Congress would extend authorization for an agency allegedly involved in censoring conservative speech under the text of its short-term spending bill released Tuesday.
The over 1,500 page continuing resolution extends authorization for the Global Engagement Center (GEC), which was slated to end this year, into 2025.
Through the GEC, the State Department facilitated funding for the Global Disinformation Index, which created a blacklist of conservative media outlets used by advertising companies to demonetize the websites.
.@SpeakerJohnson personally killed a bipartisan, bicameral expansion + spending cap RECA deal. It was him alone. BUT he’s willing to spend BILLIONS on Ukraine and foreign wars and every pork barrel project known to man https://t.co/7QD7orzVUI
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) December 18, 2024
Last week, State Department attorneys wrote in a court filing that termination of the GEC was “substantially likely” to occur on Dec. 23, citing a sunset provision in the GEC’s statutory authorization. The GEC’s authorization through the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017 was set to expire after eight years.
The State Department notified Congress of its plan to terminate the GEC and “realign the Center’s staff and funding to other Department offices and bureaus for foreign information manipulation and interference activities,” attorneys wrote in the filing. (RELATED: Legal Group, Conservative News Outlets File Lawsuit Against State Department To Prevent ‘Censorship’ Operations)
🚨🚨🚨BREAKING: State Department provides notice to Congress of shuttering of Global Engagement Center or “GEC” and reassignment of employees. 1/ pic.twitter.com/ptLHNiwIDq
— Margot Cleveland (@ProfMJCleveland) December 10, 2024
Last December, two conservative news outlets, along with the state of Texas, sued the State Department for what they described as “one of the most egregious government operations to censor the American press in the history of the nation.”
The lawsuit alleged that the GEC funded entities that “generate blacklists of ostensibly risky or unreliable American news outlets for the purpose of discrediting and demonetizing the disfavored press and redirecting money and audiences to news organizations that publish favored viewpoints.”
“Defendants have been granted no statutory authority to fund or promote censorship technology or censorship enterprises that target the American press,” the lawsuit stated.
The continuing resolution would fund the government through March 2025, preventing a government shutdown when funding expires on Friday.
Featured Image Credit: Diego Delso
