The latest Senate investigation has revealed how the Biden administration turned the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) into a government censorship tool. Created in 2018 to defend critical infrastructure, the agency quickly expanded its reach into policing online speech—targeting conservatives in particular.
On Oct. 7, 2020, a Twitter post urging conservatives to “vote in person” was flagged by Washington state officials as “potential misinformation.” Within 20 minutes, CISA forwarded the complaint to Twitter, and by the next morning, the post was gone. According to the Senate report, such “switchboarding” was routine during the 2020 election.
CISA officials defended their role in shaping online discourse. Former director Jen Easterly declared in 2021 that “the most critical infrastructure is our cognitive infrastructure,” adding, “building that resilience to misinformation and disinformation, I think, is incredibly important.”
The report—titled The Mechanics of Government Censorship—shows how CISA blurred the line between national security and political messaging. It describes how the agency outsourced censorship operations to nonprofits to avoid legal scrutiny and even flagged factual content as “malinformation” if it challenged official narratives.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) blasted the revelations: “Our report shows that the Biden administration used CISA to strong arm social media companies into taking action against speech protected by the First Amendment.” He warned that such tactics will “inevitably… be disproportionately used to silence conservatives.”
The findings arrive as Congress weighs new regulations on artificial intelligence. The report concludes with a stark reminder: “They should keep in mind the Biden administration’s transformation of CISA—which Congress created with widespread bipartisan support to protect national security—into an unaccountable censorship agency.”
