Washington, D.C., April 01, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The New Civil Liberties Alliance has reached a settlement in our The Daily Wire, The Federalist, Texas v. State Dep’t lawsuit against State Department-funded censorship of American media. The Department acknowledges that our clients engaged in constitutionally protected speech concerning Covid-19, sexual ethics, the biological reality concerning sex, and election integrity. Defendants agree they will not use, finance, or promote technology that suppresses or fact-checks the constitutionally protected speech of Americans and domestic media outlets. The settlement also bars the State Department from working with foreign governments or NGOs—formally or informally—for those purposes. Representing The Daily Wire and The Federalist, NCLA celebrates this important victory safeguarding American free speech and press.
NCLA’s lawsuit has revealed that the State Department used federal funding to promote some 300 “Countering Propaganda and Disinformation” tools, some of which mainly targeted domestic speech or press outlets. The Department actively encouraged private companies, government bodies here and abroad, and NGOs to use these technologies to target Americans’ speech and media outlets, pushing social media companies to ferret out what it deemed misinformation and disinformation on domestic policy topics like Covid-19 and vaccines.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio first vindicated core claims of NCLA’s lawsuit in his April 2025 op-ed at The Federalist announcing plans to completely abolish the Global Engagement Center. Underscoring evidence NCLA outlined in this case, Rubio decried the GEC’s financing of the development and promotion of entities such as NewsGuard and the Global Disinformation Index, which demonetize domestic news organizations by branding them unreliable or risky. NCLA’s suit helped expose how these companies targeted media outlets—including The Daily Wire and The Federalist—that ran articles opposing the government’s preferred narrative.
Then, last September, Acting Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Darren Beattie announced to The Daily Wire that State was dismantling GEC’s remaining pieces. Congress declined to renew GEC’s funding in late 2024, but the Biden Administration sidestepped Congress by reallocating its activities within the State Department, renaming it the Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference framework. Beattie told The Daily Wire that the former GEC framework “devolved into tools for political censorship instead of protecting Americans from foreign adversarial propaganda.”
With this settlement, State must also work to remove specific online material it funded, including “media literacy training” videos produced by Media Literacy Now that denigrated The Daily Wire and The Federalist. In 2030 and 2035, State will be required to train all its employees on how the First Amendment limits its ability to suppress Americans’ constitutionally protected speech. NCLA gratefully acknowledges the contributions of our co-plaintiff, the State of Texas, in reaching this settlement.
NCLA released the following statements:
“When a government organization like the Global Engagement Center, which was founded and partially managed by persons with expertise in tactical ‘psychological operations,’ turns its efforts to discrediting American media, the First Amendment violation is obvious. The prohibitions, reporting, and training required by the Consent Decree will protect Free Speech for well more than the decade that the Decree is in force.”
— Zhonette Brown, General Counsel and Senior Litigation Counsel, NCLA
“The State Department, under the prior administration, sought to censor so-called disinformation regardless of whether the speech targeted raised national security concerns or the speaker was a foreign adversary or an American citizen or domestic media outlet. The Consent Decree ends that practice and prevents a future administration from returning to these unconstitutional ways.”
— Margot Cleveland, Of Counsel, NCLA
“It is inconceivable that the State Department spent millions of taxpayer dollars to silence and censor domestic news media for expressing viewpoints with which the last administration disagreed. This settlement is a resounding victory for the First Amendment—and for the rule of law.”
— Peggy Little, Senior Litigation Counsel, NCLA
“Today’s news means NCLA has now settled two major social media censorship cases in the past week. NCLA was the first group to recognize the massive First Amendment problem with the Biden Administration’s ‘whole of government’ censorship industrial complex. We were first to sue, and we led the fight for Americans’ First Amendment freedoms across social media. We deeply appreciate Secretary Rubio’s role in righting this wrong, and we salute The Daily Wire and The Federalist for being willing to stand up to the rogue Biden Administration.”
— Mark Chenoweth, President, NCLA
“Today marks an important day for preserving free speech in the digital era. The U.S. Government has acknowledged its censorship structures under the Biden Administration, and will now be subject to limitations on similar behavior in the future. We're grateful to NCLA for representing us, and I also appreciate our co-plaintiffs' efforts in this landmark case. We're proud to join them in the fight for freedom.”
— Caleb Robinson, CEO, The Daily Wire
For more information visit the case page here.
ABOUT NCLA
NCLA is a nonpartisan, nonprofit civil rights group founded by prominent legal scholar Philip Hamburger to protect constitutional freedoms from violations by the Administrative State. NCLA’s public-interest litigation and other pro bono advocacy strive to tame the unlawful power of state and federal agencies and to foster a new civil liberties movement that will help restore Americans’ fundamental rights.
Joe Martyak New Civil Liberties Alliance 703-403-1111 joe.martyak@ncla.legal
