But the censorship industrial complex builds algorithms, not bombers.<\/strong>\u00a0The players aren\u2019t Raytheon and Boeing, but social media companies, tech startups, and universities and their institutes. The foes to be dominated are American citizens whose opinions diverge from government narratives on issues ranging from COVID-19 responses to electoral fraud to transgenderism.<\/p>\n When first exposed a few months ago,\u00a0many of the actors and their media defenders perversely claimed that they, as private entities, were acting out of concern for \u201cdemocracy\u201d and exercising their own First Amendment rights.<\/strong><\/p>\n However, the records and correspondence of an advisory committee to an obscure government agency tell a different story. The Functional Government Initiative (FGI) has obtained through a public records request documents of the Cybersecurity Advisory Committee of the U.S. Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). The committee was composed of academics and tech company officials working with government personnel in a much closer relationship than either they or the media want to admit. Several advisory committee members who appear throughout the documents as quasi-federal actors are among those loudly protesting that they were private actors when censoring lawful American speech (e.g., Kate Starbird, Vijaya Gadde, Alex Stamos).<\/p>\n But the advisory committee members met often and worked so closely with their government handlers that the federal liaison to the committee regularly offered members his personal cell phone and even reminded them to use the committee\u2019s Slack channel.\u00a0Your average concerned citizen doesn\u2019t have a Homeland Security bureaucrat on speed dial.<\/strong><\/p>\n What were they working on? CISA\u2019s \u201cMis-, Dis-, and Mal-information\u201d (MDM) subcommittee discussed Orwellian \u201csocial listening\u201d and \u201cmonitoring,\u201d\u00a0<\/strong>and considered the government\u2019s best censorship \u201csuccess metrics.\u201d Who was to be censored? CISA was formed in response to misinformation campaigns from foreign actors, but it evolved toward domestic \u201cthreats.\u201d Meeting notes record that Suzanne Spaulding of the Center for Strategic and International Studies said they shouldn\u2019t \u201csolely focus on addressing foreign threats \u2026 [but] to emphasize that domestic threats remain and while attribution is sometimes unclear, CISA should be sensitive to domestic distinctions, but cannot focus too heavily on such limitations.\u201d So CISA should combat \u201chigh-volume disinformation purveyors before the purveyor is attributed to a domestic or foreign threat\u201d and not worry so much about First Amendment niceties.<\/p>\n More telling is the group\u2019s attitude toward what it called \u201cmal-information\u201d \u2013 typically information that is true, but contrary to the preferred narratives of the censor. Dr. Starbird wrote in an email, \u201cUnfortunately current public discourse (in part a result of information operations) seems to accept malinformation as \u2018speech\u2019 and within democratic norms \u2026\u201d Therein lies a dilemma for the censors, as Starbird wrote: \u201cSo, do we bend into a pretzel to counter bad faith efforts to undermine CISA\u2019s mission? Or do we put down roots and own the ground that says this tactic is part of the suite of techniques used to undermine democracy?\u201d<\/p>\n It is chilling that there is no consideration of whether the information is true or of the public\u2019s right to know it.<\/strong>\u00a0\u201cDemocracy\u201d in this formulation is whatever maintains the government\u2019s narrative.<\/p>\n Accordingly, the group discussed recommendations for countering \u201cdangerously inaccurate health advice.\u201d It contemplated the roles of the FBI and Homeland Security in addressing \u201cdomestic threats,\u201d and a CISA staffer felt the need to remind the subcommittee \u201cof CISA’s limitations in countering politically charged narratives.\u201d<\/p>\n CISA couldn\u2019t censor all the people the advisors wanted.\u00a0<\/strong>And it could face the same outrage that greeted President Biden\u2019s Disinformation Governance Board, led by\u00a0singing censor<\/a>\u00a0Nina Jankowicz. Americans didn\u2019t want that body deciding what they could say, and Biden shut it down within three weeks. CISA\u2019s advisers were acutely aware their work could be conflated with that of the DGB, and even considered changing the name of the MDM subcommittee. Dr. Starbird noted in an email that she\u2019d \u201cremoved \u2018monitoring\u2019 from just about every place where it appeared\u201d and made \u201cother defensive word changes\/deletions.\u201d Similarly, Twitter\u2019s Vijaya Gadde \u201ccautioned the group against pursuing any social listening recommendations\u201d for the time being.<\/p>\n The group also sought cover from outside and inside the government.\u00a0<\/strong>They spent an inordinate amount of time talking about \u201csocializing\u201d the committee and its work \u2013 something DGB apparently hadn\u2019t done. And like a partisan campaign, they looked for natural allies. Meeting notes record that they sought to \u201cidentify a point of contact from a progressive civil rights and civil liberties angle to recruit as a [subject matter expert].\u201d<\/p>\n A government committee that seeks partisan allies, obfuscates its purpose, and can\u2019t even be honest about the nature of its members\u2019 participation is going to sort out online truth for Americans? Welcome to the Censorship Industrial Complex.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/s3\/files\/inline-images\/565838.jpg?itok=BIuQD1xZ\")
<\/picture><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n