Turley: New ‘Red Scare’ Shutting Down Conservative Voices in Media
Constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley of George Washington University testifies before the House Judiciary Committee in the Longworth House Office Building on Capitol Hill Dec. 4, 2019, in Washington, D.C. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
By Surya Gowda | NEWSMAX
George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley said the left’s appetite for censoring conservative voices and curtailing their reach is growing in his testimony Wednesday at a House subcommittee hearing, claiming “we are living through a period reminiscent of the Red Scare.”
The professor called attention to a recent letter signed by Reps. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., and Jerry McNerney, D-Calif., targeting conservative-leaning outlets like Fox News and Newsmax in a formal statement to the House Subcommittee on Communications and Technology of the Committee on Energy and Commerce. The letter demanded answers from cable television providers on their role in the “spread of dangerous misinformation.”
“From the perspectives of free speech and the free press, the letter is not just chilling; it is positively glacial. The letter does not address the long-standing objections to networks like CNN, MSNBC, and others for pronounced bias and refuted stories,” Turley said.
“Some were corrected and some were not. Indeed, major media figures like Chuck Todd have made demonstrably false statements and aired a clearly false or misleading clip without any correction. … Yet, the letter solely seeks to bar those networks that the members and their constituents do not like or likely watch.”
The legal scholar drew parallels between attempts to censor conservative views today and the Red Scare during the Cold War, when those suspected of being communists and other political dissidents were targeted.
According to Turley, “there is now an inverse intolerance against conservative voices. The Red Scare was a period where writers and others were put on blacklists and denied employment for holding the ‘wrong’ views. There are now new calls for blacklists from not just members of Congress but writers and academics.”
But nowadays, Turley said, it is more likely that professors and writers will be targeted for supporting the government and law enforcement than they will be for criticizing them.