My House subcommittee testimony on censorship laundering

Recently, I was invited to testify before the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Oversight Investigations and Accountability for a hearing entitled “Censorship Laundering: How the U.S. Department of Homeland Security enables the silencing of dissent. That hearing centered on the role of CISA, the cybersecurity and infrastructure security agency in censoring the speech of Americans, first on election integrity, then on COVID-19 and now seemingly on every contentious issue directly and by proxy. As I noted in my opening remarks to the testimony, indeed, CISA has served as a censorship conductor driving meetings between security agencies and social media companies to get the platforms to censor speech disfavored by the very government that regulates them. CISA has also served as a censorship switchboard relaying purported misinformation from the government and NGOs, including private Facebook messages to the platforms to squelch it. And CISA has served as an architect of the broader public private censorship regime, helping originate, consult and partner government-linked third parties to serve as First Amendment circumventing mass surveillance and mass censorship enterprises, outsourcing the efforts to skirt the law. These efforts have been integral to the broader war on wrongthink that I often return to here in my Straight Arrow News commentaries. 

In connection with that testimony, I developed a number of high-level points that I think are worth articulating when it comes to the insanity and the insidiousness of how our authorities have fomented a moral panic over mis-, dis- and mal-information to equate words critical of institutions with terrorist attacks on them, and to censor and even pursue the wrong thinkers accordingly, using our own money to silence ourselves. 

Here are some of those points. Point One. We’ve never voted for any of this. It’s unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats who have been serving as arbiters of truth, telling us unauthorized opinions are dangerous to the homeland and that we must be censored accordingly. What’s more dangerous: what Americans say or a government that determines what can and cannot be said, without our consent? 

Point Two. It’s manifestly the point of national security and law enforcement to protect us from threats, but authorities are supposed to deal in actions or attacks or plots to attack, not words. Outside of clear incitement to violence, speech policing doesn’t keep us safe. It just keeps those who do the policing safe from criticism, and it undermines the rights that collectively make us free. Americans should totally reject the idea that anything that an authority views as a threat to an institution, criticism, investigative reporting and opinion about a related policy should be neutralized by censorship, accordingly. 

Point Three. Even if I were to concede that there’s a nexus between disfavored perspectives of  public policy issues and those who threaten the homeland and perspectives not just on election integrity or COVID-19, but say, held by progressives in terms of anti-cop sentiment, or pro abortion sentiment, or radical environmentalist sentiment — still, I would argue the far graver threat would be the evisceration of the First Amendment, which would ultimately lead to the erosion of every other right. The Constitution isn’t a suicide pact. But it’s not a mere piece of parchment to be discarded on the whims of those in power either, particularly to quell their political foes. 

Point Four. When it comes to the use of powers like these that run up against core rights, one of the first questions for representatives and the public should always be, would you entrust your worst political foes with these powers? I think the answer here would clearly be no. Imagine for a moment a reverse scenario, where evil conservatives call for the banning of those who say voter ID laws are bigoted, or promoted the Steele Dossier or claims of Trump-Russia collusion, or who said that the COVID-19 vaccines will both stop you from getting COVID-19 and spreading it. Would anyone who took these positions want national security authorities censoring or directing them to be censored? 

Point Five. Historically, we would have held in total and utter contempt authorities who would suggest we’re incapable of thinking for ourselves and then for our own benefit since the authorities know best they will do the thinking for us, while silencing those who dare dissent. No Americans can stand for it today. We’re a free people capable of evaluating information and ideas for ourselves to separate fact from fiction and good ideas from bad. If we give up that freedom, we will become hapless subjects, not citizens. And America will neither be democratic nor safe. We will become like the very countries our authorities are supposed to be protecting us from.