Willie R. Tubbs, FISM News
Earlier this month, Colorado Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert introduced a bill that would require federal agencies to account for how much money they spend in their partnerships with social media and tech companies.
The Exposing Lewd Outlays for Social Networking Companies Act — which Boebert has, after violating the tenets of acronym building, deemed the ELON Act — is a rather short bill, just three pages at present.
However, those three pages would halt agency payments to social media companies for a year and require an audit of how much money agencies have spent on social media expenditures since 2015.
While the bill would apply to the entirety of the federal government, Boebert’s focus is on the Justice Department.
“Big tech is in bed with the FBI and other agencies to the point where Congress can’t tell where one ends and the other begins,” Boebert said in a statement.
The millions of dollars sent to Twitter that we know of during an election cycle, when they were at the same time censoring the Hunter Biden laptop from hell, is incredibly concerning … We must expose the incestuous relationship between big tech and the federal government.
Nine other GOP lawmakers joined Boebert as cosponsors: Reps. Anna Paulina Luna, Byron Donalds, and Matt Gaetz of Florida; Paul Gosar of Arizona, Mary Miller of Illinois, Eric Burlison of Missouri, Andrew Clyde of Georgia, Barry Moore of Alabama, and Troy Nehls of Texas.
“Who would ever have thought that the FBI would be paying Big Tech companies, you know, for their ‘advice’ or their counsel to the tune of millions upon millions of dollars?” Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.) told Just the News. “What they’re doing is what the government cannot do directly,” he added. “And that is they are doing government by proxy, or censorship by proxy. And this is 100% a violation of the Constitution.”
In December, Fox News reported that the FBI paid $3.5 million to Twitter alone, money the agency labeled as “reimbursement” for the “reasonable costs and expenses associated with their response to a legal process … For complying with legal requests, and a standard procedure.”
The FBI also confirmed that it has similar reimbursement arrangements with other social media companies.
Republicans have long asserted that the procedure was one meant to silence conservatives and boost President Joe Biden’s election chances in 2020.
As of this writing, the Biden administration and ranking Democrats have not spoken about Boebert’s proposal.