There are numerous examples of how these attacks on free speech could be weaponized against organizations exercising their First Amendment rights. 

HR 9495: This bill would allow the Secretary of the Treasury to designate, entirely at his or her sole discretion, section 501(c) nonprofits as “terrorist supporting organizations” without requiring the Secretary to share their full evidence or reasoning with accused nonprofits. The Secretary of the Treasury could simply decide to launch these accusations against any organization that disagrees with a sitting Administration, whether it be organizations that provide humanitarian assistance in war zones or domestic groups that support abortion rights or restrictions on gun sales. 

The law would give accused groups only 90 days to prove their innocence, without necessarily providing an opportunity to directly rebut so-called “evidence” that the Secretary used to make the decision. Designation as a “terrorist supporting organization,” could cause it to lose access to banks, as well as the  trust of donors and the communities it serves. Once accused, the harm to these groups would be irreparable.

Without requiring the Secretary to share any justification for these accusations, examples of groups that could face these allegations include:

• Religious organizations that raise charitable contributions to send humanitarian aid to refugees in war zones.

• Organizations that sponsor journalists who document  conditions in regions controlled by groups designated as terrorist organizations.  

• Legal services organizations that provide pro bono immigration services to undocumented immigrants and asylum seekers. 

HR 8314: This bill protects the ability of foreign corporations to engage in electoral activities through their US subsidiaries, while explicitly banning tax exempt organizations from accepting contributions from foreign individuals, and would even create incentives for foreign actors to interfere in American politics.

Here’s one example of how those incentives for foreign actors to interfere in American politics could occur, as initially shared to hill offices via the AFL-CIO in September of 2024: 

A group of U.S. citizens, enraged by the effects of unfair trade practices by the Chinese Communist Party, forms a non-profit organization to fight for policies that tackle the problem. Their new organization raises funds to engage in lobbying and to even give to political action committees that support a fair trade agenda. These U.S. citizens solicit donations from like-minded members of the U.S. public via a website. If H.R. 8314 or a similar bill were to pass, organizations would no longer be able to segregate funds for non-political use and these U.S. citizens would insist upon donors clicking a box confirming they are not foreign nationals when they make an online donation to the organization. The Chinese Communist Party, hoping to subvert this organization’s political activity, could find a foreign national to donate to the organization. The foreign national could then send the organization $5.00 via an online credit card payment and even lie about their citizenship status. Once the organization had received the money from the foreign national, an agent for the Chinese Communist Party could notify the IRS of the organization’s receipt of the foreign national’s contribution, at which point the organization cannot contribute any of its money, all of which but $5.00 was donated by U.S. citizens for the purpose of fighting unfair trade practices by the Chinese Communist Party, to a political action committee for the next eight years without significant penalty.