New FOIA docs: DHS claimed authority to regulate public discussions of COVID, "racial justice," Ukraine, and "irregular immigration"
ED MORRISSEY 11:21 AM on September 22, 2023
New FOIA docs: DHS claimed authority to regulate public discussions of COVID, "racial justice," Ukraine, and "irregular immigration"
Remember the defunct “Disinformation Governance Board” at the Department of Homeland Security? The overt Big Brother agency eventually crumbled under public scrutiny, but not before the mainstream media tried desperately to keep it alive. NPR and other outlets insisted that DHS only meant to fight “misinformation” and that the DGB and its appointed head Nina Jankowicz had themselves fallen victim to “misinformation” about their purposes.
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A new tranche of documents from a FOIA action by Americans for Prosperity Foundation sheds more light on DHS’ intent and actions. Jonathan Turley reports that the agency had granted itself very broad authority to regulate public comment, and not just on the COVID-19 pandemic. They claimed the power to regulate speech on just about every front, especially on topics that generated massive criticism of the Biden administration:
New documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests show that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) argued that the agency could regulate speech related to “the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic and the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines, racial justice, U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the nature of U.S. support to Ukraine” as well as “irregular immigration.”
Those subjects stretch across much of the “space” used for political speech in the last few years.
That’s clearly no accident. The inclusion of Afghanistan on this list, which has been previously reported, is the clearest indicator that the DGB’s true purpose was to quash dissent and criticism of the Biden administration. The board itself didn’t get launched until after Biden’s disgraceful bug-out from Kabul, abandoning 14,000 Americans by the State Department’s account to Congress. What possible ’emergency’ situation would have justified regulating debate on that point almost a year later?
The only ’emergency’ was Biden himself, which was also the case on all the other topics listed. This claim of authority flew in the face of the First Amendment as well as any claim to fealty to a free society. Rather than deal with that, DHS claimed that “malinformation” was a threat to our “cognitive infrastructure” and therefore public debate needed government gatekeeping:
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Notably, within DHS, Jen Easterly, who heads the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, extended her agency’s mandate over critical infrastructure to include “our cognitive infrastructure.” The resulting censorship efforts included combating “malinformation” – described as information “based on fact, but used out of context to mislead, harm, or manipulate.”
Try to mull over the irony of a claim about protecting “cognitive infrastructure” by … Joe Biden. We don’t even have a functional cognitive infrastructure in the Oval Office. Shouldn’t that be a more significant national-security concern?
And now apply a claim about defending “cognitive infrastructure” to the topic of “racial justice” and the Orwellian term “irregular immigration.” It’s absolutely absurd. The DGB was created to impose the administration’s propaganda and to silence its critics, and the topic list makes that very clear.
Not only that, but DHS clearly understood that their effort would get perceived as a Big Brother effort. They are still redacting information in these releases in a very telling manner, Turley points out:
What is also troubling is the continued effort to conceal these censorship activities. Homeland redacted much of this information on a now defunct board under FOIA Exemption 7(E), which protects “techniques and procedures for law enforcement investigations or prosecutions, or would disclose guidelines for law enforcement investigations.” That claim is itself chilling.
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Indeed, but also very telling. Citing law enforcement techniques and procedures makes clear that this was no public-rebuttal mechanism. DHS intended to use the DGB as a law-enforcement mechanism, turning debate and dissent into crimes to be prosecuted.
Meanwhile, the Protection Racket Media continues to assert that the criticism of the DGB and Jankowicz’ appointment was based on “misinformation.” What does that say about the credibility of our mainstream media, which apparently couldn’t be bothered to file a FOIA demand to get these documents themselves? They aren’t interested in reporting; they’re interested in pushing their own critics out of the public square. And they’re partnering with Big Brother to accomplish it.
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Originally Posted by Kathianne
