By Harold Pease, Ph. D.

“Congress shall make no law …abridging the freedom of speech or of the press….” has been the law of the land since 1791 when the Bill of Rights was added to the Constitution. The Biden / Harris Administration essentially removed it by denying it in the name of mis or dis information. President-Elect Trump promises to restore this “God given right” immediately upon taking office. Until then we assume continued censorship and disregard for the 1st Amendment.

Trump is the most censored president in American history. Instead, the Deep State’s echo chamber spewed only mis and dis (hate) information messages of him for nine years. No wonder free speech is his first policy-related announcement since his landslide victory, it had been denied him for so long. His rising twice to power against these odds are indeed modern miracles. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a lifelong Democrat, said of this speech, “This alone puts DJT in company with the greatest U.S. presidents since Lincoln.”

Why is freedom of speech so important? Donald Trump answers, “If we don’t have free speech, then we just don’t have a free country. It’s as simple as that. If this most fundamental right is allowed to perish, then the rest of our rights and liberties will topple, just like dominoes, one by one, they’ll go down.” He announced a five step plan “to reclaim the right to free speech for all Americans” emphasizing, “reclaim is a very important word … because they’ve taken it away.”

What specifically provoked this action? “In recent weeks, bombshell reports have confirmed that a sinister group of Deep State bureaucrat Silicon Valley tyrants, left wing activists and depraved corporate news media have been conspiring to manipulate and silence the American people. They have collaborated to suppress final information on everything from elections to public health. The censorship cartel must be dismantled and destroyed, and it must happen immediately….” Freedom of speech must be in place to remove the Deep State from power.

President-Elect Trump will implement his five step plan to restore this “God given right” immediately upon taking office. “First, within hours of my inauguration, I will sign an executive order banning any federal department or agency from colluding with any organization, business or person to censor, limit, categorize or impede the lawful speech of American citizens. I will then ban federal money from being used to label domestic speech as mis or dis information, and I will begin the process of identifying and firing every federal bureaucrat who has engaged in domestic censorship directly or indirectly, whether they are the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Health, Human Services, the FBI, the DOJ, no matter who they are.

“Second, I will order the Department of Justice to investigate all parties involved in the new online censorship regime, which is absolutely destructive and terrible and to aggressively prosecute any and all crimes identified. These include possible violations of federal civil rights law, campaign finance laws, federal election law, securities law and anti trust laws, the Hatch Act and a host of other potential criminal, civil, regulatory and constitutional offenses. To assist in these efforts, I am urging House Republicans to immediately send preservation letters, —and we have to do this right now —to the Biden administration, the Biden campaign and every Silicon Valley Tech giant ordering them not to destroy evidence of censorship.”

Biden and Trudeau view free speech as a threat to democracy that needs to be stamped or driven out. But democracy has no guard rails to protect liberty. The Founders created a republic not a democracy that gives us God given rights. No wonder the Deep State seeks to destroy our Constitution—a free societies’ guard rails prohibiting free speech removal. The document clearly says, “Congress shall make no law …abridging the freedom of speech.

Trump continues with his third and forth actions. “Third, upon my inauguration as president, I will ask Congress to send a bill to my desk revising section 230 to get big online platforms out of censorship business. From now on, digital platforms should only qualify for immunity protection under Section 230 if they meet high standards of neutrality, transparency, fairness and non discrimination. We should require these platforms to increase their efforts to take down unlawful content such as child exploitation and promoting terrorism, while dramatically curtailing their power to arbitrarily restrict lawful speech.

“Fourth, we need to break up the entire toxic censorship industry that has arisen under the false guise of tackling so called miss and disinformation. The federal government should immediately stop funding all nonprofits and academic programs that support this authoritarian project. If any US universities [are] discovered to have engaged in censorship activity or election interferences in the past, such as flagging social media content for removal or blacklisting, those universities should lose federal research dollars and federal student loan support for a period of five years, and maybe more. We should also enact new laws laying out clear criminal penalties for federal bureaucrats who partner with private entities to do an end run around the Constitution and deprive Americans of their First, Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights.”

We must stop Deep State’s easy access to U.S. user data. “Furthermore, to confront the problems of major platforms being infiltrated by legions of former Deep Staters and intelligence officials, there should be a seven year calling off period before any employee of the FBI, CIA, NSA, DNI, DHS or DOD is allowed to take a job at a company possessing vast quantities of U.S. user data.”

And finally, a digital Bill of Rights. “Fifth, the time is finally come for Congress to pass a digital Bill of Rights. This should include a right to digital due process. In other words, government officials should need a court order to take down online content, not send information requests, such as the FBI was sending to Twitter. Furthermore, when users of big online platforms have their content or accounts removed, throttled, shadow banned or otherwise restricted. No matter what name they use, they should have the right to be informed that it’s happening, the right to a specific explanation of the reason why, and the right to a timely appeal. In addition, all users over the age of 18 should have the right to opt out of content moderation and curation entirely, and receive an unmanipulated stream of information if they so choose. The fight for free speech is a matter of victory or death for America and for the survival of Western Civilization itself.”

Trump ends, “When I am President, this whole rotten system of censorship and information control will be ripped out of the system at large. There won’t be anything left. By restoring free speech, we’ll begin to reclaim our democracy and save our nation. Thank you and God bless America.” This is Constitutional, clear, concise and powerful; undiluted freedom can return. Trump gave this speech Dec. 15 2022, but it was largely censored. By this date he had been banned by the following media outlets: Discord, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, Snapchat, Tiktok, Twitch, Twitter and YouTube. He reposted it November 9, 2024; censorship largely remains.