Tag: dhs

Biden’s ‘Disinfo’ Board Paused, ‘Scary Poppins’ Drafts Resignation

The Department of Homeland Security has ‘paused’ it’s newly created Disinformation Governance Board, after its head, Nina Jankowicz, was called out for being a Russiagate truther, and going full “libs of TikTok” with creepy Disney-themed songs in a fake British accent – lending to the nickname “Scary Poppins.”

According to the Washington Post, the 33-year-old Jankowicz “was thrust into the spotlight by the very forces she dedicated her career to combating,” and has been “subject to an unrelenting barrage of harassment and abuse.”

Yes, because the head of a brand new Orwellian department shouldn’t be questioned.

Now, just three weeks after its announcement, the Disinformation Governance Board is being “paused,” according to multiple employees at DHS, capping a back-and-forth week of decisions that changed during the course of reporting of this story. On Monday, DHS decided to shut down the board, according to multiple people with knowledge of the situation. By Tuesday morning, Jankowicz had drafted a resignation letter in response to the board’s dissolution. -WaPo

On Tuesday night, DHS officials had an urgent call with Jankowicz where they gave her the choice to stay the course, even if the work was put on hold.

According to the report, “working groups within DHS focusing on ‘mis-, dis- and mal-information have been suspended.”

WaPo points to early tweets by journalist Jack Posobiec for launching what became an avalanche of attacks on the “Ministry of Truth.”

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Biden Disinformation Czar Demands Power to Edit Other People’s Tweets

In a newly released video clip, Biden disinformation czar Nina Jankowicz demands that “trustworthy verified people” like her be given the power to edit other people’s tweets, making Twitter more like Wikipedia.

Yes, really.

Asserting that she was “eligible for it because I’m verified,” Jankowicz then bemoaned the fact there are people on Twitter with different opinions to her who also have the blue tick but “shouldn’t be verified” because they’re “not trustworthy.”

“So verified people can essentially start to edit Twitter the same sort of way that Wikipedia is so they can add context to certain tweets,” said Jankowicz.

She then provided the example, which she claimed was non-political, of President Trump tweeting about voter fraud.

“Someone could add context from one of the 60 lawsuits that went through the court or something that an election official in one of the states said, perhaps your own Secretary of State and his news conferences, something like that,” said Jankowicz.

“Adding context so that people have a fuller picture rather than just an individual claim on a tweet,” she added.

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HOW THE “MINISTRY OF TRUTH” CAN CENSOR YOU WITHOUT (TECHNICALLY) CENSORING YOU​​​​​

When centralized authorities are responsible for sorting truth from lies, it creates a situation prone to abuse.

The Department of Homeland Security’s creation of a Disinformation Governance Board last week has a lot of people drawing comparisons to George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four.

On CNN, Dana Bash pressed DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to address concerns that the board will restrict freedom of speech. Mayorkas said that the board will not monitor Americans.

The board does not have any operational authority or capability. What it will do is gather together best practices in addressing the threat of disinformation from foreign state adversaries, from the cartels, and disseminate those best practices to the operators that have been executing in addressing this threat for years.

If anyone can translate that from bureaucrat-speak to explain what specifically DHS does to “[address] the threat of disinformation,” I would appreciate it. Almost all of the initial reporting on the DGB lacked any specifics of what concrete powers the group will exercise to “counter,” “combat,” and “crackdown on” so-called disinformation.

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Biden’s ‘Ministry Of Truth’ Tsar: Parents Concerned About Critical Race Theory Are “Disinformers”

The Biden administration’s new disinformation chief says that parents who are upset about critical race theory (CRT) making its way into public school classrooms are “disinformers” who “weaponize” the issue “for profit.”

[ZH: let’s not forget the US Attorney General’s son makes millions selling CRT materials]

Nina Jankowicz, who was appointed to lead the newly established Disinformation Governance Board at the Department of Homeland Security, dismissed the pushback against CRT indoctrination at an event in Ohio last October, when the debate over parents’ right to direct their children’s education had taken center stage in high-profile elections, including Virginia’s gubernatorial race.

“Critical race theory has become one of those hot-button issues that the Republicans and other disinformers, who are engaged in disinformation for profit, frankly, … have seized on,” she said in a video that has recently regained attention.

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DHS Coordinated with Chinese Drone Company to Create the First Totally Surveilled City in America

Inside San Diego’s metropolitan area, the second largest city, home to some 275,000 residents, has made the history books. Chula Vista hasn’t cured cancer or discovered perpetual energy; instead, their mark on history will be a dark one as they become the first city in America to be completely monitored by spy drones.

“On a per capita basis, they’re probably the most or one of the most surveilled cities in the country,” said Brian Hofer, executive director of the Oakland-based privacy advocacy group Secure Justice. “Pretty much the minute you walk outside your front door and move about your daily life, you’re going to be tagged and tracked by some law enforcement agency, even though you’ve likely never been suspected of any wrongdoing.”

Chula Vista’s drone program didn’t come to fruition overnight. Instead, the Department of Homeland Security and other government agencies coordinated with with Chinese drone manufacturers and unscrupulous actors in Big Tech and have implemented the program over the course of several years.

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Homeland Security’s “Disinformation Board” is Even More Pernicious Than it Seems

The most egregious and blatant official U.S. disinformation campaign in years took place three weeks before the 2020 presidential election. That was when dozens of former intelligence officials purported, in an open letter, to believe that authentic emails regarding Joe Biden’s activities in China and Ukraine, reported by The New York Post, were “Russian disinformation.” That quasi-official proclamation enabled liberal corporate media outlets to uncritically mock and then ignore those emails as Kremlin-created fakes, and it pressured Big Tech platforms such as Facebook and Twitter to censor the reporting at exactly the time Americans were preparing to decide who would be the next U.S. president.

The letter from these former intelligence officials was orchestrated by trained career liars — disinformation agents — such as former CIA Director John Brennan and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. Yet that letter was nonetheless crucial to discredit and ultimately suppress the New York Post‘s incriminating reporting on Biden. It provided a quasi-official imprimatur — something that could be depicted as an authoritative decree — that these authentic emails were, in fact, fraudulent.

After all, if all of these noble and heroic intelligence operatives who spent their lives studying Russian disinformation were insisting that the Biden emails had all of the “hallmarks” of Kremlin treachery, who possessed the credibility to dispute their expert assessment? This clip from the media leader in spreading this CIA pre-election lie — CNN — features their national security analyst James Clapper, and it illustrates how vital this pretense of officialdom was in their deceitful disinformation campaign.

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DHS Secretary Claims He Was ‘Not Aware’ of Disinformation Board Chair’s Troubling History of Pushing Leftist Falsehoods

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Wednesday said he was not aware that the woman picked to lead the department’s Disinformation Governance Board had publicly taken stands later proved utterly wrong.

Mayorkas announced last week that the board would be headed by Nina Jankowicz, who in 2020 suggested that reports about Hunter Biden’s infamous laptop were Russian disinformation. The laptop’s contents have since been authenticated.

During a Wednesday hearing, Republican Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana tried to learn what the Department of Homeland Security knew when it put Jankowicz in charge of the new disinformation board.

“I am in awe of Ms. Jankowicz. I have watched her with slack-jawed astonishment,” Kennedy said. “Who picked her?”

Mayorkas replied that “the Department of Homeland Security selected Ms. Jankowicz.”

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6 Dystopian Things Biden’s ‘Disinformation Board’ Pick Nina Jankowicz Has Done

Mere days after eccentric billionaire Elon Musk’s buyout of Twitter sent the political censors into a tizzy, the Biden administration debuted a “Disinformation Governance Board” to crack down on online speech the White House doesn’t like. The proposed agency, which would fall under the Department of Homeland Security, already merits the comparisons many have drawn to George Orwell’s “ministry of truth,” but Joe Biden’s appointment of Nina Jankowicz to be the board’s executive director makes the hackery even more obvious.

Here are six of the most dystopian things Jankowicz — whom DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas ridiculously called “absolutely” politically neutral — has ever said or done.

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Tulsi Gabbard Points Out What the US Now Has in Common with Dictatorships

Those on the right aren’t the only ones criticizing the Biden administration’s new Disinformation Governance Board. Former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard pointed out on Fox News’s “Hannity” that such an apparatus is a hallmark of dictatorships around the world.  

“This is the kind of thing that you see in dictatorships, this ministry of truth, this department of propaganda that the Biden administration has just stood up. And the reason why you see this in dictatorships is because they are afraid of us—they are afraid of the people,” she explained. “They are afraid that we might actually think for ourselves.”

The Hawaii Democrat said the DGB will carry out two functions. 

“No. 1, they will use taxpayer dollars to work through the mainstream media and flood the airwaves with whatever their propaganda narrative is that they are pushing at any given time and try to drown out anyone with alternate views,” she said. “And No. 2, they will silence dissenting voices through intimidation.”

The tactics are not new, Gabbard explained. 

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