be. Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.), a constitutional law attorney for more than 20 years, pointed out that in the 26 years since RFRA was enacted, people who’ve looked to the statute for protection have only been successful about 17 percent the time. “In other words,” he fired back, “the government almost always wins!”
“All RFRA provides is a fair hearing,” Rep. Johnson went on. And in today’s courts, not even that is a guarantee. “[It] was created to provide a very reasonable balancing test between sincerely-held religious beliefs and the government’s interest in federal law.” If Congress takes that away, just imagine what would happen. Rep. Phil Roe (R-Tenn.), a doctor (the only one at Tuesday’s hearing), knows all too well. “[As an OB-gyn], will I be forced to perform something I believe to be wrong [like] an abortion?” he asked. Others asked about contraception and foster care. Liberal members fired back that conservatives were using the law to keep patients from getting the care they need.
“RFRA is not about denying health care to women,” Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) fired back. “RFRA is about protecting the First Amendment and our right to the free exercise of religion.” The real problem, she insists, isn’t faithful Americans — it’s Democrats who want to strongarm Americans into surrendering their values. “I think the very reason we must make sure this bill never passes is that many of our colleagues would impose their beliefs on others if RFRA were changed. And that’s really troubling to me. Again, I want to say… disagreement is not discrimination!”
Congressman Bradley Byrne (R-Ala.) could only shake his head at the other side of the aisle.
“There is a fundamental conflict in values in this country, and there is a determined minority — an intolerant minority — that would tell the majority in this country who are people of faith ‘you cannot exercise your faith because we find it repugnant in some way.’ Well, that is not what the Constitution is about. That’s not the reason this country was founded. This country was founded so we could all freely exercise our religion… This bill in essence would make everybody’s right to freely exercise their religion a secondary right. Well, to millions — tens of millions — it is the primary source of their meaning in life, and the Democrats would take that away from them. For what? For a handful of cases that have gone the other way, when 80-plus percent have gone the government’s way?”
If this committee questions anything, he said, it should be why we’re taking away the rights of citizens to practice their faith — not what liberals can do to make the situation worse.
Originally published here.
This is a publication of the Family Research Council. Mr. Perkins is president of FRC.
