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ELON MUSK AND OTHER BIG TECH WHISTLE-BLOWERS PROVE THAT WHITE HOUSE PAID FOR SOCIAL MEDIA HIT-JOBS

Elon Musk Drops Bombshell: ‘Government Paid Twitter Millions of Dollars to Censor Info from Public’ and Paid Google, Facebook, Etc. To Attack Whistle-Blowers

The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Friday that several Biden administration officials had likely breached the First Amendment by pressuring social media companies to moderate or take down content they deemed problematic.

But the three-judge panel of the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals narrowed much of an injunction issued by a Louisiana judge that restricted Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration from communicating with social media companies.

The court said that the White House, Surgeon General, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the FBI “likely coerced or significantly encouraged social media platforms to moderate content” in violation of the First Amendment.

“It is true that the officials have an interest in engaging with social media companies, including on issues such as misinformation and election interference,” the three-judge panel said in a 74-page ruling (pdf) on Sept. 8.

“But the government is not permitted to advance these interests to the extent that it engages in viewpoint suppression,” they added.

The court found that the officials made “express threats” and “inflammatory accusations” by saying that the platforms were “poisoning the public” and “killing people.” The platforms were told they needed to take “greater responsibility and action.”

“Then, they followed their statements with threats of ‘fundamental reforms’ like regulatory changes and increased enforcement actions that would ensure the platforms were ‘held accountable’. But, beyond express threats, there was always an unspoken ‘or else,’” it added.

The court also said the officials encouraged social media platforms to moderate content by “exercising active, meaningful control over those decisions,” particularly concerning the platforms’ moderation policies.

According to the ruling, the FBI “regularly met with the platforms, shared ‘strategic information,’ frequently alerted the social media companies to misinformation spreading on their platforms, and monitored their content moderation policies.”

“But, the FBI went beyond that—they urged the platforms to take down content. Turning to the Second Circuit’s four-factor test, we find that those requests were coercive,” it added.

The judges emphasized that the government cannot supervise a platform’s content moderation decisions and cannot impose “legal, regulatory, or economic consequences” if they refuse to comply with a given request.

“Social media platforms’ content-moderation decisions must be theirs and theirs alone,” the court asserted.

The attorneys general of Louisiana and Missouri, along with several social media users, had sued last year, saying Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter engaged in censorship as a result of repeated urging by government officials and threats of heightened regulatory enforcement.

The lawsuit said the censored views included content questioning anti-COVID-19 measures such as masks and vaccine mandates and allegations of election fraud.

But the court excised much of U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty’s broad July 4 ruling, saying mere encouragement to take down content doesn’t always cross a constitutional line.

“As an initial matter, it is axiomatic that an injunction is overbroad if it enjoins a defendant from engaging in legal conduct. Nine of the preliminary injunction’s ten prohibitions risk doing just that. Moreover, many of the provisions are duplicative of each other and thus unnecessary,” the ruling said.

The ruling also removed some agencies from the order, namely the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency, and the State Department.

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey said they filed the lawsuit against dozens of officials in the federal government “to halt the biggest violation of the First Amendment in our nation’s history.”

“The first brick was laid in the wall of separation between tech and state on July 4. Today’s ruling is yet another brick,” he said in a statement. “Missouri will continue to lead the way in the fight to defend our most fundamental freedoms.”

Reuters and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

Twitter boss Elon Musk has just dropped a massive bombshell by revealing that the U.S. federal government “paid Twitter millions of dollars to censor info from the public.”

Musk made the explosive claim while sharing the latest installment of the “Twitter Files.”

Twitter Files: Part 7” is the latest in the series of secret internal communications between the company’s former executives and other employees.

The “Twitter Files” releases have been exposing unprecedented efforts by the company – in collusion with government officials, Democrat politicians, federal law enforcement, and the intelligence community – to censor public information on social media.

The latest installment was detailed by journalist Michael Shellenberger, who was tasked by Musk to report on his findings.

 

Shellenberger reveals the staggering efforts by the FBI and intel community to discredit the Hunter Biden laptop story to protect Joe Biden’s election campaign.

He delves into how the FBI, U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), and intelligence community “discredited factual information about Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings.”

The files show a direct effort by America’s taxpayer-funded federal agencies to suppress negative press on the Democrat candidate during the 2020 election.

The latest release also reveals that the intel community has taken action on a domestic level to influence Twitter’s content moderation.

Shellenberger reports: “PART 7 The FBI & the Hunter Biden Laptop How the FBI & intelligence community discredited factual information about Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings both after and *before* The New York Post revealed the contents of his laptop on October 14, 2020

“In Twitter Files #6, we saw the FBI relentlessly seek to exercise influence over Twitter, including over its content, its users, and its data.

“In Twitter Files #7, we present evidence pointing to an organized effort by representatives of the intelligence community (IC), aimed at senior executives at news and social media companies, to discredit leaked information about Hunter Biden before and after it was published.

“The story begins in December 2019 when a Delaware computer store owner named John Paul (J.P.) Mac Isaac contacts the FBI about a laptop that Hunter Biden had left with him.

“On Dec 9, 2019, the FBI issues a subpoena for, and takes, Hunter Biden’s laptop.

“By Aug 2020, Mac Isaac still had not heard back from the FBI, even though he had discovered evidence of criminal activity.

“And so he emails Rudy Giuliani, who was under FBI surveillance at the time.

“In early Oct, Giuliani gives it to @nypost.

“Shortly before 7 pm ET on October 13, Hunter Biden’s lawyer, George Mesires, emails JP Mac Isaac.

“Hunter and Mesires had just learned from the New York Post that its story about the laptop would be published the next day.

“At 9:22 pm ET (6:22 PT), FBI Special Agent Elvis Chan sends 10 documents to Twitter’s then-Head of Site Integrity, Yoel Roth, through Teleporter, a one-way communications channel from the FBI to Twitter.

“The next day, October 14, 2020, The New York Post runs its explosive story revealing the business dealings of President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter.

“Every single fact in it was accurate.

“And yet, within hours, Twitter and other social media companies censor the NY Post article, preventing it from spreading and, more importantly, undermining its credibility in the minds of many Americans.

“Why is that? What, exactly, happened?

“…It’s not the first time that Twitter’s Roth has pushed back against the FBI.

“In January 2020, Roth resisted FBI efforts to get Twitter to share data outside of the normal search warrant process.

“Pressure had been growing: “We have seen a sustained (If uncoordinated) effort by the IC [intelligence community] to push us to share more info & change our API policies.

“They are probing & pushing everywhere they can (including by whispering to congressional staff).”

“Time and again, FBI asks Twitter for evidence of foreign influence & Twitter responds that they aren’t finding anything worth reporting.

“[W]e haven’t yet identified activity that we’d typically refer to you (or even flag as interesting in the foreign influence context).”

“Then, in July 2020, the FBI’s Elvis Chan arranges for temporary Top Secret security clearances for Twitter executives so that the FBI can share information about threats to the upcoming elections.

“On August 11, 2020, the FBI’s Chan shares information with Twitter’s Roth relating to the Russian hacking organization, APT28, through the FBI’s secure, one-way communications channel, Teleporter.

“The FBI’s influence campaign may have been helped by the fact that it was paying Twitter millions of dollars for its staff time.

“’I am happy to report we have collected $3,415,323 since October 2019!’ reports an associate of Jim Baker in early 2021.”

Mark Hemingway states the according to the latest drop of “Twitter Files” from Michael Shellenberger, “As of 2020, there were so many former FBI employees — ‘Bu alumni’ — working at Twitter that they had created their own private Slack channel and a crib sheet to onboard new FBI arrivals.” It appears that Twitter still has 14 employees on the payroll who worked at the FBI and CIA.

The problem isn’t just confined to Twitter. My colleague and Federalist contributor Ben Weingarten recently wrote an article for the New York Post, “Inside revolving door between Democrat Deep State and Big Tech.

In addition to covering what was happening at Twitter, Weingarten details a broader number of suspicious links between Silicon Valley and U.S. intelligence agencies. Given the near-constant string of deep-state scandals and social media censorship we’ve endured in recent years, a big question we should all be trying to answer right now is, “What exactly are all these spooks doing at tech companies?”

So far, the answer appears to be: “They’re almost certainly up to no good.” After the first batch of “Twitter Files” dropped, it was revealed that Elon Musk fired Twitter Deputy General Counsel James Baker. Prior to going to work at Twitter, Baker was a top lawyer at the FBI from 2014 to 2017. In that capacity, he played a significant role in shepherding FBI’s baseless and illegal Russiagate investigation.

In fact, it’s probably safe to assume one of the reasons Baker exited the FBI was to dodge any accountability for the FBI’s reckless and politically motivated attempt to investigate the president of the United States. Twitter was a pretty soft landing.

Or at least it was, until it was revealed that Baker, who was still employed at Twitter as of a few weeks ago, got fired after he intercepted the internal company communications Musk was giving to journalists Matt Taibbi and Bari Weiss to expose the censorship and misdeeds of the company’s previous management. Nobody has quite figured out what he was doing, but there’s widespread speculation Baker may have removed Twitter communications with the FBI or other damning info before it could become public.

Yes, large global corporations need high-level, discreet corporate security, and potentially for benign purposes the particular skillsets that former law enforcement and intelligence personnel provide. However, the situation with Baker makes the problem plenty obvious. If you’re inclined to automatically trust the professionalism and integrity of the FBI and CIA, please have your head examined.

I want to know how many of these FBI and CIA agents are “sheep dipped.” In the intelligence world, “sheep dipping” is a term of art. It describes a tactic whereby a member of the military is “officially discharged from service” to do covert work. In secret, they are still eligible for rank promotions and military benefits.

I first learned the term from my father, because he was “sheep dipped.” He worked for the CIA in Laos in the early 1960s lead-up to the Vietnam War. He was a young Marine officer. During his year in Laos, his normal service records were replaced with records saying he was separated from the Marine Corps, to allow the government to deny any responsibility if anything happened to him. When he returned from Laos, they swapped out the files saying he’d left the Marine Corps with his regular service record, all as if nothing unusual had happened.

Suffice it to say, during this episode, dad witnessed the CIA’s involvement in drug smuggling and other unsavory behavior. The whole episode left a very bad taste in his mouth.

Fun fact I learned earlier this year: The man in charge of CIA operations in Laos when my father was there was the legendary spymaster Ray Cline. One Kennedy assassination conspiracy theory relates that Lee Harvey Oswald, who was still serving in the Marines when he briefly defected to the Soviet Union, didn’t really defect. He was sheep dipped and working for the CIA on an intelligence-gathering mission inside the Soviet Union.

The whole crazy escapade, according to the tale, was possibly organized by Cline, the local CIA station chief at the same time and place as one of Oswald’s previous overseas deployments. For what it’s worth, Cline also happens to be the former father-in-law of Stefan Halper, the dubious paid informant who was the FBI’s source for much of their bogus Trump-Russia investigation.

In case, you’re keeping track, why yes, I did just draw a line, albeit not a particularly straight one, that connects the Kennedy assassination and the Russiagate scandal. (It would have been too digressive to mention Cline and Halper’s connections to Watergate and Iran Contra, but I think you get the drift.)

Now, as clarification, I should say that “sheep dipping” seems to apply mostly to the intel community’s use of military personnel and isn’t necessarily an all-purpose phrase for CIA or FBI undercover work. One of the most annoying things about being subjected to years of completely credulous Russiagate and Steele dossier coverage was every pundit suddenly becoming an armchair expert on espionage and throwing around phrases such as “SIGINT” when we all know they just learned what signals intelligence was 15 minutes ago.

But the point here isn’t to offer up conspiracies about the Kennedy assassination. It’s to make the point that one reason conspiracy theories are so easy to believe is that it’s well-known the Deep-State Industrial Complex employs a lot of tactics such as sheep dipping that are expressly about manipulation and deception.

Combined with so many official denials over the years that turned out to be lies, this makes it impossible to believe intel agencies when they say they aren’t doing something. It was very much denied that American soldiers were in Southeast Asia when my dad was in the jungle learning how to eat soup with chopsticks. More recently, we have very dishonest denials about domestic spying by Obama intelligence officials John Brennan and James Clapper that in a just society should have led to criminal charges.

The FBI response to “Twitter Files” revelations that they were working behind the scenes with the social media network and encouraging censorship is about the furthest thing from reassuring. “The FBI regularly engages with private sector entities to provide information specific to identified foreign malign influence actors’ subversive, undeclared, covert, or criminal activities,” an FBI spokesman told journalist Jon Nicosia. “Private sector entities independently make decisions about what, if any, action they take on their platforms and for their customers after the FBI has notified them.”

Based on what we know, there’s absolutely no reason not to assume that, of the numerous former FBI and CIA employees at Twitter, some weren’t either informally or directly working for intel agencies. Further, it is incredibly alarming that the watchdogs that are supposed to protect us from rogue government agencies eroding our rights can’t be bothered to investigate this.

For most of my life, the corporate media, and the activist left in particular, treated these agencies with extreme skepticism. Revelations such as these would formerly have set off klaxons in newsrooms.

But now? “People’s brains are so drowning in partisan muck that the Bernie/AOC left — which still pretends to find the CIA and FBI nefarious if you force them to take a stance — refuses to care about the grave dangers in what [Matt Taibbi] reported about FBI’s role [at Twitter],” says Glenn Greenwald. Worse, Greenwald observes that their shared partisan obsessions mean that the left has completely surrendered to the corporatist imperatives of liberal institutions such as the media. “The only real enemies they see are the Trump movement and GOP. That’s why I use ‘left-liberal’: their core worldviews have merged,” he further observes.

With the exception of an under-resourced conservative media and a few independent lefty journalists such as Taibbi and Greenwald — who have dared to stay true to ideals that most of the journalists now trying to discredit them claimed to hold six years ago — no one is interested in solid evidence suggesting intel agencies have been secretly curbing Americans’ First Amendment rights, and possibly doing so to explicitly influence elections.

The fact that so few people are curious about the nexus between intel agencies and Big Tech, even when the evidence is staring them in the face, should be a national scandal. Americans deserve to know the truth about whether our intel agencies are being used against citizens. We should be concerned that the full extent of what they’ve done — and what they likely continue to do — to us will never be known.