We Can Defend American Free Speech Without Manufacturing Foreign Enemies

Jonathan Turley’s recent op-ed in The Hill reads like political theater designed to provoke outrage rather than thoughtful debate. As an American who values both free speech and intellectual honesty, I find his argument fundamentally flawed in both its premises and conclusions.

First, let’s address the jurisdictional reality that Turley conveniently ignores. The Digital Services Act (DSA) applies to companies operating *within European borders*. When American tech companies like X and Facebook choose to access the EU’s market of 450 million consumers, they voluntarily subject themselves to European law. This isn’t some novel assault on American sovereignty - it’s basic international commerce. The United States applies its own regulations to foreign companies operating here every single day. To frame this as a “war on free speech” is to misunderstand how global business actually works.

Turley’s characterization of Thierry Breton as a “clear and present danger” to American rights is hyperbolic nonsense. Breton is a regulator doing his job: enforcing laws passed by democratically elected European bodies. When he warned Elon Musk about compliance with EU election integrity rules, he wasn’t attacking the First Amendment - he was ensuring an American company followed European law while operating in Europe.

The ad hominem attacks on “French socialist” Raphael Glucksmann reveal more about Turley’s argumentative weaknesses than about European policy. Whether someone is socialist, conservative, or libertarian doesn’t change the fact that sovereign nations have the right to govern their digital spaces. This is distraction, not debate.

But what’s most telling is Turley’s selective outrage. While he hyperventilates about hypothetical European threats, he ignores the very real assaults on free speech happening right here in America. We’ve seen protesters at Charlie Kirk events not just exercising their own free speech rights, but crossing into intimidation, doxxing, and attempts to shut down venues through threats and harassment. These aren’t theoretical dangers from Brussels - they’re documented cases of Americans being targeted for their political views by other Americans.

The travel ban solution championed by Secretary Rubio is particularly counterproductive. Instead of engaging in diplomatic dialogue or challenging EU policies through established international mechanisms, we’re resorting to exclusion. This doesn’t make us look strong - it makes us look insecure about our own free speech principles. If EU officials’ ideas are so dangerous, let them debate in the open marketplace of ideas we claim to cherish.

The real conversation we should be having is how to protect American free speech from actual domestic threats while respecting that other democracies will develop different approaches to balancing rights and responsibilities. The EU’s focus on systemic risks like disinformation during elections isn’t an attack on American values - it’s their sovereign choice about how to protect their citizens.

We can defend the First Amendment without pretending that every other nation’s legal framework is an existential threat. The real danger to American free speech isn’t in European regulatory offices - it’s in our own inability to maintain civil discourse without resorting to the intimidation tactics that Turley’s piece conveniently ignores while manufacturing outrage abroad.

American free speech is strong enough to withstand foreign regulations that don’t actually apply to American soil. It’s the domestic erosion through corporate censorship, surveillance capitalism, and actual intimidation of speakers that deserves our attention - not this manufactured crisis about European laws that American companies voluntarily follow when doing business abroad.

You can read Jonathan’s original piece here: https://thehill.com/opinion/civil-rights/5663912-we-are-the-free-world-now-europe-declares-war-on-free-speech-in-the-us/