Evidence uncovered by America First Legal reveals that the Biden Administration’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and State Department have been actively supporting a foreign-based organization in its efforts to censor Americans’ speech online.
America First Legal, a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting the rule of law, has recently exposed a disturbing collaboration between the Biden Administration and the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), a United Kingdom-based nonprofit that has been encouraging online censorship for years. The evidence suggests that the Biden Administration has been mobilizing federal counterterrorism assets to support CCDH’s global censorship campaign, raising serious concerns about the government’s role in suppressing free speech.
According to the documents obtained by America First Legal, the Biden Administration’s National Security Council published its first-ever National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism on June 15, 2021. The strategy asserted that “Internet-based communications platforms” make Americans vulnerable to “domestic terrorist recruitment and other harmful content,” effectively justifying censorship and turning to the national security state and allied technology companies to censor political opponents.
/1🚨CENSORSHIP SCANDAL EXPOSED — We just unearthed evidence that Biden’s DHS and State Dept. mobilized federal counterterrorism assets to support a foreign-based organization censoring American speech: the Center for Countering Digital Hate.
THREAD: pic.twitter.com/wHtnW3W2Ph
— America First Legal (@America1stLegal) March 20, 2024
The Biden Administration’s strategy involved building a community of “critical partners,” including foreign allies, civil society, and the technology sector, to control information and promote censorship. The administration endorsed the Christchurch Call to Action, an international initiative to eliminate “terrorist and violent extremist content online,” which the Trump Administration had previously refused on free speech grounds.
CCDH, led by leftist political operative Imran Ahmed, has been a key player in this censorship campaign. The organization is best known for its March 24, 2021 report, “THE DISINFORMATION DOZEN,” which branded 12 Americans, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., as “anti-vaxxers” and called for their blacklisting online. The Missouri v. Biden case revealed that White House officials quickly pressured social media companies to act on this report.
Emails obtained by America First Legal show that DHS Under Secretary Robert Silvers and CCDH’s then-Head of Policy, Eva Hartshorn-Sanders, connected in March 2022 to discuss CCDH’s research and the DHS’s strategies and plans. Hartshorn-Sanders also invited Silvers and the DHS Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Counterterrorism to CCDH’s Global Summit and Changemakers Dinner.
By September 2022, CCDH was directly meeting with officials from the White House, the National Security Council, and the State Department’s Bureau of Counterterrorism, updating them with CCDH’s latest findings and submitting policy recommendations to the White House Task Force to Address Online Harassment and Abuse.
The mobilization of federal counterterrorism assets to promote censorship and suppress dissenting voices is a clear threat to the First Amendment and the fundamental principles of free speech, and the evidence uncovered by America First Legal raises alarming questions about the Biden Administration’s involvement in supporting a foreign organization’s efforts to censor American speech.
Read more at America First Legal here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship.
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