Biden Administration and DHS Persist in Impeding Censorship Investigation

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Judicial Watch, an accountability group for the government, filed a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security in the ongoing struggle of the Biden Administration to claim transparency, while not being transparent in the slightest. They claimed that the Department of Homeland Security failed to disclose documents related to communications they had with social media platforms or the censoring of information.

Judicial Watch initially requested FOIA documents to reveal any communications between the Cybersecurity & Information Security Agency (CISA), and Big Tech. This included major social media platforms. Many of the FOIA requests also covered frequent meetings between Homeland Security and the FBI. This was revealed in a series of tweets from several journalists called the “Twitter Files”. In December, Elvis Chan, an FBI Agent, testified to several Attorneys General about weekly meetings between the agencies and the tech giants.

Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton released a statement Wednesday stating that there is an “unholy conspiracy” in the Biden administration to suppress American citizens in collaboration with Big Tech. The new Judicial Watch lawsuit demonstrates that censorship abuses are furthered through unlawful secrecy, cover-ups, and other means.

Judicial Watch and Fitton are not the first to work with the Biden Department of Homeland Security. They also filed lawsuits to obtain records about a group called the Election Integrity Project, which collaborates with CISA to prevent information from being censored during the 2020 election.

Judicial Watch is continuing to press DHS to provide the requested documents. But it was the Twitter Files that revealed what many Americans suspected for a long time: there was definite suppression. As Twitter suppressed Hunter Biden’s laptop story, it seemed that the suppression of information was increasing before the 2020 election. It was also an effort to ban Donald Trump from the platform, along with information about the Jan. 6, 2021 riots at the U.S. Capitol. Twitter Files revealed that there was communication about actions, including requests or demands from the FBI and other intelligence agencies, to remove certain content from the platform.

Judicial Watch had previously filed preliminary injunctions against Jeff Landry, Louisiana State Attorney General, and Andrew Bailey, Missouri State Attorneys General to stop government-tech partnerships that were violating Americans’ First Amendment rights. Landry and Bailey’s lawsuits show why DHS and the Biden administration might be slowing down on document disclosure. They claim that Candidate Joe Biden said that Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO, should be subject to civil liability, and even criminal prosecution, for not censoring core political speech.” This was evident in the suit. According to the suit, several members of Dr. Anthony Fauci’s inner circle reached out to social media multiple times asking them to remove any content that was critical of Fauci.

DHS and CISA didn’t stop working. CISA and DHS continued to work together even during the 2022 midterm elections. A special CISA committee engaged the assistance of left-wing individuals and groups to fight “disinformation.” Judicial Watch has a lot of work ahead of it.