Moderator: Beth Kerley, International Forum for Democratic Studies, National Endowment for Democracy

Panelists: Félix Maradiaga, President, Foundation for Freedom of Nicaragua and World Liberty Congress; Eka Gigauri, Executive Director, Transparency International Georgia

 This transcript has been lightly edited for length and clarity. Time codes refer to the session video.

[00:00] Beth Kerley

Good morning, everyone. This session is going to take us to some settings where, even today, in 2026, the baseline for free speech is night and day from what many of us take for granted in established democracies. In particular, we're here to look at an alarming trend: around the world, governments in autocratic and autocratizing settings are adopting laws on so-called foreign agents.

That term may bring to mind images of Cold War spy movies, but the targets of these laws are not who you might think. Instead, these laws use foreign grants, or so-called foreign influence, to label civil society organizations—anti-corruption watchdogs, human rights advocates, independent journalists, and even critical individuals—as agents of foreign governments, and to obstruct or shut down their work.

To talk about these laws, I am honored to have with us two people who have been on the front lines of the struggle for democracy and free speech. Félix Maradiaga is an academic, an activist, a former presidential candidate, and a leading voice in Nicaragua's democratic opposition. Among many other things, he is president of the Foundation for Freedom of Nicaragua and currently of the World Liberty Congress, which brings together activists from more than 60 countries. Eka Gigauri is an accomplished advocate for transparency and anti-corruption. She has been executive director of the anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International Georgia since 2010 and has been a leader of Georgia's campaign of civil resistance to that country's foreign agents law.

In lieu of a longer introduction, I would like to ask each of you to say a few words about your personal experience with foreign agent laws: the circumstances surrounding their adoption in your countries, and what they have meant for you personally and for the organizations you work with. We'll go in chronological order by adoption of the law, so we'll start with Félix.

[02:04] Félix Maradiaga

Thank you very much for the opportunity. Nicaragua is a very extreme case, and it is a laboratory for things we're now seeing around the world. In my capacity as president of the World Liberty Congress, I collaborate with actors from 62 countries. In many of these countries you may not see a law openly labeled a foreign agent law, but the pattern is very similar.

In the case of Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega of the Sandinista party came back into power in 2007, and one of the first things he did was increase the regulation of foreign funding. As executive director of the largest think tank in the country, and of the largest investigative journalism fund, we complied as much as we could in those first years, disclosing our donors. The situation changed dramatically in 2018, when our organization became the first in the country to be declared illegal—two years before the foreign agent law. Today, 5,700 nonprofits, including international organizations, have been shut down. In our case, that led to the expropriation of our buildings and the arrest of many of our collaborators, including my own arrest. I spent two years in arbitrary detention.

In addition to the foreign agent law, the regime has created a cybercrime law that persecutes Nicaraguans abroad. People who write blogs or tweet from outside the country may lose their property or their nationality inside it. There is also a national security law, clearly related to the foreign agent law, that can lead to a life sentence. Nicaragua never had life sentences before. Under the so-called new constitution—among many other extraordinary things, Ortega appointed his own wife as co-president—the independence of the Supreme Court has been erased; it is now under the so-called co-presidency. They have used these laws to shut down every independent media outlet in the country, and 26 universities have been closed using the same laws.

[04:32] Beth Kerley

You're bringing out an important point: these laws frequently don't operate in isolation. They're part of a broader complex of laws used to stigmatize and shut down independent activity of whatever sort, some of which are designed to reach across borders and have an extraterritorial chilling effect. Just quickly, on the foreign agents law in Nicaragua specifically: what does it mean the moment an organization gets labeled?

[05:01] Félix Maradiaga

It's a combination of things. First, the organization must register, and even organizations that tried to do so were not allowed. But it's also part of a political strategy to label that organization not only as one that receives foreign funding but as a traitor to the nation—which is now a new article in the new constitution. It is almost as if the organization is admitting that it works against the national interest, and therefore it can be taken to trial for high treason. In the most extreme cases, organizations that tried to register were then taken to court and told: we have proof that you are a foreign agent, because you registered as one yourself. It is absolutely ridiculous.

On top of that come massive smear campaigns that try to shut down independent voices on the premise that you do not represent local Nicaraguans—that you are being paid by the United States, by Europe, or by "dark forces," as they call them.

[06:11] Beth Kerley

And these laws are frequently applied to organizations that are in fact working very actively for the rights of citizens in their own countries. Eka, the adoption of the foreign agents law in Georgia was a dramatic and, I would say, mobilizing experience in your country. Tell us a little about that. What were the circumstances around the law's adoption, and what has it meant?

[06:35] Eka Gigauri

Thank you so much. In Georgia's case, it did not begin with the law. It began with a massive smear campaign against independent media representatives and civil society leaders.

I remember waking up one morning and realizing there were posters of me at the entrances of every metro station, on administrative buildings in the capital, and in the second-largest city in Georgia. This was organized and coordinated by the government, because the message written on those posters was the same one the prime minister and the speaker of parliament were using against independent civil society leaders. Then I went out of my house and saw that my car had been vandalized. I went to the shop where I regularly buy food, and there were posters of me at the entrance. The same in front of my office, and even at the entrance of my beauty salon. The women who work there came out and took everything down, asking why anyone would do this to a woman they had known for many years.

It wasn't many people who were targeted—myself and four or five civil society leaders. After that came a misinformation and disinformation campaign in the pro-government media: nasty stories about me, about my family, and about the work of Transparency International Georgia.

Just so you understand the context: over the last several years we have identified around 300 high officials in Georgia involved in corruption—specific investigations into people enriching themselves, stealing money from the state budget, and so on. We also help ordinary citizens through free legal aid; in a given year we have around 2,000 people under our protection. We were powerful players on the ground, and we were monitoring elections, with elections coming. That is why they wanted to undermine us, and me personally. I am the key spokesperson for Transparency International Georgia and very active in the media, and they wanted to make sure that no one believed me when I criticized the government. That was their main goal.

Then, of course, came the law. And again, it came as a package. It was not only the foreign agents law. There was a law on grants, which were no longer allowed. There was the criminalization of gathering and organizing protests; it was not even allowed to protest on the pavement. And of course they enforced the law selectively. They did not care about others protesting. It was really about the watchdogs—those who were criticizing the government and talking about corruption.

As for the implications: as you said, we had massive protests. We tried to explain to citizens why this mattered, and we were smart in our strategic communication, because we called it "the Russian law." Everyone in Georgia knows what happened in Russia and how the Russian government treats activists and independent media there, so it was very easy for the public to understand what this law was about. Many people came out onto the streets. The Georgian government made several attempts to adopt the legislation, and in the end they did it, after two years.

The implications are real. We had to close our five offices around the country. We are not allowed to receive any foreign funding or to cooperate with international organizations. And whatever is not covered by the law is covered by criminal investigation. I am a witness in two criminal investigations. One is for sabotage, because I testified before the Foreign Relations Committee of the U.S. Senate. The second is for helping an enemy state against my own state—because I gave an interview to the BBC about human rights violations in Georgia. So everything is about free speech. Everything is about criticism. If we shut up, if we do not say anything critical about the government, then we are fine.

[13:05] Beth Kerley

So once again we have restrictions on speech that are also meant to reach across borders: to prevent you from speaking out to the international community, and to prevent information from reaching us here in democracies, including our elected legislators.

You are with a group called Transparency International. You know something about making things transparent to the public, and you've said that the foreign agents law has nothing to do with transparency. That's a claim these governments like to make. They like to say that this is similar to laws on foreign influence and foreign lobbying in democracies. But in practice they work quite differently. So why does this have nothing to do with transparency?

[13:47] Eka Gigauri

There are many arguments. First, we are Transparency International. We fight corruption, and transparency and accountability are our strength. In this fight it is very important for us to be transparent, and we have always been. We published everything: all the information about our funding, about our projects, about how many people work for TI Georgia, our annual activity reports, our audit reports. Everything was online.

Second, in Georgia there were already about ten laws regulating our activities. We reported to the government, we paid taxes, and the government knew everything about our operations.

Third, when they were adopting this law, they mentioned me during the committee hearings. They said, "We are adopting this law to stop Transparency International Georgia." That was said by the chair of the committee, by the chair of the parliament, by the prime minister. All these officials mentioned TI and some of our partners—at some point forgetting what their official message was supposed to be. That is why it was not about transparency. We had no problem with transparency. We were transparent.

[15:24] Beth Kerley

So in this case it was fairly straightforward: they were telling on themselves. Looking at other settings—Félix, Nicaragua, and perhaps other countries you know through the World Liberty Congress—what are the signs that make it clear when a law on foreign influence is not really about transparency but about silencing?

[15:43] Félix Maradiaga

That is a very important question, because the World Liberty Congress is now trying to fight back and to give tools to activists. We have 62 member countries, and about 14 of them have what we regard as laws of this nature.

The early signs are norms or regulations that try to establish the voice of the state as the only authorized voice on anti-corruption, on accountability, on human rights. We see this even in hybrid regimes; it does not have to be a full autocracy. Take El Salvador—not now, but a few years ago, when it was not yet considered a country with a foreign agent law. They started by demanding excessive reporting on funding.

I'll give you the example of Nicaragua. In 2008, the Institute for Strategic Studies decided to go well beyond what the law required in transparency. We published our reports, and the regime started to persecute and investigate consultants, accountants, people who were not donors. We had no issue saying we were funded by Finland, by Denmark, by the European Union, by USAID, which of course was operating at the time. But the Sandinista regime was trying to pry into the person who provided catering for an event, the agency that provided transportation, knocking on the door of the taxi driver who moved journalists around one part of the country, the printing company that printed the reports from our investigative journalism program. In order to protect these people, we decided not to provide full disclosure of some information. Those are the early signs: excessive norms and regulations that, even if they are not labeled foreign agent laws, establish a trend.

A second red flag is a mentality—the rhetoric of the ruling party, of autocrats, of populists against any criticism. Of course, even in democracies politicians are not always comfortable with criticism. But here the argument is that you are being funded by an enemy. The whole concept of the "enemy of the state," so typical of the Cold War, is coming back—against women's organizations, indigenous movements, progressive organizations working on climate change, in many parts of the world. The idea that you are not a good citizen, that you are a traitor to the nation, that you are not patriotic: that is a red flag, even in hybrid regimes and even in some backsliding democracies.

[19:06] Beth Kerley

So we have two components: the bureaucratic death by a thousand cuts, and then this stigmatizing narrative that is not very tolerant of pluralism or viewpoint diversity.

Looking across these different settings, let's talk about the dynamics by which these laws are spreading. Starting with Félix: when you speak to activists in different countries about these laws, how do you see authoritarian governments learning from each other and borrowing innovations in the strategies they use to attack civil society?

[19:40] Félix Maradiaga

They are clearly learning from each other. As our friend William Dobson of the Journal of Democracy put it when he coined the term, there is a "dictator's learning curve." They have learned. Labeling a nonprofit, a journalist, a university, or a scholar as a member of the opposition, in a way, legitimized that position. But in many parts of the world the concept of patriotism is very strong. We did some surveys, and we learned that the common pattern now is to build the law not so much on an administrative measure as on a smear campaign. It's a second-generation smear campaign. In focus groups, even people who agreed with an anti-corruption report would say, "Yes, I agree with what you're saying, but I don't like the United States getting involved in our national issues. Why don't you do this with local money?" So they learned that pressing the emotional buttons of patriotism—the sense of being invaded by foreign news or influenced by other governments—was very effective. That, I believe, is one deep concern with a direct relationship to freedom of speech.

In addition, there is the combination with other norms. We see a direct connection to cybercrime laws, and a big one is financial repression for political control. By that I mean the use of ordinary banking laws, generally developed for anti-money-laundering purposes, to create a category that makes it close to impossible for a local nonprofit to open a bank account, internationally or locally. By placing these nonprofits, journalists, and activists in the category of money laundering, they create a very bad reputation. So you see a combination of PR and smear campaigns, as we discussed; cybercrime laws, under which social media is a space where even publishing your reports online violates the law; and banking laws used to block any type of funding.

[22:18] Beth Kerley

And by cybercrime here we are not talking about hackers breaking into databases. We are talking about people posting something on social media that is deemed fake news.

Félix Maradiaga

Or simply tweeting, yes.

Beth Kerley

And you've also given us a good sense of why it might be difficult for some of these organizations to operate with local money.

Turning to the Georgian case: Russia has been a major player, as you mentioned, in the spread of foreign agent laws globally, and that may have particular significance for neighboring countries like Georgia. Tell us a little about how the foreign agents law in that case connects to the relationship between the two governments. Is there a sense in which the foreign agents law in Georgia is itself a reflection of foreign influence?

[23:11] Eka Gigauri

I think yes, and if you ask people on the ground, they would say the same. We have now been protesting for a little more than 600 days—perhaps not the huge protests of the beginning, but there are people on the streets every day protesting these laws and the actions of the government.

Everything intensified after Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The government's goal, apparently, is to distance Georgia from the West—from the European Union and the United States—and to take Russia's side in this war. You could see this in how they acted toward Ukraine, including a smear campaign against the Ukrainian president. We were the ones who protested this. We said: no, we need liberal democracy here. We want Georgia to become an EU and NATO member. We want to be with the democratic countries, not partners of Russia. For many years, even under the previous administration, Georgian citizens understood that this was the right way to go, that this was the West. With the adoption of this legislation we see a huge backsliding, and the government's attempt to partner Georgia with Russia.

We should also consider everything they did with this law, from the smear campaign to the provisions of the law itself. Everything was copied from the Russian playbook—even the messaging. You could see Putin talking about foreign agents and the foreign agents law, and then our prime minister saying the same. And more and more we see how pleased the Russians are with developments in Georgia. For us, this is a fight for liberal democracy and freedom against Russian influence in Georgia. That is obvious to all of us on the ground, especially considering that the founder of the ruling party is a Russian oligarch. He made his fortune in Russia, and for him such a governance system is a natural environment. He captured the state, and everything he does is a copy of developments in Russia.

[26:17] Beth Kerley

You're already getting at the wider ramifications of these laws beyond the borders of the country, so let's think about the global impact of this trend. Why should people here in Nashville, and in the wider democratic world, care about these crackdowns on dissent in repressive settings? What is at stake for the rest of the world—for our security here in the United States, for geopolitical stability, and for the future of global norms protecting democratic principles like free speech—when authoritarian leaders succeed in getting these laws adopted? To both of you.

[26:56] Eka Gigauri

I would say there are two dimensions. One is values. We are defending free speech, we are defending freedom, we are defending democracy, and that is not the job of one country or one group in one country. This is a global fight. We have to unite, learn from each other, and act together to make sure there is democracy everywhere and that free speech is secured.

The second is security. You cannot trust an authoritarian regime. You can invest in such a country, but at the end of the day it is not safe, and you cannot partner with such regimes. And in Georgia's case, again, it comes as a package: not only Russia, but China and Iran. We see not only Russian companies but Chinese companies and Iranians active on Georgian soil. This is something we should all resist, and it is a matter of global security as well.

[28:30] Félix Maradiaga

I fully agree, and I will add two points. The first is a fundamental moral and ethical principle of freedom and the rule of law: a society cannot accept that the only legitimate voice is the state's. There should be voices from faith-based organizations, universities, civil society movements, and individuals. The concept behind foreign agent laws is to establish the state as the only authorized voice. And the state, in a moral sense, is almost a fiction: under this concept it is a group of individuals who decide that they represent the state, and therefore that the voice of an activist or a journalist is not legitimate. That is an erosion of the social contract, in which we limit the power of the state so that civil society can be vibrant. It also erodes accountability. If you want to be a watchdog, to limit those in power and fact-check what they say, they weaponize patriotism: Who funds you? Your money comes from abroad.

That creates a second problem. It is easy for an authoritarian state to manipulate corporate interests, for reasons we know, but very hard for it to manipulate the individual. Imagine an activist in Zimbabwe, in Nicaragua, in Venezuela, in Georgia, who needs to fundraise internationally in order to have an independent voice. If you take away a nonprofit's ability to fundraise internationally, you create a mechanism by which the state can shut down any independent voice. The relevance for Nashville, or Miami, or Virginia, or Madrid—for any democratic society—is that the next step is to say that only corporations and only our friends can fund the voices we want. In order to preserve the agency of individual voices, this set of laws must be clearly identified as a violation of fundamental freedoms.

[31:08] Beth Kerley

So the very basic principle of individual rights and individual agency, which is core to free speech and core to democracy. If anyone in the room has questions, do feel free to submit them.

While I look at those, let me ask you both: so far we've been looking at a bleak picture in terms of the global proliferation of these laws. What strategies do you see as particularly effective in empowering citizens to push back, and in empowering global coalitions and global solidarity to support that pushback?

[31:57] Eka Gigauri

It is important to work with citizens so that they understand what this fight is about. I remember the first time we heard about this law. There was a big meeting with international organizations and embassy representatives, and we sat discussing it. I felt they were not ready. This was not the first such law in the world; it was happening in many countries. But it looked as though they did not know what to do, how to react, or what their strategy should be.

And we said: this is our fight. We fight for our country. It does not matter what you do, whether you help us or not. Of course it matters if we stand together, but this is for our country and we will do it anyway. We will work with the people. We will hold huge demonstrations. We will not register as agents. And we did not. The majority of organizations simply did not register. We said we would not put that label on ourselves. We are patriots of our country; we have served it for many years. It is important to recognize that this is, first of all, the fight of these people, of this society, for their country.

The second thing is coordination with international organizations and other actors. Again, they were not ready. If you look at the international justice mechanisms, they are extremely ineffective, or take ages to react to problematic actions by a government. Some of these international mechanisms and conventions were created 40 years ago, and the world is different now. We need new mechanisms and new tactics and strategies worldwide.

[34:49] Félix Maradiaga

I will add three ideas. The first is transparency. Those of us who fight for free speech need to be extremely transparent, so that authoritarian regimes cannot question our transparency, and so that the general public understands. If you are a nonprofit or a newspaper, take transparency very seriously and share with the consumers of your information who pays for your investigative journalism, who pays for your research. That helps a lot.

The second is a direct connection with the general consumer of information on the issue of nationalism or patriotism. For years, in many parts of the world—and the Global South is part of this—there has been a certain arrogance among intellectuals: that you do not need to explain to the general public why you work with international institutions, why you work with universities in the United States or in Geneva. If you have that arrogance, you are an easy target for foreign agent laws, because the general public, even if they agree with your ideas, will say, "I don't want my elections manipulated by a foreign government." But when you explain that transparency, accountability, and human rights are not domestic issues but issues everyone should care about, that changes.

Finally, through the World Liberty Congress I have seen the importance of crowdfunding. Give people the opportunity—and there are now plenty of technological tools—to micro-fund the issues they care about. That requires rewiring the fundraising mentality of many think tanks and newspapers around the world. Instead of expecting a big check from USAID, you have to make a better effort to raise money through micro-grants, and let the people fund the ideas they want. It requires rethinking our strategy. We are in a new world.

I will also say that the weaponization of polarization is a big issue we should attend to. Building a big tent, and common ground around reasonable public policies, is another mechanism we should pursue, because these foreign agent laws try to weaponize the extremes. That is a very concerning trend.

[37:18] Beth Kerley

So for civil society you're recommending transparency about the reality of your operations; finding ways to engage and stay rooted in the grassroots of your countries; and rejecting stigmatizing labels with a clear and unified voice, because those labels simply are not true.

I'm going to try to synthesize a couple of the questions we've been getting, and ask you to project forward. These trends have been building momentum. A study from CIVICUS last year found that laws of this kind—laws with threatening implications for fundamental freedoms, including free speech—are present on every inhabited continent, and there are proposals in dozens more countries. Do you think these laws are going to keep gaining momentum, or will they hit a plateau at some point? And how would you evaluate the response of the democratic community so far? Are they starting to wake up, or is there still some sluggishness?

[38:21] Eka Gigauri

Looking at our experience: we are not only organizing and continuing our anti-corruption work; we are also trying to get reactions from international institutions, including international courts. We are involved in strategic litigation. And again, it takes years for the European Court of Human Rights to react. That is something we don't like. When we tried to work with the relevant institution on the non-proliferation of chemical weapons—because chemical agents were used against demonstrators—and when it came to the torture that took place in Georgia, we sometimes got a strange answer: that 300 people were tortured, not 10,000, and if it were 10,000 there would be more of a reaction. My answer is that you should react to 300 so that you do not have 10,000 in two years' time. This is something we do not understand, and it needs discussion at the international level among human rights lawyers. That is something to learn from our case.

[40:00] Beth Kerley

And we heard yesterday from Jacob about a pretty disturbing verdict coming out of the court with regard to Georgia. Félix, please.

Félix Maradiaga

I am an eternal optimist. I work with survivors of torture and political prisoners. I personally went through things that are very hard for me to speak about openly even today; I say this after surviving two assassination attempts and years in prison. But I will tell you something. The world is interconnected. There are parts of the world, even backsliding democracies, that still have a civil society, where people can still speak. In many parts of the world we would be arrested for this panel. And when the authoritarians of the world see backsliding democracies validating authoritarian tactics, that is very bad news for the world.

So my hope is in democracies that have their challenges—and the United States is one of them, a democratic country with problems, but a democracy. Democracies need to fight back. They need to stop this global democratic backsliding: 20 years of backsliding, and eight out of ten countries in the world are no longer full democracies. If we see wins in such countries, it will send a signal to the Global South that it is possible to recover the voices of journalists and civil society movements. There are parts of the world where it is close to impossible: the Eritreas of the world, North Korea—and hopefully my own country, Nicaragua, is not among them. The rest of the world looks to the United States and looks to Europe, where you can fight back. If we see wins there, we might trigger a fourth wave of democratization.

[41:52] Beth Kerley

I always like a note of optimism. One last question before we wrap. Because you mentioned people looking to the United States, and because we talked earlier about how to tell when laws on foreign agents and foreign influence are heading in a troubling direction: would either of you say a quick word about the differences between the legal models in your countries and the legislation we see in the United States and other established democracies on these issues?

[42:26] Eka Gigauri

I think the concept is the same. Of course, different countries push for such legislation from different angles, but the main idea of these laws is that you have to [inaudible]. That is what I can say about it.

[42:52] Félix Maradiaga

I have a slightly different view. I have no problem at all disclosing information about my funding to a democratic state. I do have concerns about someone in Russia disclosing where they get their funding. You and I know many people working inside Russia in very difficult situations, protecting and defending Russian civil society, and those people need to be protected; their activities should not be disclosed to the Russian state. So you are right that there is at least a facade of similarity in the general principle. But the big difference is that a criminal state—and I am talking about Russia—wants access to this information in order to shut down voices. Many democratic states do have similar legislation for purposes of accountability, and it is important to say so, because this is a very typical smear campaign. A robust civil society must be very open to accountability; it is part of its nature. You should be very open about your funding. But in the context of what we address at the World Liberty Congress, this type of foreign agent law—as in Georgia, Zimbabwe, or Nicaragua—is a tool to shut down independent voices and to criminalize every independent activity in human rights, speech, and the organization of opposition movements.

[44:24] Beth Kerley

And I would just add that there are some very concrete legal differences, both around who must register—whether you are acting on behalf of a foreign principal or merely receiving any kind of foreign funding—and around the implications once you do. For those who want to know more, I highly recommend an essay that the organizer of this event, Jacob Mchangama, published with my organization, the International Forum for Democratic Studies at the National Endowment for Democracy, called "What Autocrats' Assault on Civil Society Means for Free Speech."

To close us out, in just 30 seconds: people are going to come away with a lot from this event, but if you wanted to leave them with one sentence, why are foreign agent laws in repressive settings a free speech issue? Starting with Eka.

[45:15] Eka Gigauri

My life would be easier if I were not active in criticizing the government. That is what they want to stop in Georgia with the foreign agents law. But you were the optimist, and I want to finish on an optimistic note too. I think everything will be okay. There are so many brave people around the world resisting such initiatives and such corrupt governments, really working with the people. And the people are on their side, in spite of all these smear campaigns. What does not kill us makes us stronger. They can adopt many laws, and sometimes I think: I don't care. I have to go there. I have to fight. I have to resist. And everything will be okay.

[46:34] Beth Kerley

Something to inspire us. Félix, close us out.

Félix Maradiaga

I will insist that this is a political strategy to establish the state as the only authorized voice. If that happens even in democracies, we are on a very bad journey, because in democracies independent voices and free speech are at the core of what a republic is. So I insist that it is not only in autocracies: when the state wants to criminalize independent voices by shutting down funding mechanisms, you are seeing a backsliding democracy. In autocratic regimes it goes even further, trying to criminalize all civil society activity.

I invite everybody to think of it this way. If the state can control your money, it can control your ideas as well, because money is a way to express your speech. When you write a check to a humanitarian organization or to your local church, you are expressing your values. Money is a way to express your political ideas too. So when the state wants to shut down your capacity to fundraise, nationally or internationally, it is attacking the fundamental value behind your ideas: freedom of speech, and your capacity to express yourself without interference from the state.

[48:01] Beth Kerley

Thank you so much, both of you, for being with us. Please join me in thanking these two fantastic voices for free speech.