In a little notice but critical development, the literal speech, police are reprising their efforts just in time for the 2024 election. That development comes in a report from the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General on DOJ efforts to coordinate information sharing about foreign and malign influence threats to US elections, as we’ve covered previously, in the run up to the 2020 election. The national security apparatus use foreign threats to elections to justify colluding with third party cutouts and big tech companies directly to silence derogatory stories to then Democrat candidate Joe Biden, and dissenting content regarding election integrity and outcomes. Now, according to the OIG report, the DOJ has codified its protocols for reporting purported foreign malign influence information with social media companies and is redoubling its efforts to do so in the run up to the 2024 election. In fact, the FBI has been implementing these standard operating procedures since February, before the relevant Supreme Court case, Murthy V. Missouri was even disposed of the OIG report details what those standard operating procedures look like, including requiring that the FBI identify quote, specific credible in articulable facts that provide high confidence for assessing that the information at issue relates to activity attributable to a foreign government, foreign non state actor, or their proxy engaged in an FMI foreign malign influence operation. Requiring the FBI include a disclaimer explaining it, quote, does not request or expect recipients to take any specific action based on shared information and detailing procedures for how to respond to follow up questions. The report also explains that the FBI will be resuming regular meetings with social media companies regarding foreign malign influence threats, engaging in outreach efforts in coordination with the FBI is foreign influence Task Force, a key cog in censorship activities in 2020, and that senior DOJ officials will also be making the rounds with relevant stakeholders to discuss their information sharing strategy, so called all of this passive information sharing and advisory work solely concerning legitimate foreign attributable influence operations will occur strictly in adherence with the First Amendment. The DOJ assures us but what evidence has it given us to trust the DOJ? The simple question that ought to be asked is whether and to what extent any of the information the national security apparatus shared with social media companies last time around there was ultimately censored would again be shared under the current plan? And whether to what extent the standard operating procedures would curtail and if the other tactics the government employed directly in via cutouts to shut down social media it didn’t like what is to prevent them from working with cutouts in the first place? What kind of enforcement or oversight is there? Why would we trust the FBI to police itself and FBI that groom social media companies to think that Hunter Biden laptop story was foreign disinformation, and refused to disabuse them of that notion, even when it knew was real, leading to the mass censorship of one of the most salient possible stories in the throes of an election. Remember, this is the national security apparatus that brought us Russia gate, a fraud, which sabotage the presidency on grounds of a purported foreign influence operation. Forgive me for lacking in any confidence in security state at the command of an administration that casts up to half the country’s domestic terrorist and feels emboldened, thanks to the courts dithering and Murthy V. Missouri, and Congress’s inability or unwillingness to curtail those activities won’t use the threat of purported foreign influence operations to quash the speech of Americans at disapproves of FBI director Christopher rea may have inadvertently given away the game and a recent hearing before the House Oversight Committee. They’re under questioning from rep. Harriet Hagerman, Director Ray praise the Supreme Court for finding and Murthy view Missouri that there was no evidence the FBI course platforms to take his favorite content down. But the congresswoman corrected him. The court, she argued ruled on standing not the underlying merits of a case in which the court seems intent on ignoring the overwhelming factual record on not ruling on the merits. The posture of our national security apparatus seems clear and to the extent the Feds abuse our rights once again, we likely won’t find out about it until after the damage has been done.
