Tag: censorship

“Once You Start Censoring, You’re On Your Way To Dystopia And Totalitarianism”, RFK Jr. Wrecks House Committee

In a hearing marred by contentious interruptions and attempts by House Democrats to remove him as a witness, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., CHD chairman on leave from Children’s Health Defense (CHD) testified before a U.S. House hearing organized by Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government.

The subcommittee, operating within the House Judiciary Committee, said today’s hearing was intended to “examine the federal government’s role in censoring Americans,” “Big Tech’s collusion with out-of-control government agencies to silence speech” and the ongoing Missouri v. Biden lawsuit alleging government censorship.

Other witnesses who testified today included D. John Sauer, special assistant attorney general for Louisiana, an attorney for the plaintiffs in the Missouri v. Biden case, Breitbart journalist Emma-Jo Morris, who in 2020 first revealed the now-infamous “Hunter Biden laptop story,” and Maya Wiley, president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.

Government censorship and alleged First Amendment violations on the part of the federal government featured prominently in today’s hearing. “We need to be able to talk,” Kennedy told the committee. “And, the First Amendment was not written for easy speech. It was written for the speech that nobody likes you for.”

Keep reading

Dems Try And Fail To Censor RFK Jr. At Censorship Hearing

House Democrats tried and failed to censor Robert Kennedy Jr., a Democratic Party candidate for president, at a hearing on censorship.

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) moved to shift the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government hearing on Thursday to executive session “because Mr. Kennedy has repeatedly made despicable anti-Semitic and anti-Asian comments as recently as last week.”

The congresswoman cited a House rule against testimony that may tend to “defame, degrade, or incriminate” any person, which would allow the committee an aside to determine whether to allow the testimony at issue during the open hearing. In making her case, Wasserman Schultz cited, “among many other things,” comments Kennedy recently made about COVID-19, which the candidate says has been misconstrued.

“COVID-19, there is an argument that it is ethnically targeted. COVID-19 attacks certain races disproportionately,” Kennedy claimed, according to The New York Post. “COVID-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.”

Keep reading

Lawmakers Slip Censorship Provisions Into Pentagon Spending Bill

The biennial Pentagon budget reauthorization usually presents ample opportunities for wasteful spending, as lawmakers slip provisions into routine legislation that compels the government to purchase unnecessary and overpriced military equipment.

But this year, lawmakers have also quietly pushed changes to the National Defense Authorization Act that aim to silence military personnel and purge the internet of certain information.

One particularly alarming provision comes from Rep. Mike Turner, a Republican from Ohio, which prohibits the Department of Defense from engaging with the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), a civil rights group advocating for the separation of church and state.

MRFF represents service members of all religions and denominations, helping them report instances of inappropriate proselytizing and the presence of religious symbols in official military affairs. The organization has previously succeeded in having crusader imagery removed from a Marine squadron and a Bible taken down from display at the F.E. Warren Air Force Base near Cheyenne, Wyoming.

“It is unprecedented in American history that Congress has ever tried to basically extinguish or assassinate a civil rights organization,” said Mikey Weinstein, an attorney, and former Air Force officer who founded the group in 2005.

Under this provision, not only is Defense Department staff prohibited from communicating with MRFF or Weinstein, but the military is also barred from taking any action in response to “any claim, objection, or protest made by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation without the authority of the Secretary of Defense.”

In an interview, Weinstein raised concerns about the impact on a current case involving a Jewish cadet or midshipman at a major military academy, questioning where they would turn for assistance. He emphasized that filing a grievance or simply contacting MRFF by phone could potentially result in a court-martial.

Weinstein believes that Turner holds a grudge against MRFF ever since the organization petitioned for the removal of a Bible from Wright Patterson Air Force Base, which is located in Turner’s Ohio district. The amendment was added to the NDAA without any debate and received unanimous consent from the committee, indicating support from House Democrats as well.

The bill passed the House last Friday and now moves to the Senate, where lawmakers aim to exploit this must-pass legislation to advance another broad restriction on speech.

Senators Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat from Minnesota, and Ted Cruz, a Republican from Texas, are preparing to introduce an amendment to the NDAA that would grant lawmakers extraordinary powers to censor a wide range of information on the internet.

Keep reading

US ‘Disinformation Industry’ Lands in Court

What kind of a week was last week in the theater of war wherein battles rage over illegal censorship, illegal attacks on freedom of speech, illegal government infringements on our constitutional rights, and, amid it all, the complicity of our most powerful media in these illegalities?

For a brief while it looked as though it was a very fine week. On July 4, an excellent day for this, a district court in Louisiana ruled that the White House and a long list of other federal agencies are barred from all contacts with social media companies if the intent is to intimidate or otherwise coerce Twitter, Google, Facebook, and other such platforms into deleting, suppressing, or in any way obscuring content protected as free speech, to paraphrase a key passage in the ruling.

Wow. A federal judge brings to the surface, there on your morning page one, all the illegal interventions, years of them, in which the Biden regime and its Capitol Hill allies have indulged to quash dissent. What liberal authoritarians impudently dismissed as a kooky “conspiracy theory” on July 3 is in a judicial stroke written into the record as an ugly reality to be eliminated. What’s not to like?

Keep reading

FBI Colludes with Ukrainian Intel to Censor Americans under Biden Misinformation Campaign

In the most recently exposed Biden administration scheme to combat misinformation, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) colluded with a compromised Ukrainian intelligence agency to censor the speech of Americans. The federal agency responsible for protecting the nation against terrorists, violent street gangs and serial killers joined forces with the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), which is widely known to be infiltrated by Russian-aligned forces, to take down the authentic social media accounts of Americans. This includes a verified U.S. State Department profile and those belonging to American journalists. Interestingly, accounts targeted for removal by the SBU and FBI criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin and expressed pro-Ukrainian views.

Details of the illicit operation are outlined in a new congressional report made public this week by the House Judiciary Committee. The document also exposes how the FBI offered Facebook and Instagram legal cover to delete social media accounts singled out by the SBU. The two agencies routinely sent the popular social media platforms spreadsheets and other documents identifying thousands of profiles to eliminate. “Regardless of its intended purpose in endorsing the SBU’s requests, the FBI had no legal justification for facilitating the censorship of Americans’ protected speech on social media,” the report states. “In contrast to the Biden Administration’s stated support for Ukraine, the FBI, on behalf of the SBU, flagged Americans’ accounts and posts that were critical of Vladimir Putin and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.”

The report says that the FBI also delivered censorship orders from the SBU to Google and YouTube and reveals that a senior cybersecurity employee at Google said the company was “deluged with various requests” for content removal after Russia invaded Ukraine. The primary liaison between the FBI and Silicon Valley is Elvis Chan, a San Francisco-based assistant special agent in charge of the division’s cyber branch. The congressional probe highlights the FBI’s unconstitutional role in enabling the SBU’s censorship regime and raises grave concerns about the agency’s credibility and competence as the nation’s premier law enforcement organization. “Put simply, the FBI worked with and on behalf of a foreign intelligence agency—widely known to be compromised by Moscow at the time—and directly abetted efforts to censor Americans engaging in protected speech,” the report says. “As a result, the FBI agents’ actions had the potential to render substantial aid to the Kremlin’s war effort.”

Keep reading

Appeals Court PAUSES Ban on Biden Big Tech Censorship Collusion

The 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans has granted a reprieve to the Biden administration in a case concerning its interactions with social media firms over contentious online speech and “misinformation.”

The decision temporarily suspends a preliminary injunction that sought to ban censorship collusion with social media platforms in an order previously issued by US District Judge Terry Doughty.

We obtained a copy of the order for you here.

On July 4th, Judge Doughty passed an injunction that effectively barred various government departments and administration officials from advocating or inciting the suppression or removal of online content considered to be constitutionally protected free speech.

The lawsuit that led to the injunction had been lodged the previous year, alleging that the Biden administration had effectively suppressed free speech through potential regulatory threats and pressure on companies to purge what it classified as “misinformation.”

The dispute particularly centered around topics like COVID-19 vaccines and claims of election fraud.

The legal team representing the Biden administration swiftly sought a stay on the injunction, contending that it was both overly broad and vague.

They raised concerns over the potential implications of the order on the scope of discussions officials could have with social media firms and the content of public statements and that the injunction was preventing them from combating “misinformation.”

Despite these arguments, Judge Doughty declined to suspend his order. In his written denial, he stated that the administration was essentially seeking a stay so it could continue infringing on the First Amendment, a viewpoint the government vehemently disputes.

Keep reading

RFK Jr Blasts Media’s “Organized Conspiracy” To Suppress COVID Information And Stick To “Government Orthodoxy”

During a podcast appearance with Lex Fridman, Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. outlined how during the pandemic the media engaged in an “organised conspiracy” by acting as “propaganda organs for the government agencies,” and acting to censor “anybody who dissented.”

Kennedy again spoke at length of the “insurmountable and mountainous and overwhelming” evidence that the CIA was involved in the murder of his uncle and his father, prompting Fridman to ask “What is the mechanism by which the CIA influences the narrative?”

“Through the press,” Kennedy responded, adding “Directly through key members — there are certain press organs that have been linked to the agency, the people who run those organs, things like the Daily Beast and Rolling Stone… have deep relationships with the intelligence community. Salon, Daily Kos.”

He continued, “I actually think the entire field of journalism has really shamed itself in recent years. It has become, the principal newspapers in this country, and the television stations, and the legacy media, have abandoned their tradition… they believed that the function of journalists was to maintain this posture of fierce skepticism toward any aggregation of power, including government authority… their job was to speak truth to power and be guardians of the first amendment right to free expression.”

“But if you look at what happened during the pandemic, it was the inverse of that kind of journalism,” RFK Jr. further urged, adding “the major press organs in this country… were broadcasting propaganda, they became propaganda organs for the government agencies. They were actually censoring the speech of anybody who dissented, of the powerless.”

“In fact, it was an organized conspiracy. The name of it was the Trusted News Initiative,” Kennedy noted, adding “Some of the major press organizations in our country signed onto it. They agreed not to print stories or facts that departed from government orthodoxy.”

Keep reading

Federal Judge Rules Biden Admin Acted Like “Orwellian Ministry of Truth” Using Big Tech To Censor Americans

A federal judge ruled Tuesday that the Biden administration acted like an “Orwellian Ministry Of Truth” By working in conjunction with big tech platforms to censor opinions it didn’t like during the Covid pandemic.

US District Judge Terry Doughty of Louisiana noted that the administration most likely violated the First Amendment as Republican attorneys general from Missouri and Louisiana “produced evidence of a massive effort by Defendants, from the White House to federal agencies, to suppress speech based on its content.”

Not only was Covid related content suppressed, but also questions regarding the results of the 2020 election, the Hunter Biden laptop story, and several other topics.

Sen. Eric Schmitt, former AG of Missouri, headed up the prosecution, describing the Biden administration’s actions as a “federal censorship enterprise.”

Keep reading

French government could cut off social media during unrest, says Macron

Emmanuel Macron has said the French government should consider controlling and cutting off social media networks “when things get out of hand” in the country.

The president’s comments came as ministers blamed young people using platforms such as Snapchat and TikTok for organising and encouraging rioting and violence after the shooting last week of a teenager during a police traffic stop in a Paris suburb.

“We need to think about how young people use social networks … when things get out of hand, we may have to regulate them or cut them off.

“Above all, we shouldn’t do this in the heat of the moment and I’m pleased we didn’t have to,” Macron told a meeting of more than 200 mayors whose municipalities were hit by the violence.

“I think it’s a real debate that we need to have in the cold light of day,” Macron told the mayors in a video obtained by BFM television.

Critics said it would put France alongside authoritarian countries such as China, Russia, Iran and North Korea in considering such measures.

Olivier Faure, the leader of the Socialist party, tweeted: “The country of the rights of man and citizens cannot align itself with those great democracies of China, Russia and Iran.”

Olivier Marleix, from the centre-right Les Républicains, added: “Cut social media? Like China, Iran, North Korea? Even if it’s a provocation to distract attention, it’s in very bad taste.”

Keep reading

New Docs Reveal Fed’s Attempt to Control Your Thoughts, Speech, and Life

 Keeping up with the corruption of the Covid regime feels like drinking from a firehose. The volume of the fraud, the pace of new discoveries, and the breadth of the operations are overwhelming. This makes it imperative for groups like Brownstone Institute to digest the onslaught of information and communicate salient themes and dispositive facts, particularly given the dereliction of mainstream media.

On Monday, the House Judiciary Committee released a report on how the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) “colluded with Big Tech and ‘disinformation’ partners to censor Americans,” adding to the informational firehose we work to imbibe.

The 36-page report raises three familiar issues: first, government actors worked with third parties to overturn the First Amendment; second, censors prioritized political narratives over truthfulness; and third, an unaccountable bureaucracy hijacked American society.

Keep reading