CISA, Big Tech, Others Conspire to Censor Americans

“Silencing those who disagree with us is a sign of weakness, not strength, and it won’t lead to progress.” 161

– former President Barack Obama, April 6, 2023.

In 2019, CISA’s Chief Counsel claimed: “We are not law enforcement and we’re not the intelligence community.” In theory, the statement is accurate. CISA is not a law enforcement agency and is not authorized to act as an intelligence agency.

But, in practice, that is how CISA has behaved, arrogating to itself the authority to conduct surveillance of Americans on social media. CISA expanded its unconstitutional practice by developing an elaborate social media censorship apparatus spanning multiple organizations, in order to facilitate the censorship of Americans’ political speech both directly and by proxy.

There is no constitutionally viable legal authority that allows CISA to engage in this or any other kind of censorship. Thus, not only does CISA’s conduct violate the First Amendment, it also disregards the basic principle of the separation of powers, which prohibits agencies from acting outside of their congressionally delegated sphere.

As Suzanne Spaulding, the former CIA legal advisor and MDM Subcommittee member, presaged, it was “only a matter of time before someone realizes we exist and starts asking about” CISA’s repeated violations of the First Amendment.

CISA’s attempts to cover up its surveillance and censorship operations will not rectify the damage inflicted on the American people by government-induced censorship. Neither CISA’s scrubbing of its website, nor the Biden Administration’s stalling of records requests can conceal the true nature of CISA’s work in “combating MDM.”

CISA must be reined in, as must the Biden Administration’s “whole-of-government” approach to social media censorship. Every American has the right to express his or her opinion online, and to receive information from others. Government classifications of opinions as “misinformation” or “disinformation” do not nullify the First Amendment’s guarantees.

A free and democratic society is impossible under a government that acts as the ultimate arbiter of truth in political discourse. To better inform legislative efforts to end government censorship on the Internet and protect Americans’ rights guaranteed by the First Amendment, the Committee and Select Subcommittee will continue to investigate the extent of CISA’s and other Executive Branch agencies’ interactions with social media platforms.