For Immediate Release: March 10, 2022
Contact: Ryan Hite, Communications Director
State AG, Legislature Consider Measures To Combat “Radicalization, Extremism”
Washington, D.C.: “Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson must have a short memory,” said Ed Martin, president of Phyllis Schlafly Eagles. “The Biden administration’s ‘Disinformation Governance Board’ went down in flames just six months ago, but the same ill-fated idea is exactly what AG Ferguson and Washington Rep. Bill Ramos are suggesting now.”
The Attorney General’s office authored a 31-page report on how to stop domestic terrorism and hate crimes, resulting in Rep. Ramos’s HB 1333, the formation of a government commission on violent extremism.
“Such a new government body would certainly quickly carry the power to criminalize political speech,” Martin continued. “Already, those suggesting such a board are using the January 6 hoax as the best example of why such check on ‘radicalization’ is needed.
“The federal government already has hundreds of Americans rotting in jail for political opinions and misdemeanor trespass. Washington State certainly doesn’t need its own disinformation board, sorting out political ideas that they do and don’t like and making thought crimes out of them.”
Martin concluded, “Washington officials should take notice of federal failures — halt any attempts at ‘misinformation’ bodies. Throw them to the ash heap of history and instead, stand up for the first amendment rights of your citizens! Let’s put Washington’s HB 1333 to rest for good.
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