Stop the Bad Bots: Lisa Hills leads Minnesota delegation at NMA fly-in in D.C.

Discussions focused on several issues affecting news publishers, including the bipartisan Stealth Bot Prohibition Act (H.R. 9915)

Emily Peterson (Star Tribune) Tara Brandl (Tracy Headlight Herald/MNA President) Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Anita Grace (National Association of Hispanic Publications), Steve Grove (Star Tribune) Jeff Patterson (Adams MultiMedia) and Lisa Hills (MNA/MNI) at the 2026 News Media Alliance Fly-In and America’s Newspapers Senior Leadership Conference.

Posted Sunday, October 11, 2026 3:23 pm

STOP THE BAD BOTS Sample Script for Phone Call or Email

You can use the language below as a script for a phone call to your member of Congress' office, or copy and paste into an email.

Hi, my name is [YOUR NAME] and I'm a constituent from [CITY/TOWN, ZIP]. I'm reaching out to ask Representative [LAST NAME] to co-sponsor H.R. 9915, the Stealth Bot Prohibition Act.

Right now, the internet is drowning in a flood of bad bots. There are now more bots than people on the internet, and most are "bad bots," many of whom come from China or other countries, that crowd out human users, drive up costs, and steal content.

The Stealth Bot Prohibition Act is a common-sense, bipartisan fix: it simply requires bad bots to honestly identify themselves and what they're doing, so that web hosts have the information they need to protect themselves.

I'm asking the Representative to co-sponsor this bill to keep the internet clean and protect quality content.

Thank you,

[YOUR NAME]

Minnesota Newspaper Association (MNA) Executive Director Lisa Hills, Emily Peterson (Star Tribune), MNA President Tara Brandl (Above The Fold Publishing, Tracy) Anita Grace (National Association of Hispanic Publications), Steve Grove (Star Tribune), and Jeff Patterson (Adams Multimedia) joined news media leaders from across the country in Washington, D.C., for the 2026 News Media Alliance Fly-In and America’s Newspapers Senior Leadership Conference.

During visits on Capitol Hill, the Minnesota delegation met with U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, as well as staff members from the offices of U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar (MN), U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin (WI), U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth (IL), and U.S. Sen. Gary Peters (MI).

Discussions focused on several issues affecting news publishers, including the bipartisan Stealth Bot Prohibition Act (H.R. 9915). The bipartisan Stealth Bot Prohibition Act would require certain AI bots that crawl websites to identify themselves and disclose their purpose.

The measure is intended to provide greater transparency around AI web crawlers and help publishers better protect their content. The delegation also discussed the importance of maintaining tariff exemptions for newsprint and printing plates, as well as ongoing challenges related to postal delivery.