Question everything. This is common advice given at commencement ceremonies to young graduates who are about to embark on a new life. Fresh and full of vigor, they are encouraged to reach new heights and make the world a better place.
Here are some questions for Mr. Shapiro in regards to his Election Threats Task Force that I derived from heeding that same advice. What are you afraid of? What is the WHY behind your campaign to create a misinformation task force? What are the motives to gather 15 government agencies to restrict information? Who will decide exactly what constitutes dis, mis and mal information? What will be the, and I quote, “cascade of measures across federal, state and local agencies that officials hope will keep the 2024 vote in the battleground state free from interference, misinformation and other major obstacles”. What do you imagine the “other major obstacles” to be?
In my role as a historian, I don’t have to wait for his response, I have heard these questions before and I know the answers. I feel compelled to honor my fellow citizens to share with them, the peculiar similarities that jump off the pages of history and onto Shapiro’s Task Force declaration.
The first resemblance is of The Sedition Act, which remains controversial to this day. This act restricted and limited freedom of speech and of the press, particularly when it was critical of the president or the government of the time. The Democratic-Republican minority in Congress protested that the First Amendment specifically prohibits the making of any law whatsoever regarding speech or the press. Fortunately, most of the laws have expired or been repealed. Until now, the threat of this resurgence was nil. Until now, the ability to disseminate information for yourself was safe. Shapiro’s government task force boldly goes against the delegated powers of the Governor as outlined in the Pennsylvania constitution and shamelessly denies the rights of free speech and free press, and this should sound an alarm to everyone regardless of party affiliation.
A different generation and different part of the world now comes into view on the pages of Shapiro’s decree. The Nazis wanted Germans to support and believe in the Nazi ideology. To accomplish this, they tried to control forms of communication through censorship and propaganda. This included control of newspapers, magazines, radios and more. If the Nazis had social media in their day they would have used that for their purposes too. When the Nazis came to power in 1933, the German constitution guaranteed freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Through decrees and laws, they abolished these civil rights and destroyed German democracy. Do we really want our Governor to construct proclamations and decrees that decide for us what we can read and write?
Let’s view this topic from another angle. Who will decide what is “disinformation”? Who shall we believe? Is “misinformation” considered to be subjective? The definition of subjective is; that which is influenced by, or based on personal beliefs or feelings rather than on facts. The only way to balance this subjective act is by the counterweight of self-determination and the ability to think for ourselves. Why do we need to think for ourselves? Because bad actors with underlying agendas work for their own behalf. They do this without regard to navigating through the dynamics and weighing the pros and cons of a complex situation. Who should we believe? Should we believe “The Twitter Files”, who exposed the current administration’s collusion with social media to censor what was available to the public and what was not? Should we believe CISA, the government run Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, who knew mail-in ballots were less secure than in-person voting prior to the 2020 election, but disregarded their own data and censored Americans critical of them?
I believe the answer to the questions posed above comes down to one thing. I, not Governor Shapiro’s task force, have the right to gather all the information I can, disseminate it for myself, and come to my own conclusions, Thank you very much.
As James Madison wrote in 1792. “A man has a property in his opinions, and the free communication of them.” To Madison, people not only owned their thoughts, but owned the right to express them as well. The right to hear both sides of a story, the right to read all deliberations, and the right to have proper discourse without the threat of censorship or rebuke, are vital to the principles of liberty and self-governance. These birthrights are guaranteed in the Bill of Rights. The Founders knew how important free speech and self-determination is, they knew that free speech helps create an energetic and dynamic society, and can act as a “check” on the power of government when citizens are free to criticize it.
And I can confidently end this letter by saying, without question, that Governor Shapiro does not have the restrictive power over me – or my fellow Pennsylvanians – to regulate what we can read, write, or say within the legal bounds of the law.
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