Why America 250 should extend beyond our shores

By Stuart N. Brotman
Real Clear Wire

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has provided a new and timely teachable moment as America 250 unfolds this year. Late last year, he announced that the State Department had imposed visa sanctions for alleged censorship on a former top European Union official and employees of organizations that combat disinformation.

In a statement, Rubio accused the five sanctioned people of leading “organized efforts to coerce American platforms to censor, demonetize, and suppress American viewpoints they oppose.” He had “determined that their entry, presence, or activities in the United States have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.”

“These radical activists and weaponized NGOs have advanced censorship crackdowns by foreign states – in each case targeting American speakers and American companies,” he said.

Why does this matter? When the Bill of Rights was proposed by Congress in 1789 and ratified by the states in 1791, it included a First Amendment that prohibited Congress from restricting freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Through subsequent judicial interpretation, these protections were extended to all levels of government. Aside from some narrow exceptions, such as obscenity and private defamation, the First Amendment has endured and even expanded in recent years through various Supreme Court decisions.

The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution doesn’t apply to the EU, of course, but that does not mean that EU actions cannot create adverse ripple waves at home. Targeted visa restrictions can be an effective means of combating those who would censor the digital platforms Americans access and rely on.

Even if Secretary Rubio’s action is viewed as largely symbolic, it should help all of us better understand that the fundamental nature of the First Amendment is to serve as a firewall and heat shield against government restrictions on speech and the press, with no EU exception to be presumed.

Our Founding Fathers could foresee the dangers of misapplied government power, thus necessitating constitutional limits that enable free expression and transparency to uncover governmental deeds and misdeeds. The democratic ideals of our nation that America 250 celebrates would not be possible to achieve without these restraints.

Over 40 years ago, MIT Political Science Professor Ithiel de Sola Pool anticipated that the global reach of electronic communications would inevitably make the First Amendment an international concern – precisely the challenge that Secretary Rubio has now confronted. 

In his seminal book, “Technologies of Freedom,” Dr. Pool wrote:

"The easy access, low cost, and distributed intelligence of modern means of communication are a prime reason for hope. …as long as the First Amendment stands, backed by courts that take it seriously, the loss of liberty is not foreordained. The commitment of American culture to pluralism and individual rights is reason for optimism, as is the pliancy and profusion of electronic technology."

The malign news and information measures by some EU leaders demonstrate that government suppression of free expression can inflict damage as consequential as any conventional threat to national sovereignty.

We should pay close attention to what is happening in Brussels and elsewhere around the world to maintain vigilance in safeguarding the vital stakes of our own freedoms. An America 250 teachable moment indeed.

Stuart N. Brotman is digital media laureate and a distinguished senior fellow at The Media Institute, and the author of “Free Expression Under Fire."