“That makes me sad. China censors. They make it hard to learn about a plane crash. America should not censor.”
Official Congressional Record
Madam Speaker, last month, a small plane crashed into one of the tallest buildings in Beijing, China, during Friday rush hour. The pilot was killed, and 13 people were injured. This happened in the center of a city of more than 20 million people. Thousands of people nearby saw the plane strike the building. People on the street heard the impact and recorded the aftermath. In the United States, an event like this would receive wall-to-wall coverage, and videos would be spread across social media within minutes. However, in Beijing, the government made it nearly impossible for anyone who was not there to even know that it happened. Posts about the crash vanished from Chinese social media, and searches for the building returned only older results. Police prevented people from taking pictures and ordered witnesses to delete footage. Even though China's national broadcaster sits across the street from the crash site, state media failed to inform the Chinese public about what happened. Because China's censorship apparatus links police surveillance with telecommunications networks, search engines, social media platforms, and state-controlled media, it allows the authorities to identify and suppress information that could embarrass the Chinese Communist Party or undermine their preferred narratives with frightening efficiency. China has used these methods before. During the 2022 lockdown protests, videos disappeared from Huawei phones without warning, deleting picture and videos from their phones and even preventing citizens from preserving or sharing what was happening. George Orwell warned about this sort of coercive power. Now this dystopian system is even more efficient and powerful with modern technologies, smartphones, search engines, surveillance cameras, and government controlled platforms. China has shown how effectively this machinery can erase the truth, and other governments are now creating such systems that can be used in the same way. The European Union is building the legal and regulatory framework to control online speech not just in the European Union but across the West, trying to pressure platforms even in the United States. Through the Digital Services Act, regulators can pressure these platforms to remove or suppress content that conflicts with their official narratives on elections, public policy, or other political issues. Companies that resist can face penalties tied to their global revenue, giving governments enormous leverage over what people are allowed to see online. The United Kingdom has incorporated digital ID and is already jailing thousands of its citizens each year for disfavored speech. In the United States, how could such a thing happen? We have the Bill of Rights and the First Amendment protecting speech, but it was already well underway. When Elon Musk bought Twitter, the Biden administration was working to build a Disinformation Governance Board to coordinate their rapidly expanding censorship operations. Orwell referred to this kind of apparatus as the ministry of truth. Unfortunately, Musk's ownership of Twitter only exposed the truth that even a change of administration has not halted the surveillance state here in America. Under the same guise of protecting kids used by the U.K., the USA just passed a digital ID bill under the guise of banning Central Bank Digital Currency. The United States effectively set a go-live date for CBDC in 2030. Under the old ruse of security and public safety, Palantir and Flock have an all-seeing-eye network expanding around the country. These are just some of the tools used in China, and, unfortunately, some of the same companies are using these same tools here in the United States and across Europe. As James Madison astutely noted in Federalist No. 51: ``If men were angels, no government would be necessary.'' Well, if men were angels, then the PATRIOT Act and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act would have never been abused. The abuse was not only foreseeable, because even good men are prone to abuse power, but it happened. If it were still happening, then how would you know, Madam Speaker? These tools are very effective. The old maxim: Power corrupts, but absolute power corrupts absolutely rings true. Around the world, technology is being turned against the citizens of each country by those in power. A comprehensive system of surveillance, coercion, and control is being built. If we cannot see it, then it may already be too late. Freedom surrendered is rarely reclaimed, and with every vote and every dollar, it is now time for this Congress to insist that good governments defend freedom.
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