Thank you, Madam Chair. Free speech and freedom of expression are essentially the same thing in the law. I am using free speech to mean freedom of expression.
We have freedom of expression because we are free people. Speech is free not only if it is beneficial, in the public good, serves democracy or helps discover truth in a marketplace of ideas. You also have a right to express your thoughts, whatever they are, for the sole reason that your thoughts are yours. If you are free, you are allowed to hate other people, and you are allowed to say you do. If you are free, you are allowed to vilify, detest, discredit, disrespect, discriminate, speak falsehoods and spread lies.
Now, of course, free speech is not absolute. What are the limits that we can impose upon speech and still call it free? Well, other people are free, too. That means you can't coerce them. You can't threaten them with imminent violence or counsel a crime. You can't defame. You can't harass. You can't defraud. You can't release private information you don't own. These limits make sense, because they protect the liberty of other people—the same liberty that provides you with the right to free speech in the first place. However, that's about as far as it goes, if you want to claim to have free speech.
Therefore, by all means, Madam Chair, protect free speech. Do it by getting the government out of the business of supervising speech.
Thank you.