FIRST ON FOX – Republican Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio, Chris Smith of New Jersey and Maria Elvira Salazar of Florida have co-sponsored legislation that they say aims to prevent U.S. taxpayer dollars from "from flowing to progressive non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that are promoting Brazil’s escalating crackdown on free speech."
The bill comes in response to Brazil’s top Supreme Court justice shutting down Elon Musk's X in the country in August, amid ongoing legal battles the social media company decries as censorship.
Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes imposed a nationwide ban on X after Musk failed to name a legal representative before a deadline in a case in which the country demanded some accounts be suspended. Those accounts had been implicated in probes of so-called digital militias accused of spreading misinformation and hate.
HR 9850 – or the No Funding or Enforcement of Censorship Abroad Act – "would cut off U.S. foreign assistance to any entities that promote censorship and prohibit U.S. law enforcement agencies from cooperating with foreign countries to promote censorship against speech that would otherwise be protected if the speaker was located in the United States," Smith's office said.
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Its provisions include prohibiting foreign assistance to entities "that promote censorship of speech that would be protected speech in the United States;" foreign assistance to entities that back the Brazilian government’s "censorship directives" to U.S. internet companies; U.S. law enforcement cooperation with foreign countries to "cause, facilitate, or promote online censorship" of political speech; and U.S. law enforcement cooperation "with Brazilian government censorship directives against internet companies headquartered in the United States."
"The House Judiciary Committee and the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government have uncovered how the FBI under the Biden-Harris Administration facilitated a foreign government’s censorship requests against Americans," Jordan said. "This bill is critical in stopping foreign government censors from using the DOJ or the FBI to silence disfavored views."
Smith's office pointed to a report by Civilization Works, a research nonprofit that claims on its website to have been behind the "Twitter Files" following Musk's 2022 takeover of the platform. The organization published a report last month titled, "The Role of the U.S. Government in Brazil’s Censorship Industrial Complex."
"Although appearing to operate independently, the Brazilian Supreme Court and the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) have been heavily influenced by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) funded by the U.S. government," the report says. "What’s more, multiple U.S. agencies and officials have played a role in encouraging and facilitating censorship in Brazil."
It claims U.S. entities "involved directly and indirectly in Brazil’s Censorship Industrial Complex" include the Atlantic Council, Congress, the FBI, the National Endowment for Democracy, the National Science Foundation, the State Department, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the White House and more.
Civilization Works says that "the activities of U.S. agencies and government-funded groups present a clear campaign to interfere in Brazil’s democratic process."
FOX Business reached out to the above-named organizations and agencies for comment.
In response, a spokesperson for the U.S. National Science Foundation declined to comment on the pending legislation, as well as the Civilization Works report directly.
"The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) does not engage in censorship of Americans’ speech," the spokesperson said in a statement. "NSF invests in a wide variety of research to help us understand how people use and interact with communications technologies and tools that allow for things like deep fakes."
"It is in this nation’s national and economic security interest to understand how these tools are being used and how people are responding to them so we can improve online safety for us all," NSF said. "We know our adversaries are already using these technologies against us in multiple ways and scammers are using these tools on unsuspecting victims. By understanding how these technologies and tools operate and are being used, this research can inform policymakers’ decision-making as they develop regulations and guardrails to protect the American public."
Smith's office said the Civilization Works report documents the "Biden-Harris Administration support for censorship in Brazil."
"The Biden-Harris Administration has weaponized U.S. foreign assistance programs and other means to promote censorship in Brazil and crack down on free speech that would be protected under our U.S. Constitution here at home," Smith, a senior member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a statement. "Free speech is fundamental to democracy. It is unconscionable that the United States is using taxpayer dollars to promote this type of censorship which completely contradicts our entire American constitutional tradition."
"The United States must defend Elon Musk from the attacks of Alexandre de Moraes and the other forces of socialism in Brazil," Salazar said in a statement. "The United States needs to uphold the principles of its constitution and stand by its citizens whenever they face censorship abroad."
X has suspended operations in Brazil and moved staff out of the country in response to what Musk deemed "censorship orders" from de Moraes.
Earlier this month, the Brazilian justice unfroze the bank accounts of X and Musk's satellite internet provider company Starlink after seizing $3 million in fines.
However, just last week, de Moraes issued more demands for X to be reinstated in the country, including Starlink dropping its appeals.
Rumble Chairman and CEO Chris Pavlovski issued a statement in support of the bill brought by House Republicans this week, noting how the video platform based in Florida "pulled its services from Brazil following censorship demands from the Brazilian courts." "People around the world look to America to protect free speech, and this bill is a step in the right direction," he said.
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Michael Shellenberger, the CBR Chair of Politics, Censorship, and Free Speech at the University of Austin and founder and president of Civilization Works, said "Brazil’s U.S. government-funded censorship has affected Americans directly" and is "reason to be alarmed, particularly since Brazil risks being a test case for what censorship advocates want to do globally."
"Perhaps most alarming of all is that the Brazilian government is not just censoring constitutionally-permitted speech, it’s trying to ban independent journalists and politicians from all major social media platforms, which constitutes election interference," he said.
FOX Business' Brie Stimson contributed to this report.
