(Article by Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. republished from ChildrensHealthDefense.org)
The 17,019-page final report, released Dec. 20 by the U.S. House Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, highlighted “numerous instances of the federal government being weaponized against the American people.”
The report’s introduction also detailed attempts by the FBI to investigate parents who expressed opposition to COVID-19 restrictions at school board meetings, referring to this as an example of a “two-tiered system of government.”
The committee accused multiple federal agencies, including the White House, of engaging in a “vast censorship campaign against so-called mis-, dis-, or malinformation,” during the Biden administration.
The Biden-Harris administration worked with private entities, nonprofit groups, foreign actors and academics to form a “censorship-industrial complex” that censored speech that questioned official narratives, the report said.
The report highlighted U.S. government efforts to censor true information, government partnerships with universities and foreign intelligence agencies to censor speech, government efforts to “harass Elon Musk’s Twitter,” and the government’s “attempt to control artificial intelligence to suppress free speech.”
The subcommittee said the report is “a necessary first step to stop the weaponization of the federal government.”
The report largely consisted of previously released documents and the transcripts of closed-door interviews and depositions the panel conducted, but also contained new documents and the subcommittee’s final conclusions.
In a statement cited by Fox News, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, called the subcommittee’s report a success. He said:
“The Weaponization Committee conducted rigorous oversight of the Biden-Harris administration’s weaponized government and uncovered numerous examples of federal government abuses. …
“Through our oversight, we protected the First Amendment by investigating the censorship-industrial-complex, heard from numerous brave whistleblowers, stopped the targeting of Americans by the IRS and Department of Justice, and created serious legislative and policy changes that will benefit all Americans.”
In an interview with The Defender, Jeffrey Tucker, president and founder of the Brownstone Institute, called the report “a step in the right direction and better than any official report to appear in any country so far.”
However, he said the report “does not touch on the deeper issues of the militarized and national-security-driven response” to the pandemic.
“It nowhere mentions the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and leaves untouched a host of issues,” Tucker said. “There is a very long way to go to get full disclosure.”
According to a June 2023 House Judiciary Committee report, CISA — a branch of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) — worked with social media platforms to censor posts it considered dis-, mis- or malinformation.
However, Tucker said the report vindicated voices that were censored during the pandemic.
“Most conspiracy theories, of course, turn out to be true. The report is a solid step toward admitting that but much more needs to be said,” Tucker said. “We’ve learned two realities about free speech. First, it is threatened in ways we never imagined. Second, it is absolutely essential to maintaining freedom itself. We need a new vigilance surrounding this issue.”
The Washington Examiner, citing remarks by Jordan, reported that the subcommittee will “dissolve at the end of the year” and will be absorbed by the Judiciary Committee.
Government feared ‘misinformation’ would ‘erode’ confidence in COVID shots
In the meantime, documents obtained from DHS shed more light on the U.S. government’s attempts to censor COVID-19-related speech, including censorship of true information that “can become misinformation as it ages.”
The documents, obtained by America First Legal as part of its litigation against the U.S. Department of State and CISA, were made public on Dec. 19, one day before the House report on the weaponization of the government.
According to the documents, in early 2020, DHS and CISA were concerned that “online misinformation” would “erode public confidence” in the “yet to be developed COVID-19 vaccine.”
Citing remarks by Dr. Anthony Fauci, CISA noted that “it will probably require 50% to 75% of the population to be immune before achieving herd immunity” but this goal “should be achieved not just through infected people recovering but also through vaccination.”
The documents show that CISA advised citizens “to recognize the risk of COVID-19 disinformation.” It recommended talking “to friends and family about the risk of spreading disinformation” and visiting the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) “rumor control” website.
The documents also showed that FEMA — an arm of DHS — also conducted “social listening” to monitor “public sentiment” relating to official COVID-19 narratives. This monitoring was “primarily focused” on online discussions about President Donald Trump’s statement that he was using hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19.
Even information the government acknowledged was “accurate” but inconsistent with official narratives was tagged as potential misinformation. “Once-accurate [COVID-19] information can become misinformation as it ages, leading to erroneous conclusions and misinterpretation of the current situation,” the documents noted.
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