Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut’s tweets defending the right for violent insurrectionists and those who embolden them to plan their attacks using private social media sites are an affront to our state.
The businesses he references simply do not want their technology to be used to enable terrorists to organize attacks on the United States. Scores of companies like them have pulled their financial support from political action committees and from politicians who promote conspiracy theories and disinformation to attack our democratic institutions, institutions that Commissioner Edelblut has sworn to uphold.
Last week, the FBI released a bulletin confirming the threat of armed attacks on state capitols and the U.S. Capitol, plans which originated on the social media site Parler. Conspiracy to attack the United States is not protected by free speech. It is a criminal activity called sedition, and the heinous act to attack the Capitol is not free speech either – it is called treason.
The state’s top education official should know the difference. The people of New Hampshire deserve an explanation from Commissioner Edelblut.
Rep. LINDA TANNER
Georges Mills