How to Kill NPR and Call It Freedom

Welcome to 2025: now streaming state-approved truth.

Headlines scream daily crises, yet the quieter threat creeping underneath is more dangerous. Officials are erecting essentially “free-speech” commissions that decide which protests are acceptable, which books remain on shelves, and which experts may speak. Cross their line and you risk a lawsuit, unemployment, or even jail.

I’ve spent my career balancing national security and civil liberty—one hard-won rule: when any administration builds panels to manage speech, they risk crossing the line from protection into policing. In 2025, the hypocrisy has gone full tilt—because those now screaming “freedom” are the ones enforcing silence.

Across the country, new laws, and campus regulations are rolling out under the guise of liberty. But peel back the label, and you’ll find a pattern: political appointees deciding which speech is acceptable, which books are permissible, which protests are tolerable. And if you cross the line? Expect lawsuits, job loss, or even jail time. This isn’t theoretical. It’s happening. And the party that once lectured everyone else about the marketplace of ideas is now stocking the shelves with only one brand of truth.

The GOP once prided itself on being the party of the First Amendment. But today, that legacy has been replaced by loyalty tests and selective silencing. On November 30, 2023, I testified before U.S. Representative Jim Jordan’s so‑called Weaponization of the Federal Government committee. I was prepared to discuss how Trump-era pressure influenced DHS threat assessments and what we did when contacting social media companies. The microphones were on, but the appetite to listen was not. Republican members who once shouted about viewpoint diversity cut me off the moment the facts strayed from their narrative. 

And while the members were busy curating testimony, the gallery had its hecklers. Ivan Raiklan, the far-right operative who now cheers Kash Patel as FBI Director, sat just a few rows behind me that day, flanked by his usual crew, heckling my remarks and lobbing comments at my husband. (And yes, I’m on his “retribution list.”) The same group that mocked me in that hearing room later packed Patel’s FBI confirmation hearing, proving this new “free speech” brigade isn’t just about controlling the mic; it’s about punishing anyone else who picks it up. That hearing crystallized the danger we face: these new “free‑speech” champions don’t want more voices, they want curated voices. And if your evidence complicates the storyline, you’re the next target for their gavel. If we don’t call it out now, we’re going to wake up in a country where the only speech truly protected is the kind that flatters those in power.

Texas: Where “Free Speech” Has a Curfew

In June, Gov. Greg Abbott signed Senate Bill 2972, empowering a state “Free-Speech Ombudsman” to defund universities that allow protests after 10 p.m., use megaphones, or host anything labeled “intimidating.” It’s a curfew disguised as liberty, broad enough to silence a midnight gallery critique or a student newspaper deadline. Imagine students having a late-night political debate with friends over cocktails on campus and getting punished for it. If this law had existed back when I was at UPenn during Bill Clinton’s Presidency, I would’ve been in serious trouble given the late-night political debates I used to have with my fellow theater major friends.

Washington’s “Free Speech” Executive Order, With a Gag Clause

This isn't just domestic overreach; it mirrors what authoritarians do in Hungary, Turkey, and Russia: control the narrative, punish dissent, and criminalize journalism. The tools might look different here, but the strategy is the same.

On Day One of his second term, President Trump signed an executive order called the “Restoring Freedom of Speech and Ending Federal Censorship” Act. It bans agencies from countering disinformation and directs the Attorney General to retroactively investigate civil servants who did. Here’s an excerpt:

“(b) ensure that no Federal Government officer, employee, or agent engages in or facilitates any conduct that would unconstitutionally abridge the free speech of any American citizen.”

Irony check: While the order vows that “no Federal Government officer…shall abridge the free speech of any American citizen,” it simultaneously gags the very civil servants who worked to defend democratic discourse, turning the First Amendment into a loyalty test instead of a shield.

And let’s not forget who signed it. Donald Trump is the federal government. He’s the one demanding investigations, purging public broadcasters, celebrating defamation lawsuits against critics, and unleashing federal muscle against protestors. When his executive order claims to “restore” free speech, it’s like an arsonist bragging about installing smoke detectors.

Selective Speech: Who Gets to Speak?

It’s not just about what you say anymore; it’s about whether the government decides you deserve the right to speak at all.

When Secretary of State Marco Rubio said, “This is not about free speech…,” he wasn’t just dodging the First Amendment; he was laying the groundwork for a two-tiered system of speech rights. “This is about people that don’t have a right to be in the United States to begin with. No one has a right to a student visa. No one has a right to a green card.”

That framing is chilling, because it defines rights not by humanity or principle, but by paperwork–full rights for citizens who stay in line, and silence for everyone else.

Meanwhile, the Free Speech Protection Act (S. 188), now sitting in Congress, would bar the government from funding any research into misinformation, crippling the very researchers tracking hostile influence from countries like Russia and China. It doesn’t ban speech outright, but it does blind the public to the truth. Let’s have a serious discussion about where that line is. But how can we have that discussion if the very experts who understand the threat are being silenced, sidelined, or legally muzzled? That’s not free speech, it’s forced ignorance, dressed up as liberty.

Here’s a national security truth no one’s really talking about—but we shouldn’t forget: when governments treat dissenters as enemies, they often end up manufacturing the very extremists they claim to be fighting.

Take Iraq, 2013. After months of peaceful Sunni protests, Iraqi security forces stormed a protest camp in Hawija, killing at least 23 people. Within hours, tribal leaders who had previously urged non-violence called for jihad. That moment, well documented by scholars and U.S. analysts, reignited Iraq’s insurgency and directly fueled ISIS’s rise. 

Repression doesn’t prevent violence. It creates the vacuum where radicalism grows, a pattern I’ve witnessed time and again in my national security career. If we continue down this path, gagging experts, punishing dissent, and politicizing truth, we risk fueling the very extremism and division we claim to be protecting ourselves from.

The Quiet Crackdown—A Snapshot of the War on Dissent

Social Media Fear: As federal pressure on digital platforms increases, Americans should be asking: what’s safe to share, and what might get you flagged? Trump-aligned officials have suggested that even reposting a meme critical of the government could be considered a threat to "public trust." The shift is pushing users to second-guess what they post and when. As Gizmodo reports, this crackdown has led to a chilling effect across social media, with users already being warned, implicitly or explicitly, to keep their content "on message." 

Wait. Wasn’t this the outcry of the far-right not long ago, claiming they were being silenced online? Now they’re building the very apparatus they claimed to fear. Free speech for me but not for thee.

Public Broadcasting Power Grab: Earlier this week, the Trump administration sued the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in an attempt to remove Democratic-appointed board members and realign the network under Trump-loyal control, part of a broader strategy to defund NPR and PBS and strip public media of independent oversight. 

Anti-Protest Dragnet: 41 bills targeting protests have been introduced in 22 states. They range from impacting demonstrations on Gaza to climate change. In Ohio, lawmakers are even considering whether participants in noisy or disruptive but nonviolent protests, and the people and organizations who support them, could be hit with expensive lawsuits. So would this include a 'No Kings' protest? It’s not just about silencing the crowd. It’s about chilling the entire community around them.

Curriculum Control Boards: Florida’s expanded “Stop WOKE” Act, and similar bills in Ohio, Arizona, and Indiana, let political appointees veto university lectures and ban “divisive topics.” These efforts strip away academic freedom and redefine college instruction as government speech. 

Book Ban Tribunals: School boards, under vague “sexually explicit content” laws, have removed hundreds of books. A 5th Circuit decision in May ruled parents and students have no legal standing to challenge these bans, even when entire libraries are gutted.

SLAPP Lawsuits as Financial Muzzles: Corporations and political operatives are suing activists and critics into silence. In one example, Energy Transfer sought $667 million from Greenpeace over Dakota Access Pipeline protests. Closer to home, former FBI assistant director Frank Figliuzzi is now fighting a defamation suit from Trump’s current FBI Director, Kash Patel. And let’s not forget Ric Grenell’s lawsuit, supported by Patel, against me. It was dismissed, but they’re at it again. Whether it’s an intelligence chief, a former cabinet member, or a Fortune 500 energy firm, the tactic is the same: drag critics into expensive, years-long litigation, betting they’ll shut up before trial.

Meanwhile, in real time, California's sanctuary laws are colliding head‑on with Washington’s new crackdown, and the fallout shows exactly how “free‑speech” promises morph into federal muscle the moment dissent threatens power. Sanctuary statutes are being overridden by federal warrants and National Guard deployments. California shows the “board‑to‑baton” funnel in real time.

Again, the dangerous irony in all of this is that those claiming to “restore” free speech are the ones building the machinery to silence it. They wave the flag with one hand while turning the Constitution into a weapon with the other.

What You Can Do

• Document Everything. Sunshine is the strongest disinfectant.

• Support Legal Challenges. The courts remain one of the last guardrails.

• Stand With the Silenced. From students, librarians, journalists, whistleblowers and former DOJ employees—amplify their voices.

• Refuse to Self-Censor. Speaking uncomfortable truths is the essence of freedom.

Free speech doesn’t need more review boards. It needs people brave enough to defend it when it matters most.

Speaking of brave—Friday, July 18,

Miles Taylor

and I will be live at 12pm ET on Substack for a conversation that cuts through the noise. Hope you’ll tune in.

See you soon,

Olivia