Liberal Lawmaker Unleashes Bill Suppressing “Non-Government-Approved” Speech

What has happened to the Democrat party?

They have become a party of unhinged lunatics who want to suppress speech and give government ultimate control.

Democrats stand for everything our founding fathers fought against.

Democrats are against free speech, they want big government, they’d love to ban guns.

Now, we’re learning that a New York assemblyman has introduced a bill essentially banning “non-government-approved speech.”

If this wasn’t so real and scary, it’d be comical.

From Zero Hedge

In a bill aimed at securing a “right to be forgotten,” introduced by Assemblyman David I. Weprin and (as Senate Bill 4561 by state Sen. Tony Avella), liberal New York politicians would require people to remove ‘inaccurate,’ ‘irrelevant,’ ‘inadequate’ or ‘excessive’ statements about others…

• Within 30 days of a ”request from an individual,”
• “all search engines and online speakers] shall remove … content about such individual, and links or indexes to any of the same, that is ‘inaccurate’, ‘irrelevant’, ‘inadequate’ or ‘excessive,’ ”
• “and without replacing such removed … content with any disclaimer [or] takedown notice.”
• “ ‘[I]naccurate’, ‘irrelevant’, ‘inadequate’, or ‘excessive’ shall mean content,”
• “which after a significant lapse in time from its first publication,”
• “is no longer material to current public debate or discourse,”
• “especially when considered in light of the financial, reputational and/or demonstrable other harm that the information … is causing to the requester’s professional, financial, reputational or other interest,”
• “with the exception of content related to convicted felonies, legal matters relating to violence, or a matter that is of significant current public interest, and as to which the requester’s role with regard to the matter is central and substantial.”

Failure to comply would make the search engines or speakers liable for, at least, statutory damages of $250/day plus attorney fees.

And of course the bill contains no exception even for material of genuine historical interest; after all, such speech would have to be removed if it was “no longer material to current public debate.” Nor is there an exception for autobiographic material, whether in a book, on a blog or anywhere else. Nor is there an exception for political figures, prominent businesspeople and others.

But the deeper problem with the bill is simply that it aims to censor what people say, under a broad, vague test based on what the government thinks the public should or shouldn’t be discussing. It is clearly unconstitutional under current First Amendment law, and I hope First Amendment law will stay that way (no matter what rules other countries might have adopted).

Amy Moreno is a Published Author, Pug Lover & Game of Thrones Nerd. You can reach her on Facebook here.