Republicans are threatening to shut down a taxpayer-funded program they say censors the free speech of conservative Americans.
The State Department’s Global Engagement Center (GEC) directs and coordinates efforts to “counter foreign propaganda and disinformation.”
But he has been exposed for awarding taxpayer-funded grants to organizations that are currently being sued for First Amendment violations, posing free speech and censorship risks according to Republican members of Congress.
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, is now asking why the taxpayer-funded program should continue.
In a letter McCaul wrote to Secretary of State Antony Blinken this month, first obtained by DailyMail.com, the president demands that the GEC be shut down by the end of the year.
The State Department’s Global Engagement Center awarded grants to organizations that allegedly censored Americans’ free speech. As House Republican lawmakers sought more information about the GEC, agency employees withheld documents, McCaul says
He also wants to know why the department has “hidden information” about the centre’s effectiveness.
“For starters, the GEC is facing increasing scrutiny here in Washington and across the country,” McCaul wrote to Blinken in the letter. “Many of these investigations concern the GEC’s relationships with organizations — primarily U.S. technology companies and NGOs — that carry out censorship around the world.”
Some of the GEC partner organisations that McCaul says are involved in censorship practices include the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP) and the Global Disinformation Index (GDI).
It says the EIP carried out censorship by communicating “with social media companies to identify posts of U.S. origin as disinformation or misinformation and to secure their removal, many of them during the 2020 election cycle.”
McCaul also questioned the GEC’s association with the GDI, which maintains a “blacklist” of American media outlets. He said the list is proof of a bias against conservative publications and that the GDI therefore does not deserve to receive subsidies.
The GEC is also a central element in two ongoing federal lawsuits, the president notes in his letter, both alleging that the federal government has violated Americans’ First Amendment rights.
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas (center), sent a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken demanding more information about the controversial Global Engagement Center (GEC) counterpropaganda program.
McCaul and the committee asked Blinken to respond to their questions by July 19.
‘The House Foreign Affairs Committee has repeatedly expressed concern that the GEC is: (1) contributing to the censorship of American voices through grants and other collaborations with private organizations operating in both the United States and foreign countries; and (2) being perhaps effective at identifying, but nonetheless ineffective at preventing or stopping, foreign disinformation and misinformation.’
The letter also highlights how the GEC has been at the center of several congressional investigations and an internal State Department report found the group “has suffered from serious internal dysfunction.”
The GEC was created during the global war on terror and has been used to combat disinformation about the United States and its operations, particularly during its fight against ISIS.
But Republicans suggest its drawbacks outweigh its benefits.
McCaul went on to address Blinken: “Your Department refuses to acknowledge that these ongoing controversies complicate an objective assessment of the GEC.”
‘Any value the GEC provides is tempered by genuine concerns that the GEC is at best indifferent and at worst complicit in an orchestrated and systematic effort to stretch the term ‘disinformation’ to encompass viewpoints that, among American progressives, are considered politically disfavored or inconvenient.’
The GEC has helped disinformation regulators censor Americans’ online content, the Texas Republican lawmaker claimed
“Unfortunately, as we will describe, the Department has denied us the information necessary to assess the severity of these problems; therefore, we have serious reservations about reauthorizing the GEC.”
McCaul asked Blinken to provide additional answers on the effectiveness of the GEC by July 19 so the committee can better inform itself about whether the State Department program should be renewed at the end of 2024.
DailyMail.com has contacted the State Department for comment.