Press Releases

Today, Congressman Bill Huizenga (R-MI), Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on South and Central Asia, announced the introduction of H.R. 3719, the Restoring American Freedom Act. This commonsense measure bans employees at the State Department from silencing the free speech of American citizens by explicitly stating that no taxpayer dollars can be used to unconstitutionally limit the free speech of any American citizen. Additionally, this legislation stops the federal government from using third party entities to “blacklist” Americans or create censorship tools used against Americans.

“The Restoring American Freedom Act is a direct response to the Biden Administration’s effort to censor Americans, particularly conservatives and those who disagreed with the Administration’s policies,” said Congressman Bill Huizenga. “The federal government should not be censoring the speech of Americans, and they sure as heck shouldn’t be using taxpayer dollars to pay outside organizations to do it either. The Restoring American Freedom Act codifies President Trump’s executive order from April into law and makes sure that free speech is protected and the federal government is never weaponized in this manner against Americans again.”

The legislative text of the Restoring American Freedom Act can be found here. H.R. 3719 is cosponsored by Representatives Tim Burchett (R-TN), Jefferson Shreve (R-IN), Keith Self (R-TX), Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL), Michael Guest (R-MS), Abe Hamadeh (R-AZ), and Andrew Clyde (R-GA)

Background

The State Department’s Global Engagement Center (GEC) played a key role in facilitating the censorship of Americans protected free speech via its shadowy network of grantees and subgrantees. The GEC awarded grants to NGOs, not-for-profits, and for-profit entities that created and sold advertising blacklists that were used to target conservative media outlets and voices. Prior to the 2020 Presidential election, the GEC also quietly worked with a consortium of academic and media entities to monitor and censor political speech in the US by flagging posts to get taken down from social media websites.

In December 2024, following an investigation from House Foreign Affairs Committee and numerous other committees, Congress allowed the statutory authorization of the Global Engagement Center to lapse. Following the termination of GEC, the Biden Administration restructured the office into a Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference Hub (R/FIMI).

On January 20, 2025, President Trump issued the Restoring Freedom of Speech and Ending Federal Censorship executive order to end all censorship of Americans by the federal government. On April 16, 2025, President Trump terminated the remaining 40 R/FIMI employees and shuttered the office.