America First Legal’s Lawsuit Against CISA Further Exposes Deep State Reliance on the Censorship Industrial Complex to Monitor Social Media Narratives on COVID-19

"Today, America First Legal (AFL) released a bombshell document entitled 'COVID-19 Countering Foreign Influence Task Force Reporting and Analysis' that was obtained from litigation against the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The document confirms:

• CISA’s Countering Foreign Influence Task Force (CFITF) relied on the Censorship Industrial Complex to inform its censorship of alleged foreign disinformation narratives regarding COVID-19.
• Unelected bureaucrats at CISA weaponized the homeland security apparatus, including FEMA, to monitor COVID-19 speech dissenting from 'expert' medical guidance, including President Trump’s comments about taking Hydroxychloroquine in 2020. Many of these 'false' narratives later turned out to be true, calling into question the government’s ability to identify 'misinformation,' regardless of its authority to do so.
• To determine what was 'foreign disinformation,' CISA relied on the Censorship Industrial Complex’s usual suspects (Atlantic Council DFR [Digital Forensic Research] Lab, Media Matters, Stanford Internet Observatory) — even those discredited for erroneously attributing domestic content to foreign sources (Alliance for Securing Democracy). CISA even relied on foreign government authorities (EU vs. Disinfo)  and foreign government-linked groups (CCDH [Center for Countering Digital Hate], GDI [Global Disinformation Index]) that advocated for the demonetization and de-platforming of individual Americans to monitor and target constitutionally protected speech by American citizens...

Statement from Reed D. Rubinstein, America First Legal Senior Vice President:

'Incredibly, the evidence is that CISA relied on a dangerous, anti-American blob of 'authorities' to closely monitor what the American people were saying. Here is even more proof that the federal government worked to stamp out constitutionally protected speech by American citizens dissenting from the COVID-19 directives of 'experts' like Anthony Fauci, or promoting alternative treatments like Hydroxychloroquine. CISA was created to protect the homeland from terrorists, not to protect incompetent federal bureaucrats. The incoming Administration must clean house.”