Governor Inslee Wants To Jail Politicians Who Lie? What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
From www.techdirt.com
2022-01-31 18:56:00
Mike Masnick
Excerpt:
from the besides-everything dept
I know that people who identify tribally as Democrats or Republicans often like to accuse the other team of being especially censorial, but the unfortunate fact is that elected officials in both parties seem equally interested in using the power of the state to take away 1st Amendment rights. For every misguided effort by Florida, Texas, or Georgia to attack the 1st Amendment rights of websites, we see a Colorado or New York going in the other direction….
Entering into this fray, we have Washington state Governor Jay Inslee, who, at the beginning of the year, announced plans for a law to criminalize “false speech” about elections.
“Soon, legislation will be introduced in the state House and Senate that would make it a gross misdemeanor for candidates and elected officials to knowingly lie about elections. The proposed law is narrowly tailored to capture only those false statements that are made for the purpose of undermining the election process or results and is further limited to lies that are likely to incite or cause lawlessness,” Inslee said.