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A first-of-its-kind bill has been introduced into the Wyoming state legislature to shield Americans from foreign censorship of all kinds.
The Guaranteeing Rights Against Novel International Tyranny and Extortion (GRANITE) Act, House Bill 0070, if passed will be the first US law designed to create a private right of action against foreign censorship enforcement.
Representative Daniel Singh introduced the bill. He said, “foreign governments have decided they can threaten American citizens and American companies for speech that is protected by our Constitution… Wyoming is drawing a line in the sand.”
The bill aims to make Wyoming a safe haven for free expression and digital innovation.
Reclaim the Net reports, “The legislation provides that any Wyoming resident, business, or US person with servers in the state may sue foreign governments or international organizations that attempt to enforce censorship demands against them for First Amendment protected speech. Each violation could cost the offending entity at least $1 million or 10% of its US revenue, whichever is higher.
“The GRANITE Act prohibits Wyoming courts and agencies from recognizing or enforcing foreign censorship judgments. It also forbids any state cooperation with such orders, including extradition requests or data demands linked to speech that is constitutionally protected in the US. Under the bill, no Wyoming authority may help a foreign state investigate, penalize, or prosecute individuals over lawful expression.”
Infowars spoke to Preston Byrne, legal head at Arkham, a cryptocurrency exchange and blockchain-analysis platform.
“The GRANITE Act is a tightly tailored response to a very new problem: foreign governments assuming that the transnational nature of the Internet entitles them to govern American speech and conduct conducted wholly and exclusively on American soil. The model law was developed as a direct response to the conduct of the UK’s Ofcom in its pursuit of my American clients, where Ofcom asserted that UK law governs the conduct of US citizens on US soil, and also that Ofcom was entitled to sovereign immunity with respect to its activities on US soil.”
He continued by explaining how the law will make it harder to censor US citizens, and also outlined his hopes for even more powerful legislation from Washington.
“GRANITE makes it clear that foreign censorship orders are not enforceable on US soil, bars executive branch cooperation with those orders and extradition in relation to those orders, and creates a private right of action allowing victims of foreign censorship that targets Wyoming to sue foreign censors in U.S. courts. We will need changes at the federal level to disapply sovereign immunity for foreign censorship, which is a creation of U.S. federal law, and eagerly await Congressional action on this front.”
