Democrat California lawmakers are pushing legislation to create jack-boot agents of government through a âFake News Advisory Councilââan Orwellian âMinistry of Truthâ for the news they donât like.
After having my Capitol Press Credential revoked in 2015 and only reissued after an Open Records Act request of 10-years of press credential applications, and viable threats of a First Amendment lawsuit, it appears Democrats in the California Legislature still donât believe in making no law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.
Several of the proposed âfake newsâ bills say, âThere is evidence to suggest that the dissemination of âfake newsâ through social media influenced the outcome of the 2016 U.S. Presidential election,â as justification for attempting to create a government control of the media.
The ultimate plan is to expand beyond this unelected âadvisory councilâ to create actual legislation authorizing state government to make this determination.
I know this because the original language in SB 1424 said just that: âThis bill seeks to rein in the spread of false information through social media⌠putting the government in the position of determining what is or is not âfalse informationâŚâ, …and because I wrote about this in April.
In my article, Dem Sen. Richard Pan New Bill to Force News Sites to Use âFact-Checkersâ, I explained: âSen. Richard Pan (D-Sacramento) is the author of the âOnline False Information Act,â a new bill that would require anyone who posts any news on the Internet to verify all information through âfact-checkers.â Sen. Pan does not name who these âfact checkersâ are, but Iâm sure the State of California will create a new unelected body of elite state employees to oversee this.
âSen. Panâs bill would ârequire social media Web sites to disclose their âstrategic plan to mitigate the spread of false informationââ (to the California Ministry of Truth?), the first bill analysis explained.
Apparently this sounded just a little too authoritarian for some Democrat committee staffers writing the analyses, so Pan accepted amendments with the understanding that eventually this advisory board would lead to legislation allowing the state to determine what news is fake or not.
Americans are already experiencing censorship on Google, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. âCensored! How Online Media Companies Are Suppressing Conservative Speechâ exposes how these major tech companies work with groups that hate the rightâsuch as the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Katy Grimes is an investigative journalist, Senior Correspondent with the Flash Report, ReaganBabe, and Senior Media Fellow with Energy and Environmental Institute. A longtime political analyst, she has written for The Sacramento Union, The Washington Examiner, Watchdog.org, The Pacific Research Instituteâs CalWatchdog, The San Francisco Examiner, The Business Journal, E&E Legal, The Sacramento Bee, Legal Insurrection, Canada Free Press, and Laura Ingrahamâs LifeZette, and can be heard regularly on many talk radio shows each week.
Source: Canada Free Press