Department of Justice
Department of Justice
Regulatory Capture of the U.S. Department of Justice/
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) also known as the Justice Department, is a federal executive department of the United States government tasked with the enforcement of federal law and administration of justice in the United States. It is equivalent to the justice of interior ministries of other countries. Wikipedia
What the Twitter Files revealed the FBI’s involvement in Twitter (and Facebook).
The “Twitter Files” were emails released by Elon Musk after he purchased a controlling interest in Twitter in 2022. They were described in a twelve-part series of articles written in early 2023 by Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss, Michael Shellenberger, Lee Fang, and David Zweig and summarized by Taibbi on his Substack page.
Some key points:
- Twitter made a decision to block access to a New York Post exposé on Hunter Biden in October 2020 on the basis of its “hacked materials” policy, even though the materials had not been hacked. One asked, “Can we truthfully claim that this is part of the policy?” since their authenticity had been proven.
- Former FBI General Counsel and Twitter Deputy General Counsel Jim Baker was involved in coordinating Twitter censorship and policymaking with his old employer until Musk fired him.
- Twitter practiced shadow-banning extensively, calling it “visibility filtering,” and applying it aggressively to Trump’s tweets even before the election. Twitter internally reconfigured its rules to make a Trump ban fit its policies.
- At least one Twitter employee was worried about a “slippery slope” in which “an online platform CEO with a global presence… can gatekeep speech for the entire world.”
- Twitter suspended President Donald Trump’s account after the January 6 events, despite some internal opposition. One said, “I think we’d have a hard time saying this is incitement.” Another opined, “Maybe because I am from China, I deeply understand how censorship can destroy the public conversation,” but they were overruled.
- Twitter’s contact with the FBI was “constant and pervasive,” as FBI personnel, mainly in the San Francisco field office, regularly sent lists of “reports” to Twitter, often about Americans with low follower counts making joke tweets. Tweeters from both parties were blocked.
- The FBI paid at least $3.4 million to Twitter for processing its requests.
- Despite having testified to Congress that it did not tolerate such behavior, the company collaborated with the military in using fake accounts to spread propaganda messages around the world.
- Twitter received lists of flagged content from “Other Government Agencies (OGA),” including the CIA. Companies like Twitter, Facebook, Yahoo!, Twitch, Cloudfare, LinkedIn, and even Wikimedia briefings at regular meetings with the FBI and the multi-agency “Foreign Influence Task Force.”
- Twitter throttled down information about COVID that was true but perhaps inconvenient for public officials, discrediting doctors and other experts who disagreed.”
- “Countless” instances of Twitter banning or labeling “misleading” accounts were found, whether they were true or merely controversial.
- Both Congress and the mainstream media pressured Twitter to produce material showing a conspiracy of Russian accounts on their platform.
- Twitter stated publicly that content would only be removed at “our sole discretion.” But internal written policies say that Twitter will remove accounts “identified by the U.S. intelligence community as a state-sponsored entity conducting cyber-operations.”
Published on January 4, 2023. To read the full article, click here.
Source: ZeroHedge
Did those actions violate the Constitution?
Article I of the Constitution states, in part: “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech or of the press.” Article II makes it clear that the President “shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” Supreme Court cases have made it clear that the government may not accomplish through third parties what it cannot do directly.
What justification is offered? Is it valid?
The actions of the FBI in secretly dictating what Twitter, a private company but much-relied upon for the sharing of ideas and opinions, were defended during recent Congressional hearings by former (pre-Musk) Twitter executives as being necessary to keep Americans “safe” from misinformation which, they alleged, threatened public safety.
Lying by “members of the intelligence community” about and blocking the pre-election Biden story might well have swung the election result because the Post article offered evidence that the Democratic candidate had shared in large payments from Russian, Chinese, and Ukrainian sources made to his influence-peddling son.
Former Representative Tulsi Gabbard has testified before Congress that during the same period, her presidential campaign’s momentum was derailed by Twitter’s decision to shadow-ban her.
Gabbard and Dr. Naomi Wolf, a prominent intellectual and medical freedom advocate, have denounced the FBI and Twitter for presuming to determine which ideas reached the public, manipulating public discourse, and stifling scientific debate about “public health emergency” measures.
What is the significance? The pattern?
The Biden/Twitter/FBI story was a case of regulatory capture, but the identity of who did the capturing is unclear. Politicians and career federal employees appear to have done the “capturing.” But what interests were these figures representing? China? Ukraine? The NeoCons? Are career federal employees and politicians an interest group? Were they considering their post-government employment?
We do not know because the FBI has yet to conclude its “ongoing” investigation. There appears to have been no constitutional basis for what the FBI was doing. The government was using its police power to affect the election and public policy by silencing views that contradicted its “own,” which derived from covert actions and secret decisions. It is hard to distinguish such a situation from tyranny, in which the government defines the reality that people must accept.
This pattern did not begin with Twitter. The Church Committee hearings of the late 1970s laid bare the influence of covert action upon domestic politics, and the limited reforms that followed were never sufficient to solve the problem. The use of classification and anonymous leaks to its agents in mass media (also documented by the Church Committee) and of government disinformation has only grown more pervasive since then.
Even more recent media disclosures indicate the government lied when it denied blowing up the Nordstream gas pipeline connecting our ally, Germany, to Russia—a major terrorist act.
The credibility of foreign and domestic policy and the very legitimacy of government itself depend on whether we can trust their veracity. In the past, we did; today, opinion research suggests we no longer do. The Twitter Files have created a window of opportunity in which we can reflect on the consequences of allowing the government to define reality by silencing divergent interpretations. The American Revolution was supposed to have settled the question of whether the Monarch or the People were the sovereign power. Looking at the government’s claims of infallibility in justifying wars, preventing pandemics, and silencing dissidents, one wonders what counsel the Founding Fathers would give us today.
Department of Justice
Regulatory Capture of the U.S. Department of Justice/
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) also known as the Justice Department, is a federal executive department of the United States government tasked with the enforcement of federal law and administration of justice in the United States. It is equivalent to the justice of interior ministries of other countries. Wikipedia
What the Twitter Files revealed the FBI’s involvement in Twitter (and Facebook).
The “Twitter Files” were emails released by Elon Musk after he purchased a controlling interest in Twitter in 2022. They were described in a twelve-part series of articles written in early 2023 by Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss, Michael Shellenberger, Lee Fang, and David Zweig and summarized by Taibbi on his Substack page.
Some key points:
- Twitter made a decision to block access to a New York Post exposé on Hunter Biden in October 2020 on the basis of its “hacked materials” policy, even though the materials had not been hacked. One asked, “Can we truthfully claim that this is part of the policy?” since their authenticity had been proven.
- Former FBI General Counsel and Twitter Deputy General Counsel Jim Baker was involved in coordinating Twitter censorship and policymaking with his old employer until Musk fired him.
- Twitter practiced shadow-banning extensively, calling it “visibility filtering,” and applying it aggressively to Trump’s tweets even before the election. Twitter internally reconfigured its rules to make a Trump ban fit its policies.
- At least one Twitter employee was worried about a “slippery slope” in which “an online platform CEO with a global presence… can gatekeep speech for the entire world.”
- Twitter suspended President Donald Trump’s account after the January 6 events, despite some internal opposition. One said, “I think we’d have a hard time saying this is incitement.” Another opined, “Maybe because I am from China, I deeply understand how censorship can destroy the public conversation,” but they were overruled.
- Twitter’s contact with the FBI was “constant and pervasive,” as FBI personnel, mainly in the San Francisco field office, regularly sent lists of “reports” to Twitter, often about Americans with low follower counts making joke tweets. Tweeters from both parties were blocked.
- The FBI paid at least $3.4 million to Twitter for processing its requests.
- Despite having testified to Congress that it did not tolerate such behavior, the company collaborated with the military in using fake accounts to spread propaganda messages around the world.
- Twitter received lists of flagged content from “Other Government Agencies (OGA),” including the CIA. Companies like Twitter, Facebook, Yahoo!, Twitch, Cloudfare, LinkedIn, and even Wikimedia briefings at regular meetings with the FBI and the multi-agency “Foreign Influence Task Force.”
- Twitter throttled down information about COVID that was true but perhaps inconvenient for public officials, discrediting doctors and other experts who disagreed.”
- “Countless” instances of Twitter banning or labeling “misleading” accounts were found, whether they were true or merely controversial.
- Both Congress and the mainstream media pressured Twitter to produce material showing a conspiracy of Russian accounts on their platform.
- Twitter stated publicly that content would only be removed at “our sole discretion.” But internal written policies say that Twitter will remove accounts “identified by the U.S. intelligence community as a state-sponsored entity conducting cyber-operations.”
Published on January 4, 2023. To read the full article, click here.
Source: ZeroHedge
Did those actions violate the Constitution?
Article I of the Constitution states, in part: “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech or of the press.” Article II makes it clear that the President “shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” Supreme Court cases have made it clear that the government may not accomplish through third parties what it cannot do directly.
What justification is offered? Is it valid?
The actions of the FBI in secretly dictating what Twitter, a private company but much-relied upon for the sharing of ideas and opinions, were defended during recent Congressional hearings by former (pre-Musk) Twitter executives as being necessary to keep Americans “safe” from misinformation which, they alleged, threatened public safety.
Lying by “members of the intelligence community” about and blocking the pre-election Biden story might well have swung the election result because the Post article offered evidence that the Democratic candidate had shared in large payments from Russian, Chinese, and Ukrainian sources made to his influence-peddling son.
Former Representative Tulsi Gabbard has testified before Congress that during the same period, her presidential campaign’s momentum was derailed by Twitter’s decision to shadow-ban her.
Gabbard and Dr. Naomi Wolf, a prominent intellectual and medical freedom advocate, have denounced the FBI and Twitter for presuming to determine which ideas reached the public, manipulating public discourse, and stifling scientific debate about “public health emergency” measures.
What is the significance? The pattern?
The Biden/Twitter/FBI story was a case of regulatory capture, but the identity of who did the capturing is unclear. Politicians and career federal employees appear to have done the “capturing.” But what interests were these figures representing? China? Ukraine? The NeoCons? Are career federal employees and politicians an interest group? Were they considering their post-government employment?
We do not know because the FBI has yet to conclude its “ongoing” investigation. There appears to have been no constitutional basis for what the FBI was doing. The government was using its police power to affect the election and public policy by silencing views that contradicted its “own,” which derived from covert actions and secret decisions. It is hard to distinguish such a situation from tyranny, in which the government defines the reality that people must accept.
This pattern did not begin with Twitter. The Church Committee hearings of the late 1970s laid bare the influence of covert action upon domestic politics, and the limited reforms that followed were never sufficient to solve the problem. The use of classification and anonymous leaks to its agents in mass media (also documented by the Church Committee) and of government disinformation has only grown more pervasive since then.
Even more recent media disclosures indicate the government lied when it denied blowing up the Nordstream gas pipeline connecting our ally, Germany, to Russia—a major terrorist act.
The credibility of foreign and domestic policy and the very legitimacy of government itself depend on whether we can trust their veracity. In the past, we did; today, opinion research suggests we no longer do. The Twitter Files have created a window of opportunity in which we can reflect on the consequences of allowing the government to define reality by silencing divergent interpretations. The American Revolution was supposed to have settled the question of whether the Monarch or the People were the sovereign power. Looking at the government’s claims of infallibility in justifying wars, preventing pandemics, and silencing dissidents, one wonders what counsel the Founding Fathers would give us today.
Department of Justice
Regulatory Capture of the U.S. Department of Justice/
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) also known as the Justice Department, is a federal executive department of the United States government tasked with the enforcement of federal law and administration of justice in the United States. It is equivalent to the justice of interior ministries of other countries. Wikipedia
What the Twitter Files revealed the FBI’s involvement in Twitter (and Facebook).
The “Twitter Files” were emails released by Elon Musk after he purchased a controlling interest in Twitter in 2022. They were described in a twelve-part series of articles written in early 2023 by Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss, Michael Shellenberger, Lee Fang, and David Zweig and summarized by Taibbi on his Substack page.
Some key points:
- Twitter made a decision to block access to a New York Post exposé on Hunter Biden in October 2020 on the basis of its “hacked materials” policy, even though the materials had not been hacked. One asked, “Can we truthfully claim that this is part of the policy?” since their authenticity had been proven.
- Former FBI General Counsel and Twitter Deputy General Counsel Jim Baker was involved in coordinating Twitter censorship and policymaking with his old employer until Musk fired him.
- Twitter practiced shadow-banning extensively, calling it “visibility filtering,” and applying it aggressively to Trump’s tweets even before the election. Twitter internally reconfigured its rules to make a Trump ban fit its policies.
- At least one Twitter employee was worried about a “slippery slope” in which “an online platform CEO with a global presence… can gatekeep speech for the entire world.”
- Twitter suspended President Donald Trump’s account after the January 6 events, despite some internal opposition. One said, “I think we’d have a hard time saying this is incitement.” Another opined, “Maybe because I am from China, I deeply understand how censorship can destroy the public conversation,” but they were overruled.
- Twitter’s contact with the FBI was “constant and pervasive,” as FBI personnel, mainly in the San Francisco field office, regularly sent lists of “reports” to Twitter, often about Americans with low follower counts making joke tweets. Tweeters from both parties were blocked.
- The FBI paid at least $3.4 million to Twitter for processing its requests.
- Despite having testified to Congress that it did not tolerate such behavior, the company collaborated with the military in using fake accounts to spread propaganda messages around the world.
- Twitter received lists of flagged content from “Other Government Agencies (OGA),” including the CIA. Companies like Twitter, Facebook, Yahoo!, Twitch, Cloudfare, LinkedIn, and even Wikimedia briefings at regular meetings with the FBI and the multi-agency “Foreign Influence Task Force.”
- Twitter throttled down information about COVID that was true but perhaps inconvenient for public officials, discrediting doctors and other experts who disagreed.”
- “Countless” instances of Twitter banning or labeling “misleading” accounts were found, whether they were true or merely controversial.
- Both Congress and the mainstream media pressured Twitter to produce material showing a conspiracy of Russian accounts on their platform.
- Twitter stated publicly that content would only be removed at “our sole discretion.” But internal written policies say that Twitter will remove accounts “identified by the U.S. intelligence community as a state-sponsored entity conducting cyber-operations.”
Published on January 4, 2023. To read the full article, click here.
Source: ZeroHedge
Did those actions violate the Constitution?
Article I of the Constitution states, in part: “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech or of the press.” Article II makes it clear that the President “shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” Supreme Court cases have made it clear that the government may not accomplish through third parties what it cannot do directly.
What justification is offered? Is it valid?
The actions of the FBI in secretly dictating what Twitter, a private company but much-relied upon for the sharing of ideas and opinions, were defended during recent Congressional hearings by former (pre-Musk) Twitter executives as being necessary to keep Americans “safe” from misinformation which, they alleged, threatened public safety.
Lying by “members of the intelligence community” about and blocking the pre-election Biden story might well have swung the election result because the Post article offered evidence that the Democratic candidate had shared in large payments from Russian, Chinese, and Ukrainian sources made to his influence-peddling son.
Former Representative Tulsi Gabbard has testified before Congress that during the same period, her presidential campaign’s momentum was derailed by Twitter’s decision to shadow-ban her.
Gabbard and Dr. Naomi Wolf, a prominent intellectual and medical freedom advocate, have denounced the FBI and Twitter for presuming to determine which ideas reached the public, manipulating public discourse, and stifling scientific debate about “public health emergency” measures.
What is the significance? The pattern?
The Biden/Twitter/FBI story was a case of regulatory capture, but the identity of who did the capturing is unclear. Politicians and career federal employees appear to have done the “capturing.” But what interests were these figures representing? China? Ukraine? The NeoCons? Are career federal employees and politicians an interest group? Were they considering their post-government employment?
We do not know because the FBI has yet to conclude its “ongoing” investigation. There appears to have been no constitutional basis for what the FBI was doing. The government was using its police power to affect the election and public policy by silencing views that contradicted its “own,” which derived from covert actions and secret decisions. It is hard to distinguish such a situation from tyranny, in which the government defines the reality that people must accept.
This pattern did not begin with Twitter. The Church Committee hearings of the late 1970s laid bare the influence of covert action upon domestic politics, and the limited reforms that followed were never sufficient to solve the problem. The use of classification and anonymous leaks to its agents in mass media (also documented by the Church Committee) and of government disinformation has only grown more pervasive since then.
Even more recent media disclosures indicate the government lied when it denied blowing up the Nordstream gas pipeline connecting our ally, Germany, to Russia—a major terrorist act.
The credibility of foreign and domestic policy and the very legitimacy of government itself depend on whether we can trust their veracity. In the past, we did; today, opinion research suggests we no longer do. The Twitter Files have created a window of opportunity in which we can reflect on the consequences of allowing the government to define reality by silencing divergent interpretations. The American Revolution was supposed to have settled the question of whether the Monarch or the People were the sovereign power. Looking at the government’s claims of infallibility in justifying wars, preventing pandemics, and silencing dissidents, one wonders what counsel the Founding Fathers would give us today.
