The U.S. House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary and the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government released an interim staff report on June 26, 2023, alleging collusion between the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and tech giants to suppress free speech on social media platforms.
The report declares that CISA “expanded its mission to surveil Americans’ speech on social media, colluded with Big Tech and government-funded third parties to censor by proxy, and tried to hide its plainly unconstitutional activities from the public.”
According to the interim report, “The First Amendment recognizes that no person or entity has a monopoly on the truth, and that the ‘truth’ of today can quickly become the ‘misinformation’ of tomorrow.”
The document continues to state that neither “misinformation” nor “disinformation” labels can deprive speech of its First Amendment protection.
The report reveals an ongoing investigation into “government-induced censorship on social media,” accusing CISA of “facilitat[ing] the censorship of Americans directly and through third-party intermediaries.”
It claims that CISA, founded in 2018 as an agency to protect “critical infrastructure” and guard against cybersecurity threats, transformed into “the nerve center of the federal government’s domestic surveillance and censorship operations on social media.”
By 2020, CISA reportedly began monitoring social media posts, identifying those that allegedly spread “disinformation.”
By 2021, the agency had a formal “Mis-, Dis-, and Malinformation” (MDM) team, the report claims.
However, in response to criticism in 2022 and 2023, the agency attempted to conceal its activities, claiming a purely “informational” role.
The interim staff report offers numerous points of concern, stating that CISA is “working with federal partners to mature a whole-of-government approach” to curbing alleged misinformation and disinformation.
It further alleges that CISA considered creating an anti-misinformation “rapid response team” capable of physically deploying across the U.S.
The report also claims that after being sued in federal court, CISA relocated its censorship operation to a CISA-funded non-profit, implicitly acknowledging its activities as unconstitutional.
This non-profit would act as CISA’s mouthpiece to “avoid the appearance of government propaganda,” the report suggests.
In response to this potential infringement of civil liberties, the report concludes: “The work, however, is not done. CISA still has not adequately complied with a subpoena for relevant documents, and much more fact-finding is necessary.”
The Committee and Select Subcommittee have pledged to continue their investigation into CISA’s and other Executive Branch agencies’ entanglement with social media platforms.
Read the full interim report below:
