Free Speech Protection Act
Sponsored By: Senator Rand Paul
Introduced
Summary
Restricts federal pressure on platform content moderation. This bill would ban federal employees and contractors from directing online platforms to remove, suppress, limit, label, or otherwise block speech protected by the First Amendment and add reporting, penalties, and a private right of action to enforce those limits.
Show full summary
- Families and users: It would make it harder for federal agencies to push platforms to take down or hide speech, while keeping court warrants as a narrow exception to the ban.
- Platform providers: Agencies would have to publish and report communications with platform providers and face stronger Freedom of Information Act disclosure rules for those records, with protections for user-identifying data.
- Federal agencies and employees: The bill would create disciplinary and financial penalties and allow private lawsuits against the government or offending employee. It would also end a Department of Homeland Security advisory board on disinformation and bar federal grants tied to misinformation programming.
Your PRIA Score
Personalized for You
How does this bill affect your finances?
Sign up for a PRIA Policy Scan to see your personalized alignment score for this bill and every other piece of legislation we track. We analyze your financial profile against policy provisions to show you exactly what matters to your wallet.
Bill Overview
Analyzed Economic Effects
5 provisions identified: 2 benefits, 0 costs, 3 mixed.
More reporting on agency-platform contacts
If enacted, each Executive agency would have to report to a Director and key congressional leaders within 90 days and then at least every 90 days about communications with covered platforms. The Director would assign tracking numbers and publish report details on a public website within 5 days, and try to contact affected people by the next business day. Agencies must exclude communications solely about child exploitation, trafficking, or illegal drugs. Agencies would make these records FOIA-available with limited exceptions, including not releasing a user's identity without written consent and not releasing communications that happened under a court warrant. Separately, DHS must report within 180 days on any CISA actions from November 16, 2018 through enactment that would have violated this Act.
Stop federal platform censorship
If enacted, the bill would bar Executive-branch employees and contractors from asking or pressuring online platforms to remove, suppress, label, demote, or ban speech protected by the First Amendment. It would also bar agencies from asking for users’ covered information, except when a court warrant requires disclosure. "Covered information" would include calls, posts, texts, photos, location data, search history, IP addresses, metadata, and basic user facts. These rules would take effect on enactment.
Limits federal misinformation funding and boards
If enacted, the bill would bar Executive agencies from awarding grants for misinformation or disinformation programming. For grants made after enactment, recipients must certify that neither they nor subgrantees will label any news content creator as misinformation during the grant term. The agency must post that certification on Grants.gov within 10 days of award. If a recipient violates the certification, they must repay the grant and be barred from that agency's future grants. The bill would also terminate DHS's Disinformation Governance Board if it exists and bar federal funds for any substantially similar entity.
New penalties for federal employees and contractors
If enacted, agency heads would have to discipline employees who violate the Act. Discipline could include removal, suspension, reduced grade, debarment, loss of annuity eligibility, and permanent security clearance revocation. The bill would require a civil penalty of at least $10,000, and contractors who violate could be barred from future federal contracts. The bill would also let people sue the agency and the employee in D.C. federal court for damages, fees, and injunctive relief, with a rebuttable presumption of liability in some cases.
Change broadcast communications law
If enacted, the bill would amend the Communications Act by removing subsections (c) through (g) of Section 706 and redesignating subsection (h) as subsection (c). It would also make small conforming edits to Section 309(h) so the section ends with "Act." These are statutory edits to broadcast and communications law and would take effect on enactment.
Sponsors & CoSponsors
Sponsor
Rand Paul
KY • R
Cosponsors
Mike Lee
UT • R
Sponsored 1/22/2025
Eric Schmitt
MO • R
Sponsored 1/22/2025
Cynthia Lummis
WY • R
Sponsored 1/22/2025
Roll Call Votes
No roll call votes available for this bill.
View on Congress.govTake It Personal
Get Your Personalized Policy View
Start a Free Government Policy Watch to see how policy affects your household, then upgrade to PRIA Full Coverage for year-round monitoring.
Already have an account? Sign in