Internal Department of Homeland Security (DHS) documents obtained by Sens. Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA) reveal that the DHS had plans for its Disinformation Governance Board (DGB) to partner with Big Tech companies to monitor domestic speech about topics including election security and COVID-19.
A memo on a planned meeting between the DHS and Twitter executives noted that it was “an opportunity to discuss operationalizing public-private partnerships between DHS and Twitter, as well as [to] inform Twitter executives about DHS work on [misinformation, disinformation, malinformation, or “MDM”], including the creation of the Disinformation Governance Board.”
The documents suggested that DHS would provide “information to technology companies enabling them to remove content at their discretion and consistent with their terms of service.”
Hawley and Grassley demanded answers from DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in a letter about what the planned partnership between DHS and Big Tech companies would look like, and whether DHS has ever asked them to censor, flag, add context to, or remove any social media posts that it believes to be disinformation, or asked them to suspend or ban the account(s) of individuals believed to be promoting information it believes to be disinformation.
Hawley and Grassley also noted that Mayorkas and other officials had claimed the board would not monitor domestic speech and focus instead on foreign threats, but that the documents show that the board was originally conceived in part to monitor domestic speech, including “conspiracy theories about the validity and security of elections” and “disinformation related to the origins and effects of COVID 19 vaccines or the efficacy of masks.”
They wrote to Mayorkas:
The First Amendment of the Constitution was designed precisely so that the government could not censor opposing viewpoints – even if those viewpoints were false. DHS should not in any way seek to enlist the private sector to curb or silence opposing viewpoints. It is therefore imperative for DHS to provide additional clarity regarding its policies and procedures for identifying and addressing ‘MDM,’ as well as its efforts to ‘operationalize’ public-private partnerships and the steps it is taking to ensure that it does not infringe on the constitutional rights of American citizens.
“Please describe all safeguards that DHS has put in place to ensure that its efforts to counter the spread of disinformation do not infringe on Americans’ constitutional right to free speech,” they added.
The senators are also demanding to know why Mayorkas did not fully explain the Disinformation Governance Board’s role in his May 4, 2022, testimony before Congress, despite the board going into effect on February 24, 2022.
They wrote, “Please provide all documents, including all written and electronic communications, memoranda, and organizational documents, related to the DGB from the point that DHS first considered establishing a DGB until the present.”
They also are demanding information related to the selection of Nina Jankowicz as Executive Director of the DGB.
“Given the significant coordinating role the Department envisioned for the DGB, the consequences of installing Nina Jankowicz, a known trafficker of foreign disinformation and liberal conspiracy theories, as the DGB’s first Executive Director, would have been a disaster,” they wrote.
They added:
Jankowicz once asserted that the Hunter Biden laptop should be viewed as a ‘Trump campaign product.’ Content on the Hunter Biden laptop has since been verified by multiple major news outlets. In 2016, Jankowicz also sent out multiple tweets spreading the now-debunked claim that President Trump had a ‘secret server’ to communicate with Kremlin-linked Alfa Bank. In 2020, Jankowicz tweeted that a podcast by Christopher Steele, the author of the debunked Steele Dossier containing Russian disinformation, had provided ‘some great historical context about the evolution of disinfo.’
“So this begs the question, if the (former) Executive Director of the DGB is incapable of determining what is and is not disinformation, how could the DGB ever have expected to function properly under her leadership?” they wrote.
“We believe that Congress and the American people require full transparency regarding the DGB’s creation as well as the role Jankowicz would have played had she remained in her position at DHS,” they said.
They demanded answers from Mayorkas by June 21, 2022.
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