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The video above options the November 30, 2023, Home Judiciary Committee listening to on the Weaponization of the Federal Authorities.1
Over the previous 12 months, the Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Authorities has launched a number of studies detailing how the federal government is a) harassing and intimidating residents to close down undesirable viewpoints, b) utilizing misinformation and propaganda to drive false narratives and c) censoring protected speech utilizing third events. Right here’s an inventory of these studies that you could peruse at your comfort.
“The Weaponization of the Federal Commerce Fee: An Company’s Overreach to Harass Elon Musk’s Twitter,” March 7, 2023
Interim Report on AG Garland’s Anti-Mum or dad Memo, March 21, 2021
“The Hunter Biden Assertion: How Senior Senior Intelligence Neighborhood Officers and the Biden Marketing campaign Labored to Mislead American Voters,” Might 10, 2023
“Report on FBI Whistleblower Testimony Highlights Authorities Abuse, Misallocation of Sources, and Retaliation,” Might 18, 2023
“The Weaponization of CISA: How a ‘Cybersecurity’ Company Colluded with Huge Tech and ‘Disinformation’ Companions to Censor Individuals,” June 26, 2023
“The FBI’s Collaboration with a Compromised Ukrainian Intelligence Company to Censor American Speech,” July 10, 2023
“Combating the Weaponization of the Inner Income Service (IRS): The Finish of Abusive Unannounced Subject Visits,” October 27, 2023
“The Weaponization of ‘Disinformation’ Pseudo-experts and Bureaucrats: How the Federal Authorities Partnered with Universities to Censor Individuals’ Free Speech,” November 6, 2023
Jira Ticket Knowledge, which show authorities was mass censoring vaccine data
“The FBI’s Breach of Non secular Freedom: The Weaponization of Legislation Enforcement Towards Catholic Individuals,” December 4, 2023
“The Justice Division’s Deviations from Customary Processes in its Investigation of Hunter Biden,” December 5, 2023
The Subcommittee additionally filed an amicus temporary on Missouri v. Biden in early August 2023.
Rep. Thomas Massie Censored
Authorities-funded organizations have been flagging official congressional accounts, together with mine, to get posts censored on social media. If the federal government will try and censor a member of Congress’s communications to his constituents, the federal government will censor anybody. pic.twitter.com/kvD3s9XlMv
— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) November 30, 2023
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Across the one-hour mark within the featured video, Rep. Thomas Massie questions Olivia Troye — a former intelligence official on the Division of Homeland Safety underneath President Obama and a nationwide safety and counterterrorism adviser to vp Mike Pence — in regards to the U.S. authorities’s use of third get together organizations to censor protected speech.
The related clip is included above. In her opening assertion, Troye accused the Committee of “indulging in fantasy indifferent from actuality.” “Members of this committee and their witnesses make grand and imprecise accusations about authorities censorship,” she stated. She additionally claimed the members have been “spreading conspiracy theories about authorities censorship.”
Massie went on to level to a tweet he posted Might 19, 2021, underneath his official congressional account, through which he had linked to a peer-reviewed examine that discovered the effectiveness of pure immunity was equivalent to that of the Pfizer COVID shot.
“Right here’s a complete examine that tracked reinfections and COVID problems for 187,549 folks with prior SARS-CoV2 an infection,” he wrote in his tweet. “Conclusion: Effectiveness of immunity on account of prior an infection is identical as for the Pfizer vaccine.”
This tweet was censored by Twitter after the Stanford Web Observatory’s Virality Challenge flagged it as “misinformation.” As detailed in earlier articles, the Virality Challenge is partnered with CISA and funded by the U.S. authorities to carry out censorship actions the federal government can’t legally carry out.
When requested if she thought there was a cause to flag Massey’s tweet, Troye answered, “Depends upon whether or not you’re spreading inaccurate data.” However who determines its “accuracy”?
It was a peer-reviewed, printed examine, which suggests a number of scientists who weren’t a part of the examine reviewed it. Is the Virality Challenge certified to evaluate the accuracy of printed analysis? It is a very harmful slippery slope. If we can’t share peer-reviewed science, which is the epitome of “respected supply,” then what, precisely, is suitable to share?
“Are you going to sit down right here and preserve that it’s a conspiracy idea that this occurred?” Massey requested Troye. “We now have the paperwork … that confirmed this [censorship] occurred.”
“Properly, then it [Massey’s tweet] will need to have been flagged for a cause,” Troye replied.
“What cause?” stated Massey. “Is there ever a superb cause to censor a member of Congress? … I convey this up, No. 1 to indicate that your testimony is fake. However No. 2, if they’ll do that to a member of Congress’ official account, they’ll do it to anyone.”
Whistleblower Reveals Navy Contractors’ Secret Plan for Censorship
Investigative journalist Michael Shellenberger testified at this assembly for the second time. 9 months in the past, he testified and shared proof with the Subcommittee in regards to the existence of a “Censorship Industrial Advanced, a community of presidency businesses, together with the Division of Homeland Safety, authorities contractors, and Huge Tech media platforms that conspired to censor abnormal Individuals and elected officers alike for holding disfavored views.”2
All of that was wild sufficient, however there’s extra. On the November 30 listening to, Shellenberger uncovered a gaggle known as the Cyber Menace Intelligence League (CTIL), which consists of navy contractors that aren’t solely censoring Individuals, but in addition utilizing subtle psychological operations in opposition to us.
In accordance with Shellenberger, the CTIL was based by a gaggle of former Israeli and British intelligence brokers who initially volunteered their cybersecurity companies FOR FREE to multi-billion-dollar hospital and well being care organizations within the U.S.
CTIL additionally presents bodily safety and “cognitive” safety, i.e., safety in opposition to misinformation, and these companies are volunteered by U.S. and British navy contractors. In accordance with a whistleblower who shared inner CTIL paperwork with Shellenberger, various CTIL “volunteers” are presently in authorities make use of.
The CTIL’s plan to regulate the data panorama contains utilizing debanking as monetary leverage, pressuring social media platforms to alter their phrases of service to facilitate censorship and deplatforming underneath the guise of ‘phrases of service violations,’ and extra.
In addition they used formal authorities letter head (FBI, CISA, U.S. Navy and so forth) when speaking with one another. As famous by Massey, that “makes it exhausting for folk to assert that these weren’t brokers of the federal government or appearing in coordination with the federal government …”
CTIL Information Present Censorship Plot Is Larger Than Imagined
Now, the CTIL’s plan to regulate the data panorama goes additional than these of CISA, the Virality Challenge and different government-led censorship actions. CTIL’s plan additionally contains utilizing debanking as monetary leverage to close folks up, and pressuring social media platforms to alter their phrases of service to facilitate censorship and deplatforming underneath the guise of “phrases of service violations” — and extra.
In a December 4, 2023, Substack article, Shellenberger’s colleague, Alex Gutentag wrote about this new cache of paperwork, known as the CTIL Information:3
“Throughout final Thursday’s [November 30, 2023] Congressional listening to on the Weaponization of the Federal Authorities, Democratic members of Congress insisted4 that censorship efforts of teams just like the Cyber Menace Intelligence League (CTIL),5 the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP),6 and the Virality Challenge (VP)7 have been benign and never a violation of the First Modification.
‘It isn’t the First Modification!’ stated Rep. Dan Goldman, ‘It is the [social media platforms’] Phrases of Service … And they’re flagging it for the social media corporations to make their very own selections. That isn’t the First Modification. That’s the Phrases of Service.’
However the CTIL Information, a trove of paperwork {that a} whistleblower offered to Public and Racket, reveal that US and UK navy contractors developed and used superior ways — together with demanding that social media platforms change their Phrases of Service — to form public opinion about Covid-19, and that getting content material eliminated was only one technique utilized by the Censorship Industrial Advanced.”
Adversarial Misinformation and Affect Techniques and Methods
As defined by Gutentag,8 the CTIL partnered with the Division of Homeland Safety’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Safety Company (CISA) to implement a framework known as “AMITT,” which stands for “Adversarial Misinformation and Affect Techniques and Methods.”
The predecessor to this program was the DISARM framework — described as an “open-source, community-led9 … grasp framework for preventing disinformation by means of sharing knowledge and evaluation, and coordinating efficient motion10” — created by the DISARM Basis in 2017.
In accordance with the DISARM Basis, AMITT was launched with the monetary help of the Craig Newmark Philanthropies in 2019.11,12 The AMITT framework contains a wide range of “offensive actions,” together with:13
Influencing authorities coverage
Discrediting various media
Utilizing bots and sock puppets to control and direct public dialogue
Pre-bunking
Counter-messaging
Extra particular AMITT methods embody however are usually not restricted to:
Creating coverage that forces social media to police mis- and disinformation
Creating “robust dialogue” between the federal authorities and personal sector to enhance reporting
Marginalizing and discrediting “extremists”
Naming and shaming “influencers” who share unsanctioned data
Simulating misinformation and disinformation campaigns, and responses to them, beforehand
Debanking offenders and chopping off their entry to monetary companies14
“Inoculating” populations in opposition to “misinformation” utilizing “media literacy coaching”
A Full-Fledged Navy-Led Affect Operation
Gutentag continues:15
“Removed from merely defending the general public from falsehoods, each authorities and non-profit actors inside Censorship Industrial Advanced have adopted CTIL’s actual playbook and have waged a full-fledged affect operation in opposition to Individuals.
This affect operation has deep ties to safety and intelligence businesses, as is evidenced by means of many examples of collaboration. In a single occasion of such collaboration, supposedly impartial “disinformation researchers” like Renée DiResta coordinated16 a 2020 election tabletop train with navy officers.
Protection and intelligence funding helps a lot of the Censorship Industrial Advanced. For example, Graphika, which was concerned in each EIP and VP, receives grants from the Division of Protection, DARPA, and the Navy.
Pentagon-affiliated entities are closely concerned in ‘anti-disinformation’ work. Mitre, a serious protection contractor, obtained funding to deal with ‘disinformation’ about elections and COVID.
The US authorities paid Mitre, a corporation staffed by former intelligence and navy personnel, to observe and report17 what Individuals stated in regards to the virus on-line, and to develop vaccine confidence messaging.18
This government-backed navy analysis group, Public found, was current within the EIP and VP misinformation reporting system, and in election disinformation report emails to CISA …
Why are businesses which are presupposed to fight overseas threats utilizing military-grade psychological instruments to wage affect operations in opposition to the home inhabitants?”
Anti-Democratic Ideology Is Driving the Censorship
As famous by Gutentag, these efforts look like partly pushed by the necessity to manufacture perceived threats to justify the existence of the counter-terror forms.” However there are additionally clear ideological elements at play. He writes:19
“Each [federal law enforcement and the intelligence community] now basically deal with Individuals as an enemy inhabitants, with huge help from the Democratic get together and the legacy media.
The outcome has been large-scale data warfare in opposition to US residents, with subtle ways being employed to develop propaganda narratives about Trump, COVID, and the 2020 election within the identify of combatting ‘disinformation.’ We are actually uncovering the clear proof that navy contractors seem to have been on the forefront of this effort …
What was as soon as thought of a ‘conspiracy idea’ that navy and intelligence forces have been manipulating public opinion by means of inorganic interventions, has now been confirmed.
Our examine of the Censorship Industrial Advanced has uncovered a far-reaching plan to subvert the democratic course of and have interaction in actions which have a foundation in navy methods and that are tantamount to makes an attempt at thought or thoughts management.”
The Plan to Get Censorship Again on Twitter
Right here is the pinnacle of the Stanford Web Observatory, Alex Stamos, taunting that Elon Musk “purchased himself right into a hellish existence” the week Musk acquired Twitter.He goes on, 14 occasions, to call Tesla as a vulnerability governments might exploit to power Musk to censor speech pic.twitter.com/f3WuJkWjfr
— Mike Benz (@MikeBenzCyber) December 4, 2023
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The quick clip above options Alex Stamos, head of the Stanford Web Observatory, which runs the federal government’s censorship equipment through its Virality Challenge.
In it, he’s taunting Elon Musk, saying he “purchased himself right into a hellish existence” by making moderating Twitter his private duty. In so doing, Musk is inserting his internet price, most of which is invested in Tesla, in addition to all different Tesla shareholders, “in jeopardy.”
The rationale? 4 phrases: The Digital Providers Act.20 This European Union regulation, which took impact August 25, 2023, requires on-line corporations to actively police their platforms for “unlawful” content material or face large fines — as much as 6% of their international income. Repeated refusal to adjust to guidelines or requests for motion can lead to suspension of the platform inside the EU altogether.
What Stamos seems to be insinuating is that by Musk insisting on conserving X a free speech platform, he dangers dropping all of it, and this type of monetary extortion leverage is exactly what the CTIL plan requires.
One other Surveillance Program Revealed
In associated information, Wired journal not too long ago reported21 on leaked paperwork that confirm the existence of a “secretive authorities program” that permits regulation enforcement to entry trillions of cellphone information of Individuals with no warrant.
In a current letter to the Division of Justice, U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden challenged the legality of this system, which has been up and operating for greater than a decade. In accordance with Wired:22
“… a surveillance program now often called Knowledge Analytical Providers (DAS) has for greater than a decade allowed federal, state, and native regulation enforcement businesses to mine the main points of Individuals’ calls, analyzing the cellphone information of numerous people who find themselves not suspected of any crime, together with victims.
Utilizing a method often called chain evaluation, this system targets not solely these in direct cellphone contact with a prison suspect however anybody with whom these people have been in touch as nicely.”
DAS began out as a program known as Hemisphere, run by the White Home in coordination with AT&T. It was renamed DAS in 2013. It captures cellphone calls made utilizing the AT&T infrastructure on behalf of U.S. regulation enforcement businesses, together with native police, sheriffs’ departments, U.S. customs and postal inspectors.
DAS is managed underneath an anti-drug trafficking program known as HIDTA, which stands for “high-intensity drug trafficking space,” however leaked recordsdata from the Northern California Regional Intelligence Heart (NCRIC) reveals the system can also be being utilized in circumstances which are unrelated to drug trafficking. In accordance with Wired, the DAS knowledge doesn’t embody recordings of conversations.
The information do, nonetheless, embody figuring out data such because the names of the caller and recipient, their cellphone numbers, dates and occasions of calls, spanning at the very least 10 years or extra into the previous. Collectively, these knowledge can be utilized to find out the precise areas of individuals, “a apply deemed unconstitutional with no warrant in 2018,” Wired notes.
In accordance with Wyden, “The size of the info obtainable to and routinely looked for the good thing about regulation enforcement underneath the Hemisphere Challenge is beautiful in its scope.” Furthermore, it’s not underneath congressional oversight, and since it’s run out of the White Home, it’s exempt from privateness impression evaluation guidelines and Freedom of Data Act (FOIA) requests.
Protections afforded by the Digital Communications Privateness Act are additionally circumvented as a result of AT&T’s name report assortment happens alongside a telecommunications “spine.”
In early November 2023, Wyden and different lawmakers within the Home and Senate launched the Authorities Surveillance Reform Act of 2023,23 which goals to patch the loopholes DAS is presently exploiting.
If handed, the DAS program would grow to be explicitly unlawful and would possible be compelled to close down. So, I encourage you to contact your representatives and ask them to help this laws.
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