Sen. Josh Hawley
Photo:
Manuel Balce Ceneta/Associated Press
Readers sometimes ask why we pay so much attention to regulatory agencies, and there are two answers. One is that someone in the press has to do it, and the other is because the administrative state is where most of the abuse in government is these days.
See nearby for an example at the Federal Communications Commission, but another is what we’ve been reporting about the Federal Trade Commission under the unrestrained Chair
Lina Khan.
Republicans in the House are now shining a light on Ms. Khan, and there seem to be few limits on her agency’s willingness to use its power against those she dislikes.
A Judiciary Committee panel looking into the “weaponization” of agencies disclosed communications this week showing how the FTC targeted
and his takeover of Twitter at the behest of progressives. The Journal has already reported on much of this, but one thing worth highlighting is letters asking Twitter to disclose the details of its decision to release internal company communications that have become known as the Twitter Files.
The FTC wants to “identify all journalists” granted access to company records, including the “nature of access granted each person.” It also asked if Twitter had conducted background checks on the journalists, among other things. So here we have a federal agency demanding that a private company disclose its interactions with a free press, including how much it snooped on those reporters. None of this is the business of the government.
One lesson from this bullying is that the proposal by Sen.
Josh Hawley
to give even more power to the FTC to regulate media platforms is asking for even more political abuse.
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