{"id":1718418,"date":"2022-10-31T12:27:06","date_gmt":"2022-10-31T16:27:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1718418"},"modified":"2022-10-31T12:34:18","modified_gmt":"2022-10-31T16:34:18","slug":"docs-reveal-facebook-and-twitter-collaborated-with-dhs-and-fbi-to-police-so-called-disinfo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/docs-reveal-facebook-and-twitter-collaborated-with-dhs-and-fbi-to-police-so-called-disinfo\/","title":{"rendered":"Docs Reveal Facebook and Twitter Collaborated With DHS and FBI to Police So-Called &#8220;Disinfo&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">28<\/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%2Fdocs-reveal-facebook-and-twitter-collaborated-with-dhs-and-fbi-to-police-so-called-disinfo%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=1718418&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 data-reactid=\"192\">\n<p><u><span data-shortcode-type=\"dropcap\" class=\"dropcap\">T<\/span>he Department of Homeland Security<\/u> is quietly broadening its efforts to curb speech it considers dangerous, an investigation by The Intercept has found. Years of internal DHS memos, emails, and documents \u2014 obtained via leaks and an ongoing lawsuit, as well as public\u00a0documents \u2014 illustrate an expansive effort by the agency to influence tech platforms.<\/p>\n<p>The work, much of which remains unknown to the American public, came into clearer view earlier this year when DHS announced a new \u201cDisinformation Governance Board\u201d: a panel designed to police misinformation (false information spread unintentionally), disinformation (false information spread intentionally), and malinformation (factual information shared, typically out of context, with harmful intent) that allegedly threatens U.S. interests. While the board was widely ridiculed, immediately scaled back, and then shut down within a few months, other initiatives are underway as DHS pivots to monitoring social media now that its original mandate \u2014 the war on terror \u2014 has been wound down.<\/p>\n<p>Behind closed doors, and through pressure on private platforms, the U.S. government has used its power to try to shape online discourse. According to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.documentcloud.org\/documents\/23175380-dhs-cybersecurity-disinformation-meeting-minutes\">meeting minutes<\/a> and other records appended to a lawsuit filed by Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, a Republican who is also running for Senate, discussions have ranged from the scale and scope of government intervention in online discourse to the mechanics of streamlining takedown requests for false or intentionally misleading information.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"KeyTakeaways KeyTakeaways--right\" data-reactid=\"193\">\n<div class=\"KeyTakeaways-title\" data-reactid=\"194\">Key Takeaways<\/div>\n<ul data-reactid=\"195\">\n<li data-reactid=\"196\">\n<div data-reactid=\"197\">Though DHS shuttered its controversial Disinformation Governance Board, a strategic document reveals the underlying work is ongoing.<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li data-reactid=\"198\">\n<div data-reactid=\"199\">DHS plans to target inaccurate information on \u201cthe origins of the COVID-19 pandemic and the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines, racial justice, U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the nature of U.S. support to Ukraine.\u201d<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li data-reactid=\"200\">\n<div data-reactid=\"201\">Facebook created a special portal for DHS and government partners to report disinformation directly.<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<div data-reactid=\"202\">\n<p>\u201cPlatforms have got to get comfortable with gov\u2019t. It\u2019s really interesting how hesitant they remain,\u201d Microsoft executive Matt Masterson, a former DHS official, texted Jen Easterly, a DHS director, in\u00a0February.<\/p>\n<p>In a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.documentcloud.org\/documents\/23129257-030122-cisameeting\">March meeting<\/a>, Laura Dehmlow, an FBI official, warned that the threat of subversive information on social media could undermine support for the U.S. government. Dehmlow, according to notes of the discussion attended by senior executives from Twitter and JPMorgan Chase, stressed that \u201cwe need a media infrastructure that is held accountable.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe do not coordinate with other entities when making content moderation decisions, and we independently evaluate content in line with the Twitter Rules,\u201d a spokesperson for Twitter wrote in a statement to The Intercept.<\/p>\n<p>There is also a formalized process for government officials to directly flag content on Facebook or Instagram and request that it be throttled or suppressed through a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.documentcloud.org\/documents\/23129270-fb-portal\">special Facebook portal<\/a> that requires a government or law enforcement email to use. At the time of writing, the \u201ccontent request system\u201d at facebook.com\/xtakedowns\/login is still live. DHS and Meta, the parent company of Facebook, did not respond to a request for comment. The FBI declined to comment.<\/p>\n<p><span data-shortcode-type=\"dropcap\" class=\"dropcap\">D<\/span>HS\u2019s mission to fight disinformation, stemming from concerns around Russian influence in the 2016 presidential election, began taking shape during the 2020 election and over efforts to shape discussions around vaccine policy during the coronavirus pandemic. Documents collected by The Intercept from a variety of sources, including current officials and publicly available reports, reveal the evolution of more active measures by DHS.<\/p>\n<p>According to a draft copy of DHS\u2019s Quadrennial Homeland Security Review, DHS\u2019s capstone report outlining the department\u2019s strategy and priorities in the coming years, the department plans to target \u201cinaccurate information\u201d on a wide range of topics, including \u201cthe origins of the COVID-19 pandemic and the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines, racial justice, U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the nature of U.S. support to Ukraine.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe challenge is particularly acute in marginalized communities,\u201d the report states, \u201cwhich are often the targets of false or misleading information, such as false information on voting procedures targeting people of color.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The inclusion of the 2021 U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan is particularly noteworthy, given that House Republicans, should they take the majority in the midterms, have vowed to investigate. \u201cThis makes Benghazi look like a much smaller issue,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2021\/08\/20\/politics\/house-republicans-afghanistan-biden-benghazi\/index.html\">said<\/a> Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., a member of the Armed Services Committee, adding that finding answers \u201cwill be a top priority.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>How disinformation is defined by the government has not been clearly articulated, and the inherently subjective nature of what constitutes disinformation provides a broad opening for DHS officials to make politically motivated determinations about what constitutes dangerous speech.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<blockquote class=\"Pullquote Pullquote--right\" data-reactid=\"203\"><p><span class=\"Pullquote-line\" data-reactid=\"204\"><\/span><\/p>\n<div data-reactid=\"205\">The inherently subjective nature of what constitutes disinformation provides a broad opening for DHS officials to make politically motivated determinations about what constitutes dangerous speech.<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<div data-reactid=\"206\">\n<p>DHS justifies these goals \u2014 which have expanded far beyond its original purview on foreign threats to encompass disinformation originating domestically \u2014 by claiming that terrorist threats can be \u201cexacerbated by misinformation and disinformation spread online.\u201d But the laudable goal of protecting Americans from danger\u00a0has often been used to conceal political maneuvering. In 2004, for instance, DHS officials faced pressure from the George W. Bush administration to heighten the national threat level for terrorism, in a bid to influence voters prior to the election, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2009\/08\/21\/us\/21ridge.html\">according<\/a> to former DHS Secretary Tom Ridge. U.S. officials have routinely lied about an array of issues, from the causes of its wars in Vietnam and <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2021\/10\/18\/colin-powell-dead-iraq\/\">Iraq<\/a> to their more recent obfuscation around the role of the National Institutes of Health in funding the Wuhan Institute of Virology\u2019s coronavirus research.<\/p>\n<p>That track record has not prevented the U.S. government from seeking to become arbiters of what constitutes false or dangerous information on inherently political topics.\u00a0Earlier this year, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a law known by supporters as the \u201cStop WOKE Act,\u201d which bans private employers from workplace trainings asserting an individual\u2019s moral character is privileged or oppressed based on his or her race, color, sex, or national origin. The law, critics charged, amounted to a broad suppression of speech deemed offensive. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, or FIRE, has since filed a lawsuit against DeSantis, alleging \u201cunconstitutional censorship.\u201d A federal judge temporarily blocked parts of the Stop WOKE Act, ruling that the law had violated workers\u2019 First Amendment rights.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFlorida\u2019s legislators may well find plaintiffs\u2019 speech \u2018repugnant.\u2019 But under our constitutional scheme, the \u2018remedy\u2019 for repugnant speech is more speech, not enforced silence,\u201d wrote Judge Mark Walker, in a colorful opinion castigating the law.<\/p>\n<p>The extent to which the DHS initiatives affect Americans\u2019 daily social feeds is unclear. During the 2020 election, the government flagged numerous posts as suspicious, many of which were then taken down, documents cited in the Missouri attorney general\u2019s\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.documentcloud.org\/documents\/23129287-second-amended-complaint-missouri-v-biden\">lawsuit<\/a> disclosed. And a 2021 report by the Election Integrity Partnership at Stanford University found that of nearly 4,800 flagged items, technology platforms took action on 35 percent \u2014 either removing, labeling, or soft-blocking speech, meaning the users were only able to view content after bypassing a warning screen. The <a href=\"https:\/\/stacks.stanford.edu\/file\/druid:tr171zs0069\/EIP-Final-Report.pdf\">research<\/a> was done \u201cin consultation with CISA,\u201d the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.<\/p>\n<p>Prior to the 2020 election, tech companies including Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Discord, Wikipedia, Microsoft, LinkedIn, and Verizon Media met on a monthly basis with the FBI, CISA, and other government representatives. According to NBC News, the meetings were part of an initiative, still ongoing, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/tech\/tech-news\/big-tech-met-gov-t-discuss-how-handle-election-results-n1236555\">between the private sector and government<\/a> to discuss how firms would handle misinformation during the election.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"img-wrap align-bleed xtra-large-bleed width-auto\" data-reactid=\"207\">\n<div data-reactid=\"208\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-412530\" src=\"https:\/\/theintercept.imgix.net\/wp-uploads\/sites\/1\/2022\/10\/GettyImages-1062423430.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&#038;q=90&#038;w=1024&#038;h=659\" alt=\"US Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen stands alongside US President Donald Trump as he speaks prior to signing the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Act in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, November 16, 2018. - The act creates the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). (Photo by SAUL LOEB \/ AFP)        (Photo credit should read SAUL LOEB\/AFP via Getty Images)\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption overlayed\">Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen stands alongside President Donald Trump as he speaks prior to signing the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Act in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 16, 2018.<\/p>\n<p class=\"caption source pullright\">\nPhoto: Saul Loeb\/AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div data-reactid=\"209\"><span data-shortcode-type=\"dropcap\" class=\"dropcap\">T<\/span>he stepped up counter-disinformation effort began in 2018 following high-profile <a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2021\/04\/16\/985439655\/a-worst-nightmare-cyberattack-the-untold-story-of-the-solarwinds-hack\">hacking incidents<\/a> of <a href=\"https:\/\/money.cnn.com\/2017\/12\/18\/technology\/biggest-cyberattacks-of-the-year\/index.html\">U.S. firms<\/a>, when Congress passed and President Donald Trump signed the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Act, forming a new wing of DHS devoted to protecting critical national infrastructure. An <a href=\"https:\/\/www.oig.dhs.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/assets\/2022-08\/OIG-22-58-Aug22.pdf\">August 2022 report<\/a> by the DHS Office of Inspector General sketches the rapidly accelerating move toward policing disinformation.<\/p>\n<p>From the outset, CISA boasted of an \u201cevolved mission\u201d to monitor social media discussions while \u201crouting disinformation concerns\u201d to private sector platforms.<\/p>\n<p>In 2018, then-DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen created the Countering Foreign Influence Task Force to respond to election disinformation. The task force, which included members of CISA as well as its Office of Intelligence and Analysis, generated \u201cthreat intelligence\u201d about the election and notified social media platforms and law enforcement. At the same time, DHS began notifying social media companies about voting-related disinformation appearing on social platforms.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"KeyTakeaways KeyTakeaways--right\" data-reactid=\"210\">\n<div class=\"KeyTakeaways-title\" data-reactid=\"211\">Key Takeaways, Cont&#8217;d.<\/div>\n<ul data-reactid=\"212\">\n<li data-reactid=\"213\">\n<div data-reactid=\"214\">The work is primarily done by CISA, a DHS sub-agency tasked with protecting critical national infrastructure.<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li data-reactid=\"215\">\n<div data-reactid=\"216\">DHS, the FBI, and several media entities are having biweekly meetings as recently as August.<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li data-reactid=\"217\">\n<div data-reactid=\"218\">DHS considered countering disinformation relating to content that undermines trust in financial systems and courts.<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li data-reactid=\"219\">\n<div data-reactid=\"220\">The FBI agent who primed social media platforms to take down the Hunter Biden laptop story continued to have a role in DHS policy discussions.<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<div data-reactid=\"221\">\n<p>In 2019, DHS created a separate entity called the Foreign Influence and Interference Branch to generate more detailed intelligence about disinformation, the inspector general <a href=\"https:\/\/www.oig.dhs.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/assets\/2022-08\/OIG-22-58-Aug22.pdf\">report shows<\/a>. That year, its staff grew to include 15 full- and part-time staff dedicated to disinformation analysis. In 2020, the disinformation focus expanded to include Covid-19, according to a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dhs.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/publications\/2020_10_06_homeland-threat-assessment.pdf\">Homeland Threat Assessment<\/a> issued by Acting Secretary Chad Wolf.<\/p>\n<p>This apparatus had a dry run during the 2020 election, when CISA began working with other members of the U.S. intelligence community. Office of Intelligence and Analysis personnel attended \u201cweekly teleconferences to coordinate Intelligence Community activities to counter election-related disinformation.\u201d According to the IG report, meetings have continued to take place every two weeks since the elections.<\/p>\n<p>Emails between DHS officials, Twitter, and the Center for Internet Security <a href=\"https:\/\/www.documentcloud.org\/documents\/23131810-cisa-emails\">outline the process<\/a> for such takedown requests during the period leading up to November 2020. Meeting notes show that the tech platforms would be <a href=\"https:\/\/www.documentcloud.org\/documents\/23132393-cis-meeting-notes\">called upon<\/a> to \u201cprocess reports and provide timely responses, to include the removal of reported misinformation from the platform where possible.\u201d In practice, this often meant state election officials sent examples of potential forms of disinformation to CISA, which would then forward them on to social media companies for a response.<\/p>\n<p>Under President Joe Biden, the shifting focus on disinformation has continued. In January 2021, CISA<a href=\"https:\/\/www.oig.dhs.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/assets\/2022-08\/OIG-22-58-Aug22.pdf\"> replaced<\/a> the Countering Foreign Influence Task force with the \u201cMisinformation, Disinformation and Malinformation\u201d team, which was created \u201cto promote more flexibility to focus on general MDM.\u201d By now, the scope of the effort had expanded beyond disinformation produced by foreign governments to include domestic versions. The MDM team, according to one CISA official quoted in the IG report, \u201ccounters all types of disinformation, to be responsive to current events.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Jen Easterly, Biden\u2019s appointed director of CISA, swiftly made it clear that she would continue to shift resources in the agency to combat the spread of dangerous forms of information on social media. \u201cOne could argue we\u2019re in the business of critical infrastructure, and the most critical infrastructure is our cognitive infrastructure, so building that resilience to misinformation and disinformation, I think, is incredibly important,\u201d said Easterly, speaking at a conference in November 2021.<\/p>\n<p>CISA\u2019s domain has gradually expanded to encompass more subjects it believes amount to critical infrastructure. Last year, The Intercept <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2021\/03\/17\/5g-white-supremacists-conspiracy-theorists-critical-infrastructure\/\">reported<\/a> on the existence of a series of DHS field intelligence reports warning of attacks on cell towers, which it has <a href=\"https:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/US\/feds-warn-attacks-related-bogus-covid-19-conspiracy\/story?id=70721145\">tied to<\/a> conspiracy theorists who believe 5G towers spread Covid-19. One intelligence report <a href=\"https:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/US\/feds-warn-attacks-related-bogus-covid-19-conspiracy\/story?id=70721145\">pointed out<\/a>\u00a0that these conspiracy theories \u201care inciting attacks against the communications infrastructure.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>CISA has<a href=\"https:\/\/www.oig.dhs.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/assets\/2022-08\/OIG-22-58-Aug22.pdf\"> defended<\/a> its burgeoning social media monitoring authorities, stating that \u201conce CISA notified a social media platform of disinformation, the social media platform could independently decide whether to remove or modify the post.\u201d But, as documents revealed by the Missouri lawsuit show, CISA\u2019s goal is to make platforms more responsive to their suggestions.<\/p>\n<p>In late February, Easterly\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.documentcloud.org\/documents\/23129350-texts\">texted<\/a> with Matthew Masterson, a representative at Microsoft who formerly worked at CISA, that she is \u201ctrying to get us in a place where Fed can work with platforms to better understand mis\/dis trends so relevant agencies can try to prebunk\/debunk as useful.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Meeting records of the CISA Cybersecurity Advisory Committee, the main subcommittee that handles disinformation policy at CISA, show a constant effort to expand the scope of the agency\u2019s tools to foil disinformation.<\/p>\n<p>In June, the same DHS advisory committee of CISA \u2014 which includes Twitter head of legal policy, trust, and safety Vijaya Gadde and University of Washington professor Kate Starbird\u00a0\u2014 drafted a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.documentcloud.org\/documents\/23131362-june-22-2022-draft-cisa-report\">report<\/a> to the CISA director calling for an expansive role for the agency in shaping the \u201cinformation ecosystem.\u201d The report called on the agency to closely monitor \u201csocial media platforms of all sizes, mainstream media, cable news, hyper partisan media, talk radio and other online resources.\u201d They argued that the agency needed to take steps to halt the \u201cspread of false and misleading information,\u201d with a focus on information that undermines \u201ckey democratic institutions, such as the courts, or by other sectors such as the financial system, or public health measures.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>To accomplish these broad goals, the report said, CISA should invest in external research to evaluate the \u201cefficacy of interventions,\u201d specifically with research looking at how alleged disinformation can be countered and how quickly messages spread. Geoff Hale, the director of the Election Security Initiative at CISA, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.documentcloud.org\/documents\/23175380-dhs-cybersecurity-disinformation-meeting-minutes\">recommended<\/a> the use of third-party information-sharing nonprofits as a \u201cclearing house for trust information to avoid the appearance of government propaganda.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Last Thursday, immediately following billionaire Elon Musk\u2019s completed acquisition of Twitter, Gadde was terminated from the company.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"img-wrap align-bleed xtra-large-bleed width-auto\" data-reactid=\"222\">\n<div data-reactid=\"223\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-412532\" src=\"https:\/\/theintercept.imgix.net\/wp-uploads\/sites\/1\/2022\/10\/GettyImages-1234639500.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&#038;q=90&#038;w=1024&#038;h=683\" alt=\"Alejandro Mayorkas, secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, speaks during a new conference in Brownsville, Texas, U.S., on Thursday, Aug. 12, 2021. Mexico Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard and a high level delegation of government officials advanced talks with U.S. officials on topics of migration, border security and economic development. Photographer: Veronica G. Cardenas\/Bloomberg via Getty Images\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption overlayed\">Alejandro Mayorkas, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, speaks during a new conference in Brownsville, Texas, on Aug. 12, 2021.<\/p>\n<p class=\"caption source pullright\">\nPhoto: Veronica G. Cardenas\/Bloomberg via Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div data-reactid=\"224\"><span data-shortcode-type=\"dropcap\" class=\"dropcap\">T<\/span>he Biden administration, however, did take a stab at making part of this infrastructure public in April 2022, with the announcement of the Disinformation Governance Board. The exact functions of the board, and how it would accomplish its goal of defining and combating MDM, were never made clear.<\/p>\n<p>The board faced immediate backlash across the political spectrum. \u201cWho among us thinks the government should add to its work list the job of determining what is true and what is disinformation? And who thinks the government is capable of telling the truth?\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/magazine\/2022\/04\/29\/dont-trust-the-government-00029103\">wrote<\/a> Politico media critic Jack Shafer. \u201cOur government produces lies and disinformation at industrial scale and always has. It overclassifies vital information to block its own citizens from becoming any the wiser. It pays thousands of press aides to play hide the salami with facts.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas alluded to broad scope of the agency\u2019s disinformation effort when he <a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/policy\/national-security\/3477628-mayorkas-clarifies-role-of-new-dhs-disinformation-board\/\">told<\/a> the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee that the role of the board \u2014 which by that point had been downgraded to a \u201cworking group\u201d \u2014 is to \u201cactually develop guidelines, standards, guardrails to ensure that the work that has been ongoing for nearly 10 years does not infringe on people\u2019s free speech rights, rights of privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was quite disconcerting, frankly,\u201d he added, \u201cthat the disinformation work that was well underway for many years across different independent administrations was not guided by guardrails.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>DHS eventually scrapped the Disinformation Governance Board in August. While free speech advocates cheered the dissolution of the board, other government efforts to root out disinformation have not only continued but expanded to encompass additional DHS sub-agencies like Customs and Border Protection, which \u201cdetermines whether information about the component spread through social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter is accurate.\u201d Other agencies such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Science and Technology Directorate (whose responsibilities include \u201cdetermining whether social media accounts were bots or humans and how the mayhem caused by bots affects behavior\u201d), and the Secret Service have also expanded their purview to include disinformation, according to the inspector general <a href=\"https:\/\/www.oig.dhs.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/assets\/2022-08\/OIG-22-58-Aug22.pdf\">report<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The draft copy of DHS\u2019s 2022 Quadrennial Homeland Security Review reviewed by The Intercept also confirms that DHS views the issue of tackling disinformation and misinformation as a growing portion of its core duties. While \u201ccounterterrorism remains the first and most important mission of the Department,\u201d it notes, the agency\u2019s \u201cwork on these missions is evolving and dynamic\u201d\u00a0and must now adapt to terror threats \u201cexacerbated by misinformation and disinformation spread online\u201d including by \u201cdomestic violent extremists.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>To accomplish this, the draft quadrennial review calls for DHS to \u201cleverage advanced data analytics technology and hire and train skilled specialists to better understand how threat actors use online platforms to introduce and spread toxic narratives intended to inspire or incite violence, as well as work with NGOs and other parts of civil society to build resilience to the impacts of false information.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The broad definition of \u201cthreat actors\u201d posing risks to vaguely defined critical infrastructure \u2014 an area as broad as trust in government, public health, elections, and financial markets \u2014 has concerned civil libertarians. \u201cNo matter your political allegiances, all of us have good reason to be concerned about government efforts to pressure private social media platforms into reaching the government\u2019s preferred decisions about what content we can see online,\u201d said Adam Goldstein, the vice president of research at FIRE.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAny governmental requests to social media platforms to review or remove certain content,\u201d he added, \u201cshould be made with extreme transparency.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"img-wrap align-bleed xtra-large-bleed width-auto\" data-reactid=\"225\">\n<div data-reactid=\"226\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-412533\" src=\"https:\/\/theintercept.imgix.net\/wp-uploads\/sites\/1\/2022\/10\/GettyImages-1243233593.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&#038;q=90&#038;w=1024&#038;h=683\" alt=\"A tweet about the FBI is displayed during a US Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing regarding social media&#039;s impact on homeland security on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on September 14, 2022. (Photo by Stefani Reynolds \/ AFP) (Photo by STEFANI REYNOLDS\/AFP via Getty Images)\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption overlayed\">A tweet about the FBI is displayed during a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing regarding social media\u2019s impact on homeland security on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 14, 2022.<\/p>\n<p class=\"caption source pullright\">\nPhoto: Stefani Reynolds\/AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div data-reactid=\"227\"><span data-shortcode-type=\"dropcap\" class=\"dropcap\">D<\/span>HS\u2019s expansion into misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation represents an important strategic retooling for the agency, which was founded in 2002 in response to the 9\/11 attacks as a bulwark to coordinate intelligence and security operations across the government. At the same time, the FBI deployed thousands of agents to focus on counterterrorism efforts, through building informant networks and intelligence operations designed to prevent similar attacks.<\/p>\n<p>But traditional forms of terrorism, posed by groups like Al Qaeda, evolved with the rise of social media, with groups like the Islamic State using platforms such as Facebook to recruit and radicalize new members. After initial reluctance, <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2021\/10\/12\/facebook-secret-blacklist-dangerous\/\">social media giants<\/a> worked closely with the FBI and DHS to help monitor and remove ISIS-affiliated accounts.<\/p>\n<p>FBI Director James Comey told the Senate Intelligence Committee that law enforcement agencies needed to rapidly \u201cadapt and confront the challenges\u201d posed by terror networks that had proven adept at tapping into social media. Intelligence agencies <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2016\/04\/14\/in-undisclosed-cia-investments-social-media-mining-looms-large\/\">backed new startups<\/a> designed to monitor the vast flow of information across social networks to better understand emerging narratives and risks.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Department has not been fully reauthorized since its inception over fifteen years ago,\u201d the Senate Homeland Security Committee <a href=\"https:\/\/www.govinfo.gov\/content\/pkg\/CRPT-115srpt351\/html\/CRPT-115srpt351.htm\">warned<\/a> in 2018. \u201cAs the threat landscape continues to evolve, the Department adjusted its organization and activities to address emerging threats and protect the U.S. homeland. This evolution of the Department\u2019s duties and organization, including the structure and operations of the DHS Headquarters, has never been codified in statute.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The subsequent military defeat of ISIS forces in Syria and Iraq, along with the withdrawal from Afghanistan, left the homeland security apparatus without a target. Meanwhile, a new threat entered the discourse. The allegation that Russian agents had seeded disinformation on Facebook that tipped the 2016 election toward Donald Trump resulted in the FBI forming the Foreign Influence Task Force, a team devoted to preventing foreign meddling in American elections.<\/p>\n<p>According to DHS meeting minutes from March, the FBI\u2019s Foreign Influence Task Force this year includes 80 individuals focused on curbing \u201csubversive data utilized to drive a wedge between the populace and the government.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Department will spearhead initiatives to raise awareness of disinformation campaigns targeting communities in the United States, providing citizens the tools necessary to identify and halt the spread of information operations intended to promote radicalization to violent extremism or mobilization to violence,\u201d DHS Acting Secretary Kevin McAleenan said in a September 2019 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dhs.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/publications\/19_0920_plcy_strategic-framework-countering-terrorism-targeted-violence.pdf\">strategic framework<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div data-reactid=\"229\">\n<p>DHS also began to broaden its watch to include a wide array of domestic actors viewed as potential sources of radicalization and upheaval. An FBI official interviewed by The Intercept described how, in the summer of 2020, amid the George Floyd protests, he was reassigned from his normal job of countering foreign intelligence services to monitoring American social media accounts. (The official, not authorized to speak publicly, described the reassignment on condition of anonymity.)<\/p>\n<p>And a June 2020 memo bearing the subject line \u201cActions to Address the Threat Posed by Domestic Terrorists and Other Domestic Extremists\u201d prepared by DHS headquarters for Wolf, Trump\u2019s acting DHS secretary, delineates plans to \u201cexpand information sharing with the tech sector\u201d in order to \u201cidentify disinformation campaigns used by DT [domestic terrorism] actors to incite violence against infrastructure, ethnic, racial or religious groups, or individuals.\u201d The memo outlines plans to work with private tech sector partners to share unclassified DHS intelligence on \u201cDT actors and their tactics\u201d so that platforms can \u201cmove effectively use their own tools to enforce user agreements\/terms of service and remove DT content.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Biden also prioritized such efforts. Last year, the Biden administration <a href=\"https:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/briefing-room\/statements-releases\/2021\/06\/15\/fact-sheet-national-strategy-for-countering-domestic-terrorism\/\">released<\/a> the first National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism. The strategy identified a \u201cbroader priority: enhancing faith in government and addressing the extreme polarization, fueled by a crisis of disinformation and misinformation often channeled through social media platforms, which can tear Americans apart and lead some to violence.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are working with like-minded governments, civil society, and the technology sector to address terrorist and violent extremist content online, including through innovative research collaborations,\u201d the strategy document continued, adding that the administration was \u201caddressing the crisis of disinformation and misinformation, often channeled through social and other media platforms, that can fuel extreme polarization and lead some individuals to violence.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Last year, a top FBI counterterrorism official came <a href=\"https:\/\/theweek.com\/speedreads\/970091\/fbi-counterterrorism-official-says-agency-doesnt-monitor-social-media-without-predication-baffling-experts\">under fire<\/a> when she falsely denied to Congress that the FBI monitors Americans\u2019 social media and had therefore missed threats leading up to the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. In fact, the FBI has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/politics\/2022\/04\/05\/fbi-is-spending-millions-social-media-tracking-software\/\">spent millions of dollars<\/a> on social media tracking software like <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2022\/05\/20\/chicago-police-fbi-social-media-surveillance-fake\/\">Babel X<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2020\/06\/24\/fbi-surveillance-social-media-cellphone-dataminr-venntel\/\">Dataminr<\/a>. According to the bureau\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.techdirt.com\/2021\/07\/07\/fbi-cites-guidelines-that-dont-actually-forbid-social-media-monitoring-as-reason-it-was-blindsided-january-6-attack\/\">official guidelines<\/a>, authorized activities include \u201cproactively surfing the Internet to find publicly accessible websites and services through which recruitment by terrorist organizations and promotion of terrorist crimes is openly taking place.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Another FBI official, a joint terrorism task force officer, described to The Intercept being reassigned this year from the bureau\u2019s international terrorism division, where they had primarily worked on cases involving Al Qaeda and the Islamic State group, to the domestic terrorism division to investigate Americans, including anti-government individuals such as racially motivated violent extremists, sovereign citizens, militias, and anarchists. They work on an undercover basis online to penetrate social networking chat rooms, online forums, and blogs to detect, enter, dismantle, and disrupt existing and emerging terrorist organizations via online forums, chat rooms, bulletin boards, blogs, websites, and social networking, said the FBI official, who did not have permission to speak on the record.<\/p>\n<p>The Privacy Act of 1974, enacted following the Watergate scandal, restricts government data collection of Americans exercising their First Amendment rights, a safeguard that civil liberty groups have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.computerworld.com\/article\/2501725\/privacy-tussle-brews-over-social-media-monitoring.html\">argued limits<\/a> the ability of DHS and the FBI to engage in surveillance of American political speech expressed on social media. The statute, however, maintains exemptions for information collected for the purposes of a criminal or law enforcement investigation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere are no specific legal constraints on the FBI\u2019s use of social media,\u201d Faiza Patel, senior director of the Brennan Center for Justice\u2019s liberty and national security program told The Intercept. \u201cThe attorney general guidelines permit agents to look at social media before there is any investigation at all. So it\u2019s kind of a Wild West out there.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The first FBI official, whom The Intercept interviewed in 2020 amid the George Floyd riots, lamented the drift toward warrantless monitoring of Americans saying, \u201cMan, I don\u2019t even know what\u2019s legal anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><span data-shortcode-type=\"dropcap\" class=\"dropcap\">I<\/span>n retrospect, the New York Post reporting on the contents of Hunter Biden\u2019s laptop ahead of the 2020 election provides an elucidating case study of how this works in an increasingly partisan environment.<\/p>\n<p>Much of the public ignored the reporting or assumed it was false, as over 50 former intelligence officials <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2020\/10\/19\/hunter-biden-story-russian-disinfo-430276\">charged<\/a>\u00a0that the laptop story was a creation of a \u201cRussian disinformation\u201d campaign. The mainstream media was primed by allegations of election interference\u00a0in 2016 \u2014 and, to be sure, Trump did attempt to use the laptop to\u00a0disrupt the Biden campaign. Twitter ended up banning links to the New York Post\u2019s report on the contents of the laptop during the crucial weeks leading up to the election. Facebook also throttled users\u2019 ability to view the story.<\/p>\n<p>In recent months, a clearer picture of the government\u2019s influence has emerged.<\/p>\n<p>In an appearance on Joe Rogan\u2019s podcast in August, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed that Facebook had limited sharing of the New York Post\u2019s reporting after a conversation with the FBI. \u201cThe background here is that the FBI came to us \u2014 some folks on our team \u2014 and was like, \u2018Hey, just so you know, you should be on high alert that there was a lot of Russian propaganda in the 2016 election,\u2019\u201d Zuckerberg told Rogan. The FBI told them, Zuckerberg said, that \u201c\u2018We have it on notice that basically there\u2019s about to be some kind of dump.\u2019\u201d When the Post\u2019s story came out in October 2020, Facebook thought it \u201cfit that pattern\u201d the FBI had told them to look out for.<\/p>\n<p>Zuckerberg said he regretted the decision, as did Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Twitter at the time. Despite claims that the laptop\u2019s contents were forged, the Washington Post <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/technology\/2022\/03\/30\/hunter-biden-laptop-data-examined\/\">confirmed<\/a> that at least some of the emails on the laptop were authentic. The New York Times <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2022\/03\/16\/us\/politics\/hunter-biden-tax-bill-investigation.html\">authenticated emails<\/a> from the laptop \u2014 many of which were cited in the original New York Post reporting from October 2020 \u2014 that prosecutors have examined as part of the Justice Department\u2019s probe into whether the president\u2019s son violated the law on a range of issues, including money laundering, tax-related offenses, and foreign lobbying registration.<\/p>\n<p>Documents <a href=\"https:\/\/www.documentcloud.org\/documents\/23129287-second-amended-complaint-missouri-v-biden#document\/p113\/a2160355\">filed<\/a> in federal court as part of a lawsuit by the attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana add a layer of new detail to Zuckerberg\u2019s anecdote, revealing that officials leading the push to expand the government\u2019s reach into disinformation also played a quiet role in shaping the decisions of social media giants around the New York Post story.<\/p>\n<p>According to records filed in federal court, two previously unnamed FBI agents \u2014 Elvis Chan, an FBI special agent in the San Francisco field office, and Dehmlow, the section chief of the FBI\u2019s Foreign Influence Task Force \u2014 were involved in high-level communications that allegedly \u201cled to Facebook\u2019s suppression\u201d of the Post\u2019s reporting.<\/p>\n<p>The Hunter Biden laptop story was only the most high-profile example of law enforcement agencies\u00a0pressuring technology firms. In many cases, the Facebook and Twitter accounts flagged by DHS or its partners as dangerous forms of disinformation or potential foreign influence were clearly parody accounts or accounts with virtually no followers or influence.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div data-reactid=\"240\">\n<p>In May, Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt took the lead in filing a lawsuit to combat what he views as sweeping efforts by the Biden administration to pressure social media companies to moderate certain forms of content appearing on their platforms.<\/p>\n<p>The suit alleges governmentwide efforts to censor certain stories, especially ones related to the pandemic. It also names multiple agencies across the government that have participated in efforts to monitor speech and \u201copen collusion\u201d between the administration and social media companies. It identifies, for example, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.buzzfeednews.com\/article\/nataliebettendorf\/fauci-emails-covid-response\">emails between<\/a> officials from the National Institutes of Health, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, and Zuckerberg at the beginning of the pandemic, and reveals ongoing discussions between senior Biden administration officials with Meta executives on developing content moderation policies on a range of issues, including issues related to elections and vaccines.<\/p>\n<p>Attorneys for the Biden administration have responded in court by claiming that the plaintiffs\u00a0lack standing and that social media firms pursued content moderation policies on their own volition, without any \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.documentcloud.org\/documents\/23187192-35-1\">coercive<\/a>\u201d influence from the government. On October 21, the judge presiding over the case granted the attorneys general permission to depose Fauci, CISA officials, and communication specialists from the White House.<\/p>\n<p>While the lawsuit has a definite partisan slant, pointing the finger at the Biden administration for allegedly seeking to control private speech, many of the subpoenas request information that spans into the Trump era and provides a window into the absurdity of the ongoing effort.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere is growing evidence that the legislative and executive branch officials are using social media companies to engage in censorship by surrogate,\u201d said Jonathan Turley, a professor of law at George Washington University, who has written about the lawsuit. \u201cIt is axiomatic that the government cannot do indirectly what it is prohibited from doing directly. If government officials are directing or facilitating such censorship, it raises serious First Amendment questions.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>During the 2020 election, the Department of Homeland Security, in an email to an official at Twitter, forwarded information about a potential threat to critical U.S. infrastructure, citing FBI warnings, in this case about an account that could imperil election system integrity.<\/p>\n<p>The Twitter user in question had 56 followers, along with a bio that read \u201cdm us your weed store locations (hoes be mad, but this is a parody account),\u201d under a banner image of Blucifer, the 32-foot-tall demonic horse sculpture featured at the entrance of the Denver International Airport.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are not sure if there\u2019s any action that can be taken, but we wanted to flag them for consideration,\u201d wrote a state official on the email thread, forwarding on other examples of accounts that could be confused with official government entities. The Twitter representative responded: \u201cWe will escalate. Thank you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Each email in the chain carried a Disclaimer that the agency \u201cneither has nor seeks the ability to remove or edit what information is made available on social media platforms.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That tagline, however, concerns free speech advocates, who note that the agency is attempting to make an end run around the First Amendment by exerting continual pressure on private sector social media firms. \u201cWhen the government suggests things, it\u2019s not too hard to pull off the velvet glove, and you get the mail fist,\u201d said Adam Candeub, a professor of law at Michigan State University. \u201cAnd I would consider such actions, especially when it\u2019s bureaucratized, as essentially state action and government collusion with the platforms.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf a foreign authoritarian government sent these messages,\u201d noted Nadine Strossen, the former president of the American Civil Liberties Union, \u201cthere is no doubt we would call it censorship.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Department of Homeland Security is quietly broadening its efforts to curb speech it considers dangerous, an investigation by The Intercept has found. Years of internal DHS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1718421,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[547],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1718418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-bongino-report"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1718418","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1718418"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1718418\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1718421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1718418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1718418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1718418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}