The GOP must dismantle the CISA censorship regime


Is the government operating a censorship regime funded by American tax dollars? Some free speech advocates are concerned that the Cybersecurity Infrastructure and Security Agency (CISA) has overstepped and is infringing on the rights of U.S. citizens. The federal agency, a division of the Department of Homeland Security, shifted its focus after the 2016 presidential election to monitoring disinformation and misinformation on social media platforms. Various reports indicated CISA began monitoring sites such as Twitter and Facebook to combat misinformation about COVID-19 and the 2020 election.

Straight Arrow News contributor Ben Weingarten has stated before that the “Twitter Files” reports confirmed the worst fears conservatives had about efforts by the government and Big Tech to stifle free speech. He says the GOP must dismantle CISA and wonders why the House Appropriations Committee hasn’t done more to hold the agency accountable.

Maybe because it’s been exposed, one of the most integral agencies to this censorship regime has been covering its tracks. Yet a recent hearing of the House Appropriations Committee did not focus on the agency’s censorship efforts, save for the questions of one congressman. That matters because the Appropriations Committee has unique power to hold agencies acting badly to account through its unique power over the purse.

If Republicans are committed to combatting the ongoing assault against the core of our First Amendment — political speech — one that could worsen as the 2024 election approaches, they must avail themselves of it. They must defund, or threaten to defund the censorship regime to force its dismantling.

The agency in question is CISA, the Cybersecurity Infrastructure and Security Agency. As disaffected liberal journalists Michael Shellenberger and Matt Taibbi, and Republicans Missouri Senator and former AG Eric Schmitt, Louisiana AG Jeff Landry, and Special Assistant AG D. John Sauer, all detailed in recent hearings before the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, CISA is a key cog in the Disinformation Industrial Complex.

That complex, as we’ve discussed before, links the Deep State to Big Tech and myriad often government-funded and ex-government staffed “counter-disinformation” organizations. They’ve created a moral panic over “mis-, dis-, and mal-information” — MDM — which they’ve tied to threats to public health and safety, as a pretext to censor unauthorized opinions.

The plaintiffs in Missouri and Louisiana v. Biden, who testified recently before the Weaponization Subcommittee, allege that the Biden administration cajoled and colluded with social media platforms to “suppress disfavored speakers, viewpoints, and content… under the Orwellian guise of halting,” what else, mis-, dis-, and mal-information in violation of the First Amendment. The states call CISA the “nerve center” of federal censorship activities.

A recent filing details its pivotal role in the censorship regime since its establishment in 2018, synthesizing a mass of discovery material and depositions from key parties. It shows that CISA officials convene, coordinate, participate in meetings between national security and law enforcement agencies and social media platforms aimed at combating “misinformation” and “disinformation” — meetings that occur with increasing frequency in the run-up to elections.