Three US senators want federal funding to help Iranians bypass censorship and access VPNs. The same three senators have spent years supporting the surveillance systems that track Americans online.
We obtained a copy of their letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio for you here.
Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC), James Lankford (R-OK), and Jacky Rosen (D-NV) are backing funding for anti-censorship technology and virtual private networks abroad.
Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ), whose privacy record is largely clean, is also supporting the effort. The bipartisan coalition wants to help people circumvent government internet controls. Just not the American government’s internet controls.
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Graham’s voting record reads like a blueprint for the surveillance state he claims to oppose overseas. He voted for the Patriot Act in 2001 and has supported every major expansion since. When Section 702 of FISA came up for reauthorization, Graham backed it. When Congress considered making Section 702 permanent in 2017 with no sunset clauses and no congressional review, Graham backed that too.
His encryption stance is just as consistent. Graham co-sponsored the EARN IT Act in 2020, which would pressure platforms to weaken encryption to avoid liability.
He also backed the Lawful Access to Encrypted Data (LAED) Act, a bill that would require companies to build backdoors into their security systems. VPNs work because of encryption. Graham has spent years trying to break it.
He’s also pushed to repeal Section 230 protections and supported requiring government licenses for companies offering AI tools. When surveillance mechanisms he championed caught his own communications, Graham complained. Privacy for senators. Mass surveillance for everyone else.
Lankford introduced the Free Speech Fairness Act, which removed restrictions on political speech by religious and nonprofit organizations. That same senator has backed the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), which will likely require platforms to implement age verification and give regulators the power to pressure companies into removing content.
He called for Section 230 to be “ripped up” and backed a national strategy against antisemitism that includes government coordination on speech. When Edward Snowden revealed the scope of NSA surveillance, Lankford branded him a traitor for telling the public what their government was doing.
Most revealing: when the USA Freedom Reauthorization Act of 2020 came up for a vote, Lankford voted no. That bill would have amended the Patriot Act to require warrants before the government collects Americans’ internet browsing and search history. The senator pushing VPNs for Iranians voted against requiring warrants before surveilling Americans.
Rosen voted to confirm Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun as Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism, a position whose occupant has advocated for online censorship. She co-founded a Senate Bipartisan Task Force for Combating Antisemitism that pushes legislative responses to speech.
She also helped introduce the TAKE IT DOWN Act, targeting AI-generated and real non-consensual intimate imagery. Digital rights organizations have flagged the bill’s lack of safeguards. Without proper checks, its broad provisions could force platforms into aggressive content removal, the same kind of takedown infrastructure that authoritarian governments use against dissidents.
Privacy and anti-censorship tools work the same way everywhere. VPNs hide your traffic from surveillance. Encryption keeps your communications private. Anonymity tools prevent governments from identifying who you are and what you’re reading.
The senators backing these tools for Iranians have systematically attacked them for Americans. They’ve voted for bulk collection programs, pushed for encryption backdoors, and supported bills that would require platforms to verify user identities. The infrastructure they want to help Iranians bypass looks remarkably similar to the infrastructure they’re building at home.
The records are public. The same senators who believe Iranians deserve privacy protection from their government believe Americans deserve no such protection from theirs.
