{"id":1516598,"date":"2022-06-15T08:05:45","date_gmt":"2022-06-15T12:05:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1516598"},"modified":"2022-06-15T08:06:40","modified_gmt":"2022-06-15T12:06:40","slug":"nsbas-apology-for-letter-comparing-parents-to-terrorists-hasnt-stopped-the-fbi-from-targeting-free-speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/nsbas-apology-for-letter-comparing-parents-to-terrorists-hasnt-stopped-the-fbi-from-targeting-free-speech\/","title":{"rendered":"NSBA\u2019s Apology For Letter Comparing Parents to Terrorists Hasn\u2019t Stopped The FBI From Targeting Free Speech"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">32<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fnsbas-apology-for-letter-comparing-parents-to-terrorists-hasnt-stopped-the-fbi-from-targeting-free-speech%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1516598&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/7157502846_83e4916176_k.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<p>One day a mother was speaking at a local school board meeting. Shortly after she was answering a call from the FBI. Like dozens of other parents, she had been reported.<\/p>\n<p>Following the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/opa\/pr\/justice-department-addresses-violent-threats-against-school-officials-and-teachers\">announcement<\/a> of a Department of Justice memorandum addressing alleged threats against school personnel, individuals across the country have been reported to the FBI\u2019s National Threat Operations Center. Tiffany Justice, co-founder of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.momsforliberty.org\/about\/\">Moms for Liberty<\/a>, said she sees it as \u201ca real, sincere effort to chill speech.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Justice told The Federalist that an FBI agent called the mother, who belonged to Moms for Liberty, after she was reported from a school board meeting. Justice said the mother was \u201cquite upset\u201d when she spoke at the meeting because her children were adversely affected by quarantines and school closures, and she saw the effects on the other children also. Justice said the mother \u201cwas very concerned about the mental health of the children\u201d and \u201cwent to the school board to make them aware of the fact that the kids were not doing okay.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe was doing everything she could to sound the alarm,\u201d Justice said, \u201cand she was silenced.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The agent asked the mother a lot of questions, Justice said, including about her mental health, whether they had firearms in the home, and why she had spoken at the school board meeting. Justice said the mother was cleared by the FBI but told not to talk about about the conversation. According to Justice, the FBI agent said dozens of other parents had also been reported.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/ag\/page\/file\/1438986\/download\">memorandum<\/a> from Attorney General Merrick Garland effectively authorizing such FBI investigations of parents exercising their free speech followed a <a href=\"https:\/\/defendinged.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/Letter.pdf\">letter<\/a> from the National School Boards Association to the White House comparing \u201cacts of malice, violence, and threats against public school officials\u201d to \u201cdomestic terrorism and hate crimes\u201d and requesting possible federal intervention, including under the PATRIOT Act. Internal NSBA emails suggest the letter was crafted <a href=\"https:\/\/defendinged.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/Email-Correspondence_NSBA-Letter-to-President-Biden_Redacted.pdf\">based on input<\/a> from the White House <a href=\"https:\/\/defendinged.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Maldonado-emails-Oct-5-2021_Redacted.pdf\">in response to a request<\/a> from Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona.<\/p>\n<p>The NSBA eventually <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nsba.org\/-\/media\/letter-to-nsba-membership-oct-22-2021.pdf?la=en&#038;hash=F1B1348E2B4071132A992687120409BF0D72C3C7\">apologized<\/a> for its letter and <a href=\"https:\/\/nsba.org\/News\/2022\/independent-review\">announced<\/a> \u201csignificant steps already taken to address this matter.\u201d These steps, however, did not include condemning Garland\u2019s memorandum, asking for it to be rescinded, or taking responsibility for their role in its creation. The memo remains in place.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/republicans-judiciary.house.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/2022-05-11-JDJ-MJ-to-Garland-re-threat-tags_Redacted.pdf\">House<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.judiciary.senate.gov\/imo\/media\/doc\/judiciary_republicans_to_justice_dept.schoolboardmemo.pdf\">Senate<\/a> Judiciary Committee members said in letters to Garland that the FBI had created the \u201cthreat tag\u201d EDUOFFICIALS and applied it to investigations of alleged threats against school personnel in almost every region. One of the individuals tagged by the FBI, according to Rep. Jim Jordan\u2019s letter, was the mother who belonged to Moms for Liberty.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHopefully, the mom was cleared and this will never be an issue for her again,\u201d Justice said, \u201cbut for other parents across this country that have spoken at school board meetings, where do we go from here? How can we ever trust the government again?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Another investigation target, according to the letter, was a father who opposed mask mandates. According to the letter, the person who reported the father described him as someone who \u201cfit the profile of an insurrectionist,\u201d but when interviewed by an FBI agent \u201cadmitted they had \u2018no specific information or observations of . . . any crimes or threats.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The FBI opened an investigation into Republican state elected officials, according to the letter, after a state Democratic party official alleged that \u201cthe Republicans \u2018incited violence\u2019 by expressing public displeasure with school districts\u2019 vaccine mandates.\u201d<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\" \/>\n<p>\n  Olivia Hajicek is an intern at The Federalist and a junior at Hillsdale College studying history and journalism. She has covered campus and city news as a reporter for The Hillsdale Collegian. You can reach her at olivia.hajicek@gmail.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One day a mother was speaking at a local school board meeting. Shortly after she was answering a call from the FBI. Like dozens of other parents, she had been<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":836,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1516598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1516598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/836"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1516598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1516598\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1516598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1516598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1516598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}