Civil Liberties, Charitable Groups Protest Bill They Say Would Be Used To Silence Them

Its supporters say it would help stop terror financing. Democrats worry about how it could be used by the incoming Trump administration.

A panoply of civil liberties advocacy groups and other nonprofits are raising alarms over a bill that passed the House Thursday, saying it could be used to punish them for speaking out under the incoming second Trump administration.

The bill, which failed on the House floor last week, squeaked by on a 219-184 vote, with more than two dozen members not voting.

It now goes on to the Senate, where its fate is unclear. But if the turnaround by many Democrats in the House Thursday is any indication, it faces an uphill climb in the upper chamber.

A request for comment to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s (D-N.Y.) office was not immediately returned.

“This is the kind of bill that the infamous House Committee on Un-American Activities would’ve introduced back in its day,” said Patrick Eddington, senior fellow with the libertarian Cato Institute, referring to a House panel notorious during the anti-Communist “Red Scare” days of the 1950s.