America’s talk authorities are reassembling to once again affect our elections. At the same time the security state is creating potential pretexts for renewed censorship by issuing warnings of , cyberattacks  , that could “hinder public access to election information”, they are also reprising old claims of coming Russian election , interference , on behalf of , Donald Trump.
The little-noticed development comes in a report from the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General ( OIG ) on the DOJ’s efforts to” Coordinate Information Sharing About Foreign Malign Influence Threats to U. S. Elections” — a euphemism for the chief law enforcement agency’s prior censorship activities.
National surveillance and law enforcement used the risk of international misinformation and disinformation on social media to censor and control local information and opinions that were considered derogatory to our ruling regime during the 2020 election, as revealed in litigation, legislative oversight, and reporting.
An alphabet dish of organizations coerced, cajoled, and colluded instantly with social media companies to stifle all manner of false information regarding election results and dignity on a global scale.
The DOJ’s response to the company’s comments will likely have a significant impact on Americans ‘ statement, even though the OIG explicitly omitted the “FBI’s data sharing with social media companies with respect to domestic players” from its record.
In a DOJ letter, it is revealed that the law enforcement agency has today codified its procedures for reporting purported “foreign malicious influence” information to social media companies and is redouble its efforts in the lead up to the 2024 election.
Since February, the FBI has been putting forth fresh Standard Operating Procedures.
Under those procedures, the FBI is required to determine” specific, credible, and articulable facts that provide high trust for assessing that the data at problem relates to exercise due to a foreign government, international non-state actor, or their substitute engaged in an FMI]foreign malign influence ] operation”.
A disclaimer is also required by the Bureau, which states that it “does not request or expect” recipients to take any specific action based on shared information, something similar to what authorities typically include in censorship requests from 2020.
According to a related summary of the procedures posted on the FBI website, social media platforms must state explicitly that the FBI does not “investigate only based on First Amendment-protected activity.” ]Emphasis mine ]
The FBI will resume regular meetings with social media companies regarding threats of foreign malign influence, the memo further states that senior DOJ officials will be conducting outreach efforts to build relationships with social media companies in their jurisdictions in coordination with the FBI’s” Foreign Influence Task Force,” a crucial component of censorship activities in 2020, and that senior DOJ officials will be meeting with relevant stakeholders to discuss their information sharing strategy.
The Justice Department makes it clear that its frequent interactions with big tech companies are entirely passive, focusing solely on clear-cut foreign influence operations, and that they will vigorously defend our freedom of speech.
Yet it has n’t demonstrated that we can trust it.
Without a doubt, any information the national security apparatus” shared” with social media companies in 2020, which would have led to the censorship of Americans ‘ speech, will now be shared under the current plan.
None of the other methods the government used directly or through cutouts to halt social media censorship are likely to be impacted by the new procedures. What can be done to stop the feds from using cutouts exactly as they did before?
What kind of oversight exists to make sure that laws that apply to Americans and to speech are not being abused, and who abused their authority would be punished?
The FBI is a force of nature, and the American people ca n’t trust it to protect itself. The FBI trained social media platforms to believe the Hunter Biden laptop was a foreign disinformation operation and refused to back down when asked, even though the Bureau was aware that the laptop was authentic, leading to widespread censorship of one of the most important possible stories in the throes of an election.
The Biden-Harris administration has labelled up to 50 % of the nation as domestic terrorists, used the national security apparatus against its political rivals, and is likely feeling encouraged by the Supreme Court’s dereliction of duty in its decision to oppose the fed-led censorship regime as uncovered in Murthy v. Missouri.
It would be the epitome of folly to accept the threat of allegedly conducting foreign influence operations on social media to systematically censor and meddle in our elections.
In a recent hearing before the House Judiciary Committee, FBI Director Christopher Wray may have unintentionally disregarded the game.
Wray praised the Supreme Court for pointing out that there was no evidence that the FBI coerced platforms to remove disgruntled content there while Rep. Harriet Hageman, R-Wyo. was interrogated there.
Only the court did no such thing. The court decided on standing, not the case’s fundamental merits, in which case many justices appeared to be trying to ignore the overwhelming factual evidence, as the congresswoman corrected him.
Our country’s security apparatus appears to be acting fairly.
As of now, Justice Samuel Alito is looking awfully prescient. The associate justice criticized the court for” shirking ]” its duty by rejecting the “free speech issue that the case presents,” giving the case’s” campaign of coercion” as an “attractive model for future officials who want to control what the people say, hear, and think” in his dissent in Murthy, which was issued in late June.
” Officials who read today’s decision”, he continued” will get the message. If a coercive campaign is carried out with enough sophistication, it may get by. The court should n’t send that message.
It may have been loud and clear to the feds.
We wo n’t likely learn about it until after the damage has been done, if ever, until they again violate our free speech rights in the 2024 election.
Ben Weingarten is editor at large for RealClearInvestigations. He is a senior contributor to The Federalist, columnist at Newsweek, and a contributor to the New York Post and Epoch Times, among other publications. Subscribe to his newsletter at weingarten. substack .com, and follow him on Twitter: @bhweingarten.
