Cruz wants to make it easier for Americans to recover damages for government censorship

Cruz plans to introduce the bill in the coming weeks, he said The Wall Street Journal in an interview. The bill would introduce new procedures for cases where people believe they have been censored by the government, making it easier to sue for damages. This would include exceptions for government investigations and exclude unprotected speech like non-consensual intimate images. Cruz plans to hold a series of hearings focused on government censorship, in which Carr will participate, he said. the Journal.

Carr made his statements on a podcast after Kimmel included a joke about Charlie Kirk’s murderer in a late-night monologue, telling TV networks they could take “the easy route or the hard route” — the latter involving FCC action — to take Kimmel off the air. (His show was pulled and then reinstated by Disney.) Cruz criticized the FCC chairman’s comments as being “straight out of Goodfellas.” Although Cruz supported the desire to see Kimmel go off the air, he warned, “It might feel good right now to threaten Jimmy Kimmel, but when it’s used to silence every conservative in America, we will regret it.” »

Cruz was working on the upcoming bill even before Kirk’s death, according to the Journalbut after hearing support from his fellow Democrats for speaking out against Carr, he sees an opportunity to find common ground. “Maybe this gives us an opportunity to work together in a bipartisan way,” Cruz said. the Journal.

Still, some of Cruz’s targets are likely to anger Democrats and raise questions about how the law could be used. Late last month, he released a report accusing the Biden administration of turning the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) “into a censorship agent pressuring big tech to control speech.” On Wednesday, the Commerce Committee held an event where Cruz claimed the Biden administration pressured social media platforms to remove witnesses because of their skepticism about COVID and mail-in voting.

Last year, the Supreme Court overturned a lower court ruling that the Biden administration had unconstitutionally forced platforms to remove such content, writing that there was “no concrete connection” between the Biden administration’s communication with tech platforms and the companies’ own decisions.

There’s no love lost between Cruz and Kimmel, despite his comments supporting the comedian’s suspension. While the senator said the Journal he would be willing to go on Kimmel’s show to discuss the upcoming bill, he added that the late-night host wasn’t funny and gloated that before Kimmel’s suspension, “my podcast was kicking his ass every week.”