November 27, 2006: Newt Gingrich Advocates Imposing Limits on Free Speech in the Name of National Security

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich says in a speech, “My view is that either before we lose a city, or if we are truly stupid, after we lose a city, we will adopt rules of engagement that use every technology we can find to break up their capacity to use the Internet, to break up their capacity to use free speech, and to go after people who want to kill us to stop them from recruiting people before they get to reach out and convince young people to destroy their lives while destroying us.” He also suggests pressing for a new “Geneva convention for fighting terrorism which makes very clear that those who would fight outside the rules of law… are in fact subject to a totally different set of rules that allow us to protect civilization by defeating barbarism… .” [Newt (.org), 11/27/2006; New York Sun, 11/29/2006] Gingrich makes these remarks as the featured speaker at the Nackey S. Loeb School of Communications’ annual first amendment awards dinner, which honors New Hampshire citizens who exemplify and defend free speech liberties. [Union Leader, 11/28/2006]