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CISA Covered-Up Domestic Censorship, Big Tech Collusion According to House Report

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According to an initial assessment issued by the House Committee on the Judiciary and the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, a federal agency created to safeguard vital infrastructure and cybersecurity attempted to hide its domestic censoring practices.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s (CISA) relationship with major technology firms and publicly financed third parties was revealed in a report which was made public on Monday. A little-known division of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is CISA.

Unknown, secret papers have come to light that show CISA went beyond its authority in order to monitor discourse on social media and conspired with Big Tech firms like Twitter and government-funded third parties to “censor by proxy.” The report’s messages reveal that CISA later attempted to hide its “plainly unconstitutional activities” from the general public.

The report accuses CISA of attempting to evade First Amendment protections by working with government-funded third parties to conspire with Big Tech firms to censor particular perspectives.

“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,” the report states.

“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.”

The report brings attention to a number of especially troubling activities, including CISA’s consideration of creating a “rapid response” anti-misinformation team, relocation of censoring operations to a third-party organization in order to prevent unfavorable views, and agency plan to use the non-profit as a spokesperson in order to avoid charges of official propaganda.

What Is the CISA?

CISA sits within the Department of Homeland Security with the statutory mission to lead “cybersecurity and critical infrastructure security programs, operations, and associated policy.”

The agency was created to protect the electrical grid and other “critical infrastructure” sectors from cybersecurity threats. However, after the 2016 elections, former DHS secretary Jeh Johnson designated “election infrastructure” as a “critical infrastructure subsector.”

Furthermore, CISA director Jen Easterly argued in November 2021 that the term critical infrastructure, along with the agency’s remit, also included “cognitive infrastructure.”

“One could argue we’re in the business of critical infrastructure, and the most critical infrastructure is our cognitive infrastructure, so building that resilience to misinformation and disinformation, I think, is incredibly important,” Easterly said.

A committee called MDM was established by CISA to focus on false, misleading, and malicious information. Factual information that needs “context” to prevent it from being twisted into what CISA deemed a “harmful” narrative referred to as malinformation. This includes Twitter’s decision to suppress the New York Post’s report on Hunter Biden’s laptop.

CISA’s cybersecurity advisory board established a “Protecting Critical Infrastructure from Misinformation and Disinformation” subcommittee known as the “MDM Subcommittee.”

Misinformation specialists from the government, Big Tech, and academia were brought together in the MDM Subcommittee. This featured Suzanne Spaulding, a former assistant general counsel and legal advisor for the Central Intelligence Agency, Kate Starbird, co-founder of the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public, and Vijaya Gadde, former chief legal officer of Twitter.

Rapid Response Misinformation Team

The report highlighted one instance as a “particularly notable departure from [CISA’s] legal authority,” which occurred at an MDM meeting on June 14, 2022.

CISA proposed creating an anti-MDM “rapid response team” that would physically deploy around the United States, according to messages and meeting minutes. Attendees approved of the concept.

Geoff Hale, the director of CISA’s Election Security Initiative, commented that “this is a fascinating idea that takes CISA’s existing operational responsibilities to consider MDM as part of its core mission set.”

Twitter’s former head of legal, Vijaya Gadde, noted “that the idea of a rapid response team must include the ability to engage whether or not a cyber component is present.”

“Dr. Starbird agreed with Ms. Gadde’s point that threats to critical infrastructure are not limited to cyber threats,” meeting notes stated.

CISA has transformed into a domestic intelligence and speech-police agency, far exceeding its statutory authority,” the report states.

After Joe Biden took office, CISA admitted in a 2022 pamphlet titled, “Planning and Incident Response Guide for Election Officials,” that it was also targeting MDM originating from domestic sources.

The report describes CISA’s involvement in policing MDM as “a direct and serious threat to First Amendment principles.”

According to the report, CISA’s MDM team at its height consisted of 15 devoted part- and full-time employees who concentrated on misinformation campaigns aimed at elections and crucial infrastructure.

Censorship by Proxy, Switchboarding

The research reveals instances of CISA outsourcing its operations to outside parties to facilitate so-called “misinformation reports” from all around the nation and send them to social media businesses during the 2020 and 2022 elections, shedding insight on the enormous censorship apparatus.

“CISA has transformed into a domestic intelligence and speech-police agency, far exceeding its statutory authority,” the report states.

The Center for Internet Security (CIS), a nonprofit organization, is funded by CISA. The operation of the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center (MS-ISAC) and Elections Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center (EI-ISAC) will be funded with $27 million for the fiscal year 2024.

Election officials from all throughout the nation allegedly sent erroneous or deceptive internet information regarding the 2020 elections to social media giants by using EI-ISAC as a “single conduit”

Brian Scully, the manager of its MDM team, described CISA’s involvement in the 2020 election season as “switchboarding.” It took a lot of resources for CISA personnel to submit allegations of suspected disinformation to social media sites for blocking.

Scully stated during his deposition that EI-ISAC was hired to handle this procedure for the 2022 midterm elections as part of current litigation in federal court.

An uncut video of a county official was shared on Twitter in August 2022. A Loudoun County, Virginia, government official reported the post because it was “part of a wider attempt to undermine the word of” that person.

“The Loudon County official’s remark that the account she flagged ‘is connected to Parents Against Critical Race Theory’ reveals that her ‘misinformation report’ was nothing more than a politically motivated censorship attempt,” the report states.

Messages show CISA officials implicitly and explicitly acknowledged on multiple occasions that the agency was not authorized to conduct the kind of surveillance and censorship.

Messages, meeting notes, and comments on documents obtained by the committees show Starbird, Twitter’s Gadde, and the CIA’s Spaulding discussing “ the limitation of CISA’s work regarding monitoring” of Americans’ speech.

On March 15, 2022, Starbird “posed how CISA could work with or otherwise support external groups, such as researchers and non-profits, to support MDM response and how this work would be funded in the future.”

Gadde, who was then Twitter’s chief legal officer, “highlighted the many sensitivities, beyond legal ones, in terms of the relationship between social media companies and government concerning media monitoring and the perception this plays globally.” She also noted the need for this government-social media partnership not to result in “any form of surveillance.”

Starbird responded that “this work should come from outside of government due to the sensitivities in this relationship.

“Rather than abandon the consideration of surveilling Americans, Starbird and Gadde attempted to find ways to circumvent the First Amendment’s strictures by outsourcing the ‘monitoring’ activity from the government to private entities,” the report states.

In the same meeting, Spaulding warned that “the government cannot ask an outside party to do something the Intelligence Community cannot do.” But further notes left by Spaulding on MDM’s June recommendation reveal that the MDM members were still considering relying “upon third parties” months later.

Covering Tracks

Before it was dismantled in May 2022, and following harsh criticism of the Disinformation Governance Board under the Biden administration in April 2022, CISA personnel voiced concern about the public’s impression of their work as “government propaganda.”

Meeting notes show that MDM officials Spaulding and Hale proposed outsourcing the censorship work to the EI-ISAC, making it a sort of “clearing house for trusted information.” The so-called switchboard operation concerned CISA’s Kim Wyman on July 26, 2022, “given the current lawsuit filed by Louisiana and Missouri against CISA over perceived suppression of free speech.”

On May 10, 2022, Starbird proposed changing the subcommittee’s name to prevent the public from confusing its activities with that of the DHS Disinformation Governance Board. Gadde concurred and gave the group the go-ahead to forgo any social listening suggestions at the quarterly meeting in June.

The MDM Subcommittee’s other members received an email from Starbird on May 19, 2022, informing them that she had “removed ‘monitoring’ from just about every place where it appeared” in the group’s June recommendations.

On May 20, 2022, Spaulding expressed her concerns about growing public attention in an email to Starbird, writing: “It’s only a matter of time before someone realizes we exist and starts asking about our work … I’m not sure this keeps until our public meeting in June.

“As CISA’s operational scope expanded further into unconstitutional territory, the agency and its advisors tried to cover their tracks and cover up CISA’s censorship of domestic speech and surveillance of American citizens’ social media activity,” the report states.

As public awareness of CISA’s role in government censorship increased, CISA scrubbed its website of references to domestic “misinformation” and “disinformation.” It previously stated under a section titled, “What is MDM?” in which it is written that “foreign and domestic threat actors use MDM campaigns to cause chaos, confusion, and division. These malign actors are seeking to interfere with and undermine our democratic institutions and national cohesiveness.”

“Now, the same URL redirects to a different page titled ‘Foreign Influence Operations and Disinformation,’ which omits any reference to ‘domestic’ MDM,” the report states.

The Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government and the House Committee on the Judiciary are still looking into the matter. Its study is the result of two hearings on social media censorship held by the weaponization select subcommittee, which also revealed the Federal Trade Commission’s “politically motivated harassment campaign against Elon Musk’s Twitter” in an preliminary report.

Biden Administration

Kamala Harris Allegedly Covered Up Biden’s Mental Decline, Democratic Source Says

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SACRAMENTO, CA — Former Los Angeles Mayor and current California gubernatorial candidate Antonio Villaraigosa has publicly alleged that Kamala Harris and Xavier Becerra were involved in concealing former President Joe Biden’s mental and physical decline during his time in office.

Villaraigosa, a Democrat, made the claim amid a heated California gubernatorial race. Becerra, the former Secretary of Health and Human Services, is also a candidate, while speculation continues over a potential Harris bid. The race comes as current Governor Gavin Newsom reaches the end of his second and final term, per California’s two-term limit.

In a statement referencing recent reporting and excerpts from the book Original Sin, Villaraigosa stated:

“What I’ve seen in news coverage and excerpts from the new book ‘Original Sin’ is deeply troubling. At the highest levels of our government, those in power were intentionally complicit or told outright lies in a systematic cover up to keep Joe Biden’s mental decline from the public.”

Both Harris and Becerra previously served as California Attorney General. Villaraigosa emphasized their past leadership roles, stating:

“Now, we have come to learn this cover up includes two prominent California politicians who served as California Attorney General – one who is running for Governor and another who is thinking about running for Governor.”

He added:

“Those who were complicit in the cover up should take responsibility for the part they played in this debacle, hold themselves accountable, and apologize to the American people. I call on Kamala Harris and Xavier Becerra to do just that – and make themselves available to voters and the free press because there’s a lot of questions that need to be answered.”

Becerra responded in a statement, saying:

“It’s clear the President was getting older, but he made the mission clear: run the largest health agency in the world, expand care to millions more Americans than ever before, negotiate down the cost of prescription drugs, and pull us out of a world-wide pandemic. And we delivered.”

Kamala Harris has not issued a public response. Fox News Digital reported that it reached out to the offices of Harris and the Bidens but had not received a reply at the time of publication.

The allegations come as discussions about Biden’s cognitive and physical health continue. Earlier this month, during an appearance on The View, Biden dismissed claims of cognitive decline during his presidency.

In related developments, Biden’s personal office recently confirmed that he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer characterized by a high Gleason score and metastasis to the bone.

Villaraigosa’s comments are the latest in a growing list of concerns raised within the Democratic Party about leadership transparency and accountability in the final years of the Biden administration.

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Biden Administration

Biden Officials Accused of Delaying Public Warning on COVID-19 Vaccine Heart Risks, Senate Report Alleges

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A newly released interim report from Senator Ron Johnson’s office claims top U.S. health officials in the Biden administration withheld critical information in early 2021 about potential heart-related side effects associated with mRNA COVID-19 vaccines. The 54-page report alleges that despite receiving multiple warnings about the risks—particularly cases of myocarditis and related conditions in young people—federal agencies delayed issuing formal alerts for several months.

According to the report, health officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) were informed as early as February 2021 about international concerns, including an attempt by Israel’s Ministry of Health to raise alarm over roughly 40 myocarditis cases tied to the Pfizer vaccine. At that time, Israel’s vaccination campaign was further along than the U.S.’s, offering an early view of potential adverse effects.

In response to Israel’s outreach, FDA officials acknowledged limitations in existing data and asked for further information. However, despite growing domestic reports of heart inflammation—more than 158 cases by April—the agencies did not formally update the public until late June. The vaccine was nonetheless approved for adolescents in May.

By late May, internal deliberations began over whether to issue a Health Alert Network (HAN) message, which is typically used by the CDC to quickly notify clinicians and public health departments of emerging health threats. Some officials reportedly feared sounding “alarmist.” Others questioned whether the data truly warranted a full-scale warning. Ultimately, the HAN alert was shelved in favor of a more subdued website notice issued on May 28.

In the interim, internal talking points continued to describe the condition as rare and urged continued vaccination. The official FDA label for both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines wasn’t updated to reflect the myocarditis risk until June 25.

The report, while critical, notes that many individuals who developed myocarditis, pericarditis, or myopericarditis after vaccination experienced a resolution of symptoms, a finding consistent with CDC data.

Senator Johnson, a frequent critic of the federal pandemic response, has argued that transparency was lacking during this period. “The full extent of the Biden administration’s failure to immediately warn the public about all COVID-19 vaccine adverse events must be completely exposed,” the report concludes.

Health officials involved in the decisions, including then-FDA commissioner Dr. Janet Woodcock and then-CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky, have not yet publicly responded to the findings in the interim report.

The release comes amid ongoing political scrutiny over pandemic-era decision-making and the future of public health communications in the wake of COVID-19. The Biden administration and health agencies have consistently maintained that the benefits of mRNA vaccines outweigh the risks, particularly during the height of the pandemic when COVID-19 posed a significant public health threat.

As investigations continue, Johnson’s subcommittee says it plans to further examine the internal communications and decision-making processes of the nation’s top health agencies.

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Big Pharma

Abortion Pill Complications 22X Higher Than Previously Reported, Per New Study

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A newly released analysis is raising serious questions about the safety profile of mifepristone, the drug responsible for over half of abortions in the United States. While abortion-rights advocates, corporate media outlets, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) maintain that the drug is “safe and effective,” a comprehensive study based on real-world insurance claims paints a far more concerning picture.

Described as the “largest known study of the abortion pill,” the report was conducted by Ethics and Public Policy Center President Ryan Anderson and Director of Data Analysis Jamie Bryan Hall. Using a massive dataset that included Medicaid, TRICARE, Medicare, Department of Veterans Affairs, and private insurance claims, the researchers analyzed 865,727 prescriptions of mifepristone distributed to 692,873 women between 2017 and 2023.

The findings are striking: approximately 10.9 percent of those chemical abortions—about 94,605 cases—involved potentially life-threatening “serious adverse events” within 45 days of taking the drug. These complications included emergency room visits, hemorrhage, sepsis, infection, and follow-up surgeries. This complication rate is at least 22 times higher than the <0.5 percent figure cited by the FDA on the Mifeprex label.

The researchers noted that some patients experienced complications in multiple categories, and that the 45-day window used for measurement was “conservative,” especially considering that the FDA has relied on studies using a timeframe of up to 72 days.

One chart from the study revealed that among women who sought post-abortion care within 45 days:

  • 15.1% visited the emergency room,
  • 8.5% required surgical treatment,
  • 2.5% experienced hemorrhage,
  • 1.9% suffered infections, and
  • 0.9% were diagnosed with sepsis.

“These outcomes were drawn from actual claims data,” the researchers emphasized, “not modeled projections or self-reported surveys.” In Anderson’s words to The Federalist: “This study is the statistical equivalent of a category 5 hurricane hitting the prevailing narrative of the abortion industry. It reveals, based on real-world data, the shocking number of women who suffer serious medical consequences because of the abortion pill.”

The FDA originally approved mifepristone in 2000 based on 10 clinical trials involving only 30,966 patients—women who were described as “prescreened,” “generally healthy,” and treated in controlled environments. The authors of the new study argue that those trials are both outdated and unrepresentative of today’s broad and diverse patient base.

“The women in our dataset receive (or fail to receive) pre- and post-abortion healthcare of the real-world quality that prevails in the U.S. today, not the carefully controlled regimen of care that ordinarily prevails in a clinical trial,” the study says.

Despite repeated petitions from pro-life medical groups to revisit the approval of mifepristone, the FDA has consistently declined to take action. Critics argue the agency failed to meet its legal obligation to address the concerns. Meanwhile, regulatory oversight has continued to loosen. By 2016, the FDA under the Obama administration had altered the drug’s dosing, cut down the number of in-person doctor visits required, broadened who could prescribe it, and eliminated requirements to report non-fatal complications.

The Biden administration went further. In 2021, the FDA permanently allowed mifepristone to be delivered by mail, bypassing the need for a clinic visit. Pharmacies like Walgreens and CVS were later authorized to dispense the pill. As of 2023, a woman can obtain mifepristone with just one telehealth appointment with “any approved healthcare provider (not necessarily a physician)” and self-administer the drug at home. Alarmingly, prescribers are not required to report adverse events unless they learn the patient has died.

The study recommends that the FDA reinstate its original safety protocols. These would include requiring multiple in-person visits, physician-only prescribing, ultrasound confirmation of gestational age and the absence of ectopic pregnancy, and mandatory reporting of complications. The goal, according to the authors, is not only to reduce immediate harm but also to facilitate better long-term safety tracking.

“The FDA should further investigate the harm this drug causes to women and, based on objective safety criteria, reconsider its approval altogether. Women deserve better than the abortion pill,” the study concludes.

While legal efforts to challenge the pill’s availability have so far been unsuccessful, the issue remains live. In 2023, the Supreme Court declined to weigh in on the merits of mifepristone’s approval, ruling that the plaintiffs lacked standing. However, Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s opinion left open the possibility for the Court to consider a more suitable challenge in the future.

SOURCE: THE FEDERALIST

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