"Don't Ask, Don't TELL" by Ed Newmann
A nexus of events culminated this summer in shocking reports, congressional hearing transcripts, and court rulings that have revealed just how far off the reservation the federal government really is relative to egregious, unlawful violations of hundreds of thousands of Americans' constitutionally protected First Amendment rights, especially Free Speech.
The House Committee on the Judiciary, and the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, investigated complaints issued from the Office of Inspectors General relative to abuses of process by the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), claiming it “has facilitated the censorship of Americans directly and through third-party intermediaries,” including the establishment of a Mis- Dis- and Mal-information (MDM) team for surveilling, detecting objectionable posts, and reporting them to social media platforms for removal, often along permanent removal of the offending accounts.
On June 20, 2023, the Committee and Subcommittee released an Interim Report on its findings to date relative to the varied and frequent unconstitutional activities engaged in by CISA, deliberately ignoring their oaths of office to uphold the Constitution, and directly violating the rights of Americans to speak and post freely thoughts and ideas, as well as hear and read freely the thoughts and ideas of others.
Below are important excerpts taken from the 37-page, June 20, 2023, Interim Report that every American should read for needed clarification of the government censorship issue, and to at least glimpse what we are not being told. Or at a minimum, read the report in support of the extraordinary value of constitutionally protected natural rights that accrue to us through our humanity, and not as privileges bestowed by government to be ignored when inconvenient. The link to this 37-page report is also included below.
This Interim Report illustrates the magnitude of hubris infecting federal agencies' managers, who believe they are the boss of all of us and not the other way around. The activities of CISA are almost entirely arbitrary and capricious, part of a larger agenda of information control as outlined in the UNAgenda30 blueprint for globalism, with the willing cooperation of the mainstream media apparatus, who are compelled with lucrative compensation lest it fades into obsolescence.
“The First Amendment to the United States Constitution rests on the principle that no person or institution, including the government, has a monopoly on the truth, and that viewpoint-based suppression of speech by the government is dangerous and may even spell the death of a constitutional republic. Under the First Amendment, the 'government has no power to restrict expression because of its message, its ideas, its subject matter, or its content.' As the Supreme Court has explained: 'If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion.”
“Labeling speech 'misinformation' does not strip it of First Amendment protection. That is so even if the speech is untrue, as 'some false statements are inevitable if there is to be an open and vigorous expression of views in public and private conversation.' In refusing to carve out a First Amendment exception for 'false' speech, the Framers of our Constitution recognized the significant danger in making the government the ultimate arbiter of truth. The First Amendment also protects the right to receive information, 'an inherent corollary of the rights to free speech and press that are explicitly guaranteed by the Constitution' because 'the right to receive ideas follows ineluctably from the sender’s First Amendment right to send them.' It is 'axiomatic,' in the words of the Supreme Court, that the government may not 'induce, encourage, or promote private persons to accomplish what it is constitutionally forbidden to accomplish.' Moreover, the First Amendment prohibits the government from 'abridging the freedom of speech'—not 'negating' or 'abrogating,' but merely 'abridging.' Thus, any law or administrative policy that impedes the ability of users to speak freely on privately owned social media platforms violates the First Amendment.”
The following steps taken by CISA demonstrate the breadth and scope of the purview its leadership claimed for themselves in their massive foreign and domestic fishing expedition for dis-, mis-, and malinformation to suppress, censor and de-platform users – users who more often had no idea their content was in any way problematic, because it wasn't as a matter of law.
CISA's quiet, under the radar expansion from that of a foreign surveillance mission to one that includes domestic surveillance and censorship, have incorporated numerous third party partners, both public and private, whose unconstitutional activities are better described as whole-of-government violations of whole-of-society rights.
“During its existence, the MDM Subcommittee issued two sets of formal recommendations: one set in June 2022, and another in September 2022. The Subcommittee’s June 2022 recommendations included, among other things, recommendations that 'CISA should approach the misinformation and disinformation] problem with the entire information ecosystem in view. This includes social media platforms of all sizes, mainstream media, cable news, hyper partisan media, talk radio, and other online resources.”
“The Center for Internet Security (CIS) is a nonprofit organization that operates the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center (MS-ISAC) and Elections Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center (EI-ISAC). According to a postmortem report covering social media activity related to the 2020 election cycle, 'the EI-ISAC served as a singular conduit for election officials to report false or misleading information to platforms.' Put plainly, election officials around the country sent CIS purportedly false or misleading content, which CIS forwarded to the relevant social media platforms.”
The mission creep of CISA eventually funneled all election intelligence into a single space for managing, censoring, whatever was needed to suppress difficult or unfavored information. Basically “CISA transformed itself into a domestic intelligence and speech police agency, far exceeding its statutory authority.” The internal hand-wringing over CISA's unconstitutional activities began slowly and accelerated as its focus on censoring dis- mis- and malinformation escalated.
“Although CISA’s efforts to police speech are highly troubling overall, one particularly problematic aspect is CISA’s focus on 'malinformation.' According to CISA’s own definition, 'malinformation' is based on fact, but used out of context to mislead, harm, or manipulate.' In other words, malinformation is factual information that is objectionable not because it is false or untruthful, but because it is provided without adequate 'context' – context as determined by the government.”
“In addition, what constitutes 'misinformation' or 'disinformation' is determined by government actors, whose evaluations of truth and falsity are necessarily subjective, and inherently political. CISA’s involvement in policing alleged mis- and disinformation, as well as malinformation – truthful information without “sufficient” context—is a direct and serious threat to First Amendment principles.”
The above critique of predictable mission creep and overreach by this government agency's largely covert agenda is almost as predictable as the sun rising in the East. Equally predictable is that it will only get worse if it is not corrected by reigning the agency in now. The number of Americans who still remember what it is to exercise natural rights unencumbered is shrinking, becoming excised from our collective DNA through Common Cored curriculums and apathetic civic sloth, not to mention inexcusable parental neglect in sharing/teaching our future generations of children pride of purpose, place, and country.
“CISA’s Director, Jen Easterly, claimed in her March 28, 2023, testimony before Congress that 'we don’t flag anything to social media organizations at all. We are focused on building resilience to foreign influence and disinformation.' Despite Easterly’s assurances, however, the DHS Office of Inspector General (OIG) has reported that CISA began 'notifying social media platforms or appropriate law enforcement official when voting-related disinformation appeared in social media” as early as 2018.”
“When deposed as part of ongoing litigation in federal court, Brian Scully, the head of CISA’s MDM team, confirmed that CISA has historically flagged disinformation to social media platforms, in a process known as 'switchboarding.' Scully further described switchboarding as a resource intensive' process whereby CISA officials received alleged misinformation reports from election officials and forwarded those reports to social media companies so that they could take enforcement measures against the reported content.”
“CISA has sought to disclaim any responsibility in affecting social media companies’ decisions on content moderation. In reporting content to social media platforms, CISA officials, including Scully, often appended a disclaimer to their e-mails, claiming, 'CISA affirms that it neither has nor seeks the ability to remove or edit what information is made available on social media platforms.' However, when deposed as part of ongoing federal litigation, Scully admitted that CISA was aware that its outreach to social media companies about alleged disinformation would trigger content moderation.”
Ya think?! The ease with which these public sector professionals obsfucate to authorities, peers, and among themselves is truly alarming, and a byproduct of unaccountable tenured employment? Current CISA Director Easterly is credited with the outrageous classification of human thought as “cognitive infrastructure” cited below, intending to corral it as part of the array of infrastructures to be secured under CISA's management. It's this kind of megalomania that makes us humans nervous. That particular absurdly authoritarian hooey trended on the very social media she polices, likely resulting in her still doing damage control.
“One could argue we’re in the business of critical infrastructure, and the most critical infrastructure is our cognitive infrastructure, so building that resilience to misinformation and disinformation, I think, is incredibly important.' – CISA Director Jen Easterly, November 10, 2021.”
Translation: We vhant to control your mind, vhat you think, vhat you say, and most of all, vhat you post!
Concurrently, persuasive evidence in the States of Missouri and Louisiana v. Joseph R. Biden lawsuit is affirming government censorship using third parties as revealed in the Interim Report. While the hair-splitting by different judges in various decisions is a mystery, mostly they agree on its unconstitutionality even before it has gone to trial. Links are below to the latest Memorandum Ruling in this case, and a recent Oral Argument by a scrambling government counselor is worth listening to for a better understanding of what is at stake and the rationale afoot.
“Challenges to government involvement in the suppression of speech on social media are all relatively recent. As such, courts have had little opportunity to address the matter. However, a federal court recently found that this type of conduct gave rise to a plausible First Amendment claim: 'Plaintiffs have clearly and plausibly alleged that [the government] engaged in viewpoint discrimination and prior restraints, the court declared, citing the plaintiffs’ allegations of extensive and highly effective efforts of government officials to silence or muffle the expression of disfavored viewpoints.' The court concluded that the plaintiffs had 'plausibly alleged state action under the theories of joint participation, entwinement, and the combining of factors such as subsidization, authorization, and encouragement.”
CISA's arguably highly partisan alliances with academia, NGOs and private companies, such as the Election Integrity Partnership comprised of the Stanford Internet Observatory and Program on Democracy and the Internet, the University of Washington Center for an Informed Public, the Atlantic Council Digital Forensic Research Lab, and the Graphika Company.
“Following increased public awareness of CISA’s role in government-induced censorship and the Committee’s issuance of subpoenas to Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, and Meta in February 2023, CISA scrubbed its website of references to domestic MDM. Prior to the cleansing, the domain “CISA.gov/mdm” was associated with a webpage titled “Mis, Dis, MisInformation.”
Hopefully CISA's apparent responsiveness to public pressure is a positive signal that its dialing lawlessness back before lawfare pounces using corrupt courts that disgrace the bench, the law, and justice itself, especially since we the people have all but lost one of the three powerful tools we have in our governance and American jurisprudence – the jury box (the powers of the vote and the purse are the other two). Something to think about.
In conclusion, the Interim Report has this to say:“In 2019, CISA’s Chief Counsel claimed: 'We are not law enforcement and we’re not the intelligence community.' In theory, the statement is accurate. CISA is not a law enforcement agency and is not authorized to act as an intelligence agency. But, in practice, that is how CISA has behaved, arrogating to itself the authority to conduct surveillance of Americans on social media. CISA expanded its unconstitutional practice by developing an elaborate social media censorship apparatus spanning multiple organizations, in order to facilitate the censorship of Americans’ political speech both directly and by proxy. There is no constitutionally viable legal authority that allows CISA to engage in this or any other kind of censorship. Thus, not only does CISA’s conduct violate the First Amendment, it also disregards the basic principle of the separation of powers, which prohibits agencies from acting outside of their congressionally delegated sphere.”
There is much more interesting reading in the pages of the Interim Report, with many more examples of CISA's breaches, copies of internal emails, and documents as exhibits within the report itself, and all are extensively cited and footnoted.
In addition, there are supporting links below of other similarly themed events that suggest the stars are aligning to finally mount a proper constitutional challenge against a rogue administrative state run amok, violating rights with impunity. And not a moment too soon with the newly established National Counterproliferation & Biosecurity Center, with former Surgeon General Scott Gottlieb under Trump (2017-2019) heading this spanky spook-ish biomedical intelligence center.
Dr Gottlieb was openly instrumental, during the Trump Administration, in bullying Twitter to remove posts of his highly credentialed peers who contradicted his narratives, even though most posts were patently true and settled science. This new biosecurity intelligence operation is the fox guarding the hen house after it has eaten all the hens. (https://rwmalonemd.substack.com/p/scott-gottliebs-role-in-creating.)
The Guide to the Greatest Hoax on Earth is intriguing essay with thought provoking context, relevant history, and a uniquely consumable synthesized analysis of “disinformation.” Well worth the read to widen our lenses and better see the field. Links below.
“Silencing those who disagree with us is a sign of weakness, not strength, and it won’t lead to progress.” former President Barack Obama (April 6, 2023)
Lastly, I will end this commentary with the Interim Report's final quote:“Silencing those who disagree with us is a sign of weakness, not strength, and it won’t lead to progress.” former President Barack Obama (April 6, 2023)
THE WEAPONIZATION OF CISA: HOW A “CYBERSECURITY” AGENCY COLLUDED WITH BIG TECH AND “DISINFORMATION” PARTNERS TO CENSOR AMERICANS by Committee of the Judiciary and Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government (June 26, 2023): https://judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/republicans-judiciary.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/cisa-staff-report6-26-23.pdf
House Bill 5181/Senate Bill 114, To Counter Foreign Disinformation and Propaganda Act, signed by President Barack Obama on December 26, 2016, as part of the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) legislation: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/BILLS-114hr5181ih/pdf/BILLS-114hr5181ih.pdf
Privacy Act of 1974: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/5/551 , https://epic.org/the-privacy-act-of-1974/
Memorandum Ruling on Motion to Stay written by Judge Terry A. Doughty in the STATE OF MISSOURI ET AL v JOSEPH R. BIDEN ET AL: https://www.uncoverdc.com/2023/07/11/missouri-v-biden-ruling-on-motion-to-stay-injunction/ ,
Oral Arguments of Missouri Suit Against Joe Biden Over Free Speech Held in Fifth Circuit Court (August 10, 2023):
A Guide to Understanding the Greatest Hoax of the Century by Jacob Siegel
Emma Jo Morris: My Reporting On Hunter's Laptop Exposed “Elaborate Censorship Conspiracy” Between Intelligence And Media by Tim Harris (July 20, 2023)
