Intelligence Agencies and Big Tech, II

It’s more pervasive than we think

Last week, my column illustrated the perverted path from our federal government to social media companies. This second column hopes to further illuminate the perfidious parkway for us all to see the caravans of federal officials instructing our media companies how to act, while decimating our First Amendment and our democracy.

I hope this work of revealing the all-too-cozy relationship between big tech and the government helps us to blow up the thoroughfare and rediscover our freedom. For the impact of our government’s collusion with big tech runs counter to what our founders wanted for us.

I should say that following my first column, I contacted representatives of Meta and Google. Not surprisingly, neither company responded. But that won’t stop my investigations.

Because of this insidious relationship, highly credentialed Americans have been wrongly disparaged. I hope to help restore their public image to reflect not only the veracity of their fact finding but the contours of their courage in the face of public derision and shaming. 

Beyond that, Americans have been trained by our government to vilify each other. I also hope to help repair that divide. I continue to tell the truth, so we as a nation can heal and reconcile with our friends and family.

Starting with actual emails from federal officials dictating social media companies’ practices may rouse even the most lethargic of readers from futility-induced apathy. 

Consider the following: “Wanted to flag the below tweet and am wondering if we can get moving on the process of having it removed ASAP,” wrote Clark Humphrey, then Digital Director for the COVID 19 Response Team in an email to Twitter on January 23, 2021. And, from the Center for Disease Control (CDC), Carol Crawford to Payton Iheme, Head of Global Public Policy for Bumble, “If you’ve already had #COVID19 and recovered, you should still get vaccinated against COVID-19.” Crawford’s statement runs counter to long-standing knowledge that natural immunity is superior to vaccination in general.

What follows are many instances when federal agencies explicitly ordered media companies to remove content. First person accounts come from three witnesses in the Select Subcommittee Hearing on the Weaponization of the Government, held on July 20, 2023. 

Emma Jo Morris (the original author of The New York Post’s “Smoking-gun email reveals how Hunter Biden introduced Ukrainian businessman to VP dad,” published on October 14, 2020) recounted during the hearing, “Ahead of my reporting, federal agencies were priming social media companies to execute an operation to discredit it.” The most poignant part of her testimony was, “What this relationship between US government officials and American corporations represents is an unprecedented push to undermine the First Amendment — the right to think, write, read, and say whatever we want — and how we respond will determine whether we see a free press as inalienable, or as optional.” Here is her whole testimony.

During the same hearing, Dr. John Sauer, Special Assistant Attorney General, Louisiana Department of Justice, highlighted his observations from U.S. Judge Doughty’s temporary injunction in Missouri et al v Biden et al, “federal officials cause censorship of disfavored viewpoints. In our modern day town square the scope and reach [of federal censorship] affects virtually any American who reads, listens, engages or posts on social media about hotly disputed social and political questions.”

Has recent public outcry in any way abated this suppression of information from the marketplace of ideas? It hasn’t, according to Dr. Sauer, “It is ongoing and shows no signs of stopping,” he said during the hearing. He continued, “federal officials are most eager to silence truthful speech, and to muzzle the most influential critics of the Administration and its policies.” Finally, he said, the “federal Censorship Enterprise has succeeded in transforming online discourse throughout America by rendering entire viewpoints virtually unspeakable on social media…”

Also during the hearing, presidential candidate, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., testified about the Trusted News Initiative (TNI), whose members remove what they deem to be misinformation. He said that such information, “frequently included wholly legitimate, accurate reporting, for example that COVID might have originated in a virology lab in Wuhan, or that the COVID vaccines did not prevent infection or transmission.” His whole testimony is compelling. “More information about TNI can be found here.”

Sadly, Judge Doughty’s injunction was subsequently stayed by an Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana in an unpublished order on July 14, 2023. 

And there’s more. The Section Chief of the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF), Laura Dehmlow, confirmed that the FBI purposefully misdirected Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Google and Youtube away from the genuine nature of Hunter Biden’s laptop in October of 2020, during her testimony to the Committee on the Judiciary on July 17, 2023. “Do you know who else knew that the laptop was real?” asked the committee member. “Brad Benavides [the then FITF Section Chief] was aware [the laptop was real],” Dehmlow responded. 

Critics have stated that each private news company has a right to determine its policies regarding content. Our federal government does not have the right to determine those policies, particularly with the explicit goal of influencing an election and holding onto power. 

I have stated that ad hominem attacks against others are the most abject form of communication in society. Yet, our educated politicians continue to engage in this embarrassing practice, which is a signal that they have no other real evidence to bring to the table. Call to mind the quote, “Small minds discuss people. Average minds discuss events. Great minds discuss ideas.” 

I expect more from my elected officials. The public and derisive snickers of critics is an attempt to hide everything I just exposed. Hats off to all of the people quoted today not only for dauntlessly facing the torrent of defamation aimed at them, but also for their determined fact-finding. 

I demand government officials to morally lead this great nation by respecting the Constitution and our Bill of Rights. I require them to make statements based on what is right for all of us. When that happens, families and friends can return to respecting each others’ opinions and speaking civilly to one another.