[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
HEARING ON THE WEAPONIZATION OF THE
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SELECT SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE WEAPONIZATION OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2023
__________
Serial No. 118-54
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via: http://judiciary.house.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
54-237 WASHINGTON : 2024
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
JIM JORDAN, Ohio, Chair
DARRELL ISSA, California JERROLD NADLER, New York, Ranking
KEN BUCK, Colorado Member
MATT GAETZ, Florida ZOE LOFGREN, California
MIKE JOHNSON, Louisiana SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas
ANDY BIGGS, Arizona STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
TOM McCLINTOCK, California HENRY C. ``HANK'' JOHNSON, Jr.,
TOM TIFFANY, Wisconsin Georgia
THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky ADAM SCHIFF, California
CHIP ROY, Texas ERIC SWALWELL, California
DAN BISHOP, North Carolina TED LIEU, California
VICTORIA SPARTZ, Indiana PRAMILA JAYAPAL, Washington
SCOTT FITZGERALD, Wisconsin J. LUIS CORREA, California
CLIFF BENTZ, Oregon MARY GAY SCANLON, Pennsylvania
BEN CLINE, Virginia JOE NEGUSE, Colorado
KELLY ARMSTRONG, North Dakota LUCY McBATH, Georgia
LANCE GOODEN, Texas MADELEINE DEAN, Pennsylvania
JEFF VAN DREW, New Jersey VERONICA ESCOBAR, Texas
TROY NEHLS, Texas DEBORAH ROSS, North Carolina
BARRY MOORE, Alabama CORI BUSH, Missouri
KEVIN KILEY, California GLENN IVEY, Maryland
HARRIET HAGEMAN, Wyoming BECCA BALINT, Vermont
NATHANIEL MORAN, Texas
LAUREL LEE, Florida
WESLEY HUNT, Texas
RUSSELL FRY, South Carolina
------
SELECT SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE WEAPONIZATION OF THE
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
JIM JORDAN, Ohio, Chair
DARRELL ISSA, California STACEY PLASKETT, Virgin Islands,
THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky Ranking Member
ELISE M. STEFANIK, New York STEPHEN LYNCH, Massachusetts
MATT GAETZ, Florida LINDA SANCHEZ, California
KELLY ARMSTRONG, North Dakota DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida
W. GREGORY STEUBE, Florida GERRY CONNOLLY, Virginia
DAN BISHOP, North Carolina JOHN GARAMENDI, California
KAT CAMMACK, Florida COLIN ALLRED, Texas
HARRIET HAGEMAN, Wyoming SYLVIA GARCIA, Texas
Vacant DAN GOLDMAN, New York
Vacant
CHRISTOPHER HIXON, Majority Staff Director
CAROLINE NABITY, Chief Counsel for Oversight
AMY RUTKIN, Minority Staff Director & Chief of Staff
CHRISTINA CALCE, Minority Chief Oversight Counsel
C O N T E N T S
----------
Thursday, November 30, 2023
Page
OPENING STATEMENTS
The Honorable Jim Jordan, Chair of the Select Subcommittee on the
Weaponization of the Federal Government from the State of Ohio. 1
The Honorable Stacey Plaskett, Ranking Member of the Select
Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government
from the Virgin Islands........................................ 3
WITNESSES
Michael Shellenberger, Twitter Files Journalist, Author,
Environmentalist
Oral Testimony................................................. 6
Prepared Testimony............................................. 9
Matt Taibbi, Twitter Files Journalist, Author
Oral Testimony................................................. 98
Prepared Testimony............................................. 100
Rupa Subramanya, Canada-Based Journalist, The Free Press
Oral Testimony................................................. 102
Prepared Testimony............................................. 105
Olivia Troye, Former Homeland Security & Counterterrorism
Advisor, Office of Vice President Pence
Oral Testimony................................................. 111
Prepared Testimony............................................. 113
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC. SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
All materials submitted for the record by the Select Subcommittee
on the Weaponization of the Federal Government are listed below 151
Letter to the Linda Yaccarino, Chief Executive Officer, and Elon
Musk, Owner, Chief Technology Officer, X, Inc., Nov. 21, 2023,
from multiple Members of Congress, submitted by the Honorable
Dan Goldman, a Member of the Select Subcommittee on the
Weaponization of the Federal Government from the State of New
York, for the record
An article entitled, ``CTIL Files #1: US And UK Military
Contractors Created Sweeping Plan For Global Censorship In
2018, New Documents Show,'' Nov. 28, 2023, submitted by the
Honorable Thomas Massie, a Member of the Select Subcommittee on
the Weaponization of the Federal Government from the State of
Kentucky, for the record
An article entitled, ``FBI and DHS Directors Mislead Congress
About Censorship,'' Nov. 2, 2023, SubStack, submitted by the
Honorable W. Gregory Steube, a Member of the Select
Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government
from the State of Florida, for the record
An article entitled, ``U.S. Supreme Court temporarily blocks
order in Missouri social media lawsuit,'' Oct. 20, 2023,
Missouri Independent, submitted by the Honorable Sylvia Garcia,
a Member of the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the
Federal Government from the State of Texas, for the record
HEARING ON THE WEAPONIZATION OF THE
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
----------
Thursday, November 30, 2023
House of Representatives
Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government
Committee on the Judiciary
Washington, DC
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:07 a.m., in
Room 2141, Rayburn House Office Building, the Hon. Jim Jordan
[Chair of the Subcommittee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Jordan, Issa, Massie, Stefanik,
Armstrong, Steube, Bishop, Cammack, Hageman, Plaskett, Lynch,
Wasserman Schultz, Connolly, Garamendi, Allred, Garcia, and
Goldman.
Chair Jordan. The Subcommittee will come to order.
Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare a
recess at any time.
We welcome everyone to today's ``Hearing on The
Weaponization of the Federal Government.''
We welcome our witnesses, and we'll introduce you here in a
second and swear you in.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Kentucky to
lead us all in the pledge. So, if you'll all stand.
All. I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States
of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one
Nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for
all.
Chair Jordan. We appreciate the enthusiasm.
We will now begin today's hearing with opening statements.
We'll start with the Chair.
One of the most egregious forms of the weaponization that
this Subcommittee has worked to expose is the coercion of
social media companies by the Federal Government.
We wouldn't know anything that we know today, we wouldn't
have learned and had the reports we've had without the work of
Matt Taibbi, Michael Shellenberger, Bari Weiss, and other
journalists who wrote the Twitter Files and first exposed these
efforts.
Their important work was first made possible because of
Elon Musk's purchase of Twitter and his commitment to free
speech.
The path for getting this information out has not been
easy. Finding the truth never is. Instead, we were obstructed
at almost every turn. Many of the people who sought to help us
expose the ``censorship industrial complex,'' as Mr. Taibbi and
Mr. Shellen-berger have, I think appropriately labeled it, have
been targeted.
On December 10, 2022, after the first Twitter Files came
out, Mr. Musk tweeted, quote, that ``Twitter is both a social
media company and a crime scene.''
Three days later, the Federal Trade Commission sent Elon
Musk a letter demanding to know the identity of the Twitter
Files' authors and inundated the company with harassing
requests for information--literally three days after. Naming
four journalists by name.
While Twitter put this information out voluntarily, the
other platforms were not as forthcoming. Instead, we had to
subpoena them in February of this year, fought with them for
months, had to threaten contempt, before getting substantive
information about government's efforts to censor the American
people.
When we first had Mr. Taibbi and Mr. Shellenberger testify
back in March, an IRS agent showed up at Matt Taibbi's door.
I mean, think about this. I have told this story numerous
times, and there's not one person I've told this story to, not
one group I've spoken to where I say, while they are
testifying, while Mr. Taibbi is testifying in front of the
Committee about the weaponization of government, the IRS was
actually, at that very moment, knocking on his door, there's
not one person who thinks that was just chance, that just
happened to be all a coincidence. Not one person believes--
everyone understands that to be the intimidation from our
Federal Government.
Now, the good news is, this led to a sweeping investigation
of the IRS's home visits. The best news is, the IRS has said
they will no longer be making unannounced visits to American
citizens' homes.
It's interesting, the Commissioner actually said, ``We are
doing this for the security of our agents.'' Baloney. They're
doing it because we caught them, and we made an issue of it and
the American people understand that this is wrong.
This Subcommittee's work has also included putting out
reports showing how CISA went from a cybersecurity agency into
the disinformation police and how the FBI coordinated with a
compromised Ukrainian intelligence agency--that actually
happened--to censor Americans.
We were also able to expose how the other platforms were
pressured to change their behavior--documents we obtained from
Facebook--so that the company felt threatened by the White
House directly and changed its behavior for fear of
retribution.
Just this morning, we released information showing the same
thing happened with YouTube.
While we have more information forthcoming, it's impossible
to get a full accounting of the government's censorship efforts
when the government actors involved will not participate with
our constitutional duty to do oversight.
That's why, today, we are serving subpoenas to former White
House employees Rob Flaherty and Andy Slavitt, who have so far
refused to sit for interviews despite being directly implicated
in emails between the White House and tech companies. I think
we may have brought this out in the previous hearing with some
of our witnesses today.
Never forget, the third day of the Biden Administration--I
think it was maybe 36 hours into it--Andy Slavitt sends an
email from the White House to Twitter saying, ``Take down this
tweet ASAP.'' Of course, the irony was the tweet was about--the
tweet was from this administration's Democrat primary opponent,
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. There was nothing in the tweet that was
false. Yet, the White House, day three of the Biden
Administration is trying to take that down.
So, we have since subpoenaed those two individuals and hope
that we will have them in front of our Committee real soon.
I want to thank our witnesses for appearing before us today
and helping us to continue our work in exposing government
censorship, in exposing what two of our witnesses have called,
as I said earlier, the ``censorship industrial complex''--this
marriage of big government, big tech, and, as we found out with
some of our work, big academia involved in attacking American
citizens' First Amendment liberties.
We appreciate all of you for being here. We will introduce
you here in a few minutes, but I now yield to the Ranking
Member for an opening statement.
Ms. Plaskett. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
First, may I ask unanimous consent that the gentlewoman
from Pennsylvania, Ms. Dean, a Member of the Full Committee, be
permitted to sit on the dais?
Chair Jordan. Yes.
Ms. Plaskett. She's not going to ask any questions.
Chair Jordan. Without objection.
Ms. Plaskett. Thank you very much.
Good day to everyone.
Every day, the American people share with Members of
Congress, social media, friends, family, and anyone who will
listen that they live largely in fear for their future. When I
scroll through my social media feeds, I see people worried they
don't have job opportunities or job security the generation
before them had; worried they don't have time, resources, or
support to take care of sick parents or disabled relatives;
worried they won't be able to afford to buy a home to call
their own; worried they will not be able to see their kids send
their children to college or simply provide for their children
the way they were provided for.
I see Americans are concerned; I see parents concerned that
schools are becoming unsafe for their children. I see Americans
are concerned that rights are being taken away, Americans
concerned that their vote might be discounted or may not even
be able to cast a vote.
In the discussion of the weaponization of the Federal
Government, the majority has acknowledged the fact--in this
discussion of the weaponization of government--I'm sorry--one
of the things that I've requested that we look into is the IRS
audits of working-class people and people of color, which are
far, far at a higher rate than millionaires and billionaires,
or a discussion in a hearing of actions by the former President
Donald Trump and what he has said he will do to weaponize our
government if reelected.
However, we're not having a hearing about those topics.
We're not having discussions. Congress is not engaged in making
any headway on those things that Americans are most concerned
with.
Today, we're having a hearing with witnesses on the
Republican side, two of whom we've already heard from. In fact,
this is the second hearing where Republicans have brought out
repeat witnesses--the second hearing in a row.
In preparation for the 2024 Presidential election,
Republicans on this Committee want to entrench their theory of
social media censorship--their unfounded accusation that social
media companies are colluding with the government to censor
conservative voices.
There's no evidence of this collusion. In fact, this
Committee has heard closed-door testimony from 29 witnesses who
have said on the record--government as well as social media
individuals--that the alleged collusion and supposed censorship
claimed by the Committee Republicans has not taken place.
Republicans won't release that testimony, and they are not
being honest with the American people, because, as they ramp up
their own misinformation campaign before the 2024 election,
they need free rein to elevate hate, to engage in voter
suppression online, in addition to their normal in-person
voter-suppression tactics.
This hearing suits political purposes. Republicans are
holding the same hearing all over again for one simple reason:
They want to distract from the actual threat of the
weaponization of government on the American people--that is,
Donald Trump.
In the past few months, Trump has said that he would
reinstate the Muslim travel ban. In fact, his exact words were,
When I return to office, the travel ban is coming back even
bigger than before and stronger than before.
He has vowed to use the Department of Justice to investigate
his political enemies. He has said that those who oppose him
should be executed for treason. He has called his political
opponents ``cockroaches,'' ``vermin,'' said that immigrants are
``poisoning'' American society. He has promised to use the
Insurrection Act to mobilize the military against any
protesters who speak out against him if he wins reelection.
Those do not resonate as plans of a democratic leader. They
sound like dictators. They promise to be one who will silence
his enemies and hold onto power at any cost.
As the first branch of government, it is our job to be a
check on that kind of undemocratic, unstable rhetoric in this
Republic. Donald Trump's statements are outrageous, and this
Committee and every Member that serves on it should be outraged
by them. Every American should be outraged at this Committee by
not having hearings on that.
Many want to shield a man who, as many experts have
identified, is spouting rhetoric cribbed from Nazi regime,
calling his enemies ``cockroaches'' and ``vermin,'' saying that
those who oppose him are ``poisoning the blood'' of America,
and even calling for the execution of people who simply speak
out against him.
For four years, this man implemented loyalty tests, called
for violence against his opponents, pardoned his friends, tried
to illegally keep people out of the country because of their
religious beliefs. He shoved children in cages, tried to
illegally deploy the United States military to put down
peaceful Black Lives Matter protests and systematically
dismantle the civil-rights protections afforded to all
Americans.
If he comes back, that will just be the start. That is why
he has very clearly said what he would do over and over.
Beyond loyalty tests, he plans to purge the government of
all career officials and national security advisors who
question him. He plans to indict anyone who runs against him.
He plans to silence protesters with the use of military force.
He plans to make this country his, not the American people's.
These plans will not just impact those who work in
government; his plans are going to undermine the safety of
every American when he appoints national security officials
because they are loyal to him, not because they understand
national security. They're going to impact people in areas that
need support if he feels that they didn't vote against him.
These plans are going to hurt men and women bravely serving in
our military and law enforcement, who are going to be forced to
choose between carrying out fundamentally illegal,
unconstitutional orders and losing their job.
Today, we have Ms. Troye before us as a witness, who has
bravely spoken out to tell the world how Trump's White House
had a culture of fear, how he had dictator-like tweets and
statements, how he incited his followers to violence, and how
he orchestrated detailed plans to spin his conspiracies into
action by his followers.
She can say this with authority because she was there. She
is a Republican who was in the Trump Administration. When she
says he means what he says or that he will do everything in his
power to make his dangerous promises come true, she speaks from
experience.
To use the words of the former United States Poet Laureate
Dr. Maya Angelou, ``when people show you who they are, believe
them the first time.''
Ms. Troye, I want to apologize in advance for any attacks
made against you today, which I'm sure will come, or
afterwards. I want to thank you for your bravery, coming
forward and testifying today and speaking truth at all times,
to be worried more about America than you are about winning.
I yield back.
Chair Jordan. The gentlelady yields back.
Without objection, all other opening statements will be
included in the record.
Chair Jordan. We will now introduce today's witnesses.
Mr. Matt Taibbi is a journalist and author. He is one of
the authors of the Twitter Files. He previously worked for
Rolling Stone. He also has written several books about American
politics and culture. He won the Izzy Award for Independent
Journalism in 2020 and the Dao Prize from the National
Journalism Center for his work on the Twitter Files.
Appreciate you being here today, Mr. Taibbi.
Michael Shellenberger is also a journalist, author, and one
of the authors of the Twitter Files. He has co-founded several
nonprofits, including the Breakthrough Institute, Environmental
Progress, and the California Peace Coalition. His work often
focuses on crime and drug policy, homelessness, and the
climate. Mr. Shellenberger has also won the Dao Prize and was
named a ``Hero of the Environment'' by Time Magazine in 2008.
We welcome Mr. Shellenberger as well.
Ms. Rupa Subramanya--pretty close, I think--Ms. Subramanya
is a journalist for The Free Press. She is based in Canada and
has lived or worked in India, the Middle East, Europe, and
Asia. His work has previously appeared in The Wall Street
Journal and Foreign Policy, and she has been cited in the
Financial Times and The New York Times.
We welcome you as well.
Ms. Olivia Troye, who the Ranking Member just mentioned and
talked about, is a former national security official, having
served at the Department of Homeland Security, in the
intelligence community, and at the Department of Defense. She
served as Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Advisor to
Vice President Mike Pence.
We welcome you as well.
We will now begin by swearing you in. Would you all please
stand and raise your right hand?
Do you swear or affirm, under penalty of perjury, that the
testimony you're about to give is true and correct, to the best
of your knowledge, information, and beliefs, so help you God?
Let the record show that each of the witnesses has answered
in the affirmative.
You can be seated. Thank you.
Please know that your written testimony will be entered
into the record in its entirety. Accordingly, we ask that you
summarize your testimony in five minutes, give or take. We'll
be a little lenient, of course.
The microphone in front of you has a clock and a series of
lights, and you know how this works--red, green, and yellow.
When it gets to yellow, start winding it down. When it gets to
red, then you've got a a little extra time and then we'll stop.
We'll be lenient with that.
Let's start with Mr. Shellenberger, and let's--well--yes,
let's start with Mr. Shellenberger, and we'll work right down
the line.
So, Mr. Shellenberger, you're recognized for five minutes.
STATEMENT OF MICHAEL SHELLENBERGER
Mr. Shellenberger. Thank you very much.
Chair Jordan, Ranking Member Plaskett, and Members of the
Subcommittee, thank you for inviting my testimony.
Nine months ago, I testified and provided evidence to the
Subcommittee about the existence of a censorship industrial
complex--a network of government agencies, including the
Department of Homeland Security, government contractors, and
big tech media platforms that conspired to censor ordinary
Americans and elected officials alike for holding disfavored
views.
I regret to inform the Subcommittee today that the scope,
power, and law-breaking of the censorship industrial complex
are even worse than we had realized back in March.
Two days ago, my colleagues and I published the first batch
of internal files from the Cyber Threat Intelligence League,
which show U.S. and U.K. military contractors working in 2019-
2020 to both censor and turn sophisticated psychological
operations and disinformation tactics developed abroad against
the American
people.
Many insist that all that we identified in the Twitter
Files, the Facebook Files, and the CTI files were legal
activities by social media platforms to take down content that
violated the terms of service. Facebook; X, formerly Twitter;
and other big tech companies are privately owned, people point
out, and free to censor content, and government officials are
free to point out wrong information, they argue.
The First Amendment prohibits the government from abridging
freedom of speech. The Supreme Court has ruled that the
government may not induce, encourage, or promote private
persons to accomplish what is constitutionally forbidden to
accomplish. There is now a large body of evidence proving that
the government did precisely that.
What's more, the whistleblower who delivered the CTIL files
to us says that its leader, a quote, ``former British
intelligence analyst was,'' quote, ``in the room'' at the Obama
White House in 2017, when she received the instructions to
create a counter-disinfor-mation project to, quote, ``stop a
repeat of 2016.''
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity
and Information Security Agency, CISA, has been the center of
gravity for much of the censorship, with the National Science
Foundation financing the development of censorship and
disinformation tools and other Federal Government agencies
playing a supportive role.
Emails from CISA's NGO and social media partners show that
CISA created the Election Integrity Partnership, EIP, in 2020,
which involved the Stanford Internet Observatory and other U.S.
Government contractors.
EIP and its successor, the Virality Project, urged Twitter,
Facebook, and other platforms to censor social media posts by
ordinary citizens and elected officials alike. EIP reported
that they had a 75-percent response rate from the platforms and
that 35 percent of the URLs that they reported were either
removed, labeled, throttled, or soft-blocked.
In 2020, the Department of Homeland Security's CISA
violated the First Amendment and interfered in the election,
while, in 2021, CISA and the White House violated the First
Amendment and undermined America's response to the COVID
pandemic by demanding that Facebook and Twitter censor content
that Facebook itself said was, quote, ``often true,'' including
about vaccine side effects.
All of this is profoundly un-American. One's commitment to
free speech means nothing if it does not extend to your
political enemies.
In his essential new book, ``Liar in a Crowded Theater,''
Jeff Kosseff, a law professor at the United States Naval
Academy, shows that the widespread view that the government can
censor false speech and/or speech that, quote, ``causes harm''
is mostly wrong. The Supreme Court has allowed very few
constraints on speech. For example, the test of incitement to
violence remains its immediacy.
I encourage Congress to defund and dismantle the government
organizations involved in censorship. That includes phasing out
all funding for the National Science Foundation's Track F,
Trust and Authenticity in Communication Systems, and its Secure
and Trustworthy Cyberspace track. I would also encourage
Congress to abolish CISA in DHS.
Short of taking those steps, I would encourage significant
guardrails and oversight to prevent such censorship from
happening again.
In particular, it's very easy to see the line in CISA. They
say they're covering physical security, cybersecurity, but they
added a third one, cognitive security, which is basically
attempting to control the information environment and how
people think about the world, including the stories that they
tell.
Finally, I would encourage Congress to consider making
Section 230 liability protections contingent upon social media
platforms, known in the law as ``interactive computer
services,'' to allow adult users to moderate our own legal
content through filters that we choose and whose algorithms are
transparent to all of us.
I would encourage Congress to prohibit government officials
from asking the platforms to remove content, which the Supreme
Court may or may not rule unconstitutional next year when it
decides on the Missouri v. Biden case.
Should the court somehow decide that the government
requests for censorship were Constitutional, then I would urge
Congress to require such requests be reported publicly,
instantaneously, so that such censorship demands occur in plain
sight.
Thank you very much for hearing my testimony.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Shellenberger follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chair Jordan. Thank you, Mr. Shellenberger.
Mr. Taibbi, you're recognized for five minutes.
STATEMENT OF MATT TAIBBI
Mr. Taibbi. Thank you very much.
Chair Jordan. Make sure you've got the mike on there.
Mr. Taibbi. Thank you, Chair Jordan--
Chair Jordan. Hit the mike there, if you could. Just hit
the button there. There we go.
Mr. Taibbi. All right. Sorry about that.
Thank you, Chair Jordan, Ranking Member Plaskett, and
Members of the Committee, for giving us the opportunity to
speak today.
Exactly one year ago today, I had my first look at the
documents that came to be known as the Twitter Files. We've
learned a lot since then.
When Michael and I testified before the good people of this
Committee in March, we both talked about how this isn't a
partisan issue at all. Despite the fact that it's been
repeatedly described as a right-wing conspiracy theory or a
right-wing fantasy, we found evidence of suppression of
movements on both sides, including leftist movements like the
Yellow Vests, parties like the Green Party, organizations like
Consortium Magazine.
Just this week, Michael and I reported on the group that he
talked about, the CTI League. In those documents, we found
evidence of monitoring groups like the Democratic Socialists of
America, hashtags ``#healthcareforall.''
The nature of censorship programs is that they tend to
expand in all directions, and these programs already have.
As someone who voted for Democrats his whole life and who
got his ideas about speech issues from people like Senator
Frank Church, Paul Wellstone, and Dennis Kucinich, I believe
also that there's a less obvious but more important reason that
people across the spectrum should care about this issue. The
former Executive Director of the ACLU, Ira Glasser, once
explained to a group of students why he didn't support hate-
speech codes on campuses. The problem, he said, ``wasn't the
speech.'' The problem was, quote, ``who gets to decide what's
hateful,'' who gets to decide what to ban, because, quote,
``most of the time, it ain't you.''
The story that came out in the Twitter Files and for which
more evidence surfaced in both the Missouri v. Biden lawsuit
and this Committee's Facebook Files releases and in the CTI
League documents--they all speak directly to Ira Glasser's
concerns.
There's been a dramatic shift in attitudes about speech in
this country, and many politicians now clearly believe the bulk
of Americans can't be trusted to digest information on their
own. This mindset imagines that if we see one clip from RT,
we'll stop being patriots; that once exposed to hate speech,
we'll become bigots ourselves automatically; that if we read
even one Donald Trump tweet, we'll become insurrectionists.
Having come to this conclusion, the government agencies
like the DHS and the FBI and the quasi-private agencies who do
anti-disinformation work have taken on themselves the
paternalistic responsibility to sort out for us what is and is
not safe. While they see great danger in allowing others to
read controversial material, it's taken for granted that they
themselves will be immune to the dangers of speech.
This leads to the one inescapable question about these new
anti-disinformation programs that is never discussed but needs
to be: Who does this work?
Stanford's Election Integrity Project helpfully made a
graphic showing the, quote, ``external stakeholders'' involved
in their content-review operation. It showed four columns:
Government, civil society, platforms, and media.
There's one group that's conspicuously absent from that
list: People, ordinary people.
Whether America continues the informal sub rosa censorship
system we've seen in the Twitter Files or the Facebook Files or
whether it formally adopts something like Europe's draconian
new Digital Services Act, it's already abundantly clear who
won't be involved in this kind of work. There will be no
dockworkers doing content flagging, no poor people from inner-
city neighborhoods, no single moms pulling multiple waitressing
jobs, no immigrant store owners, or Uber drivers.
These programs will always feature a tiny, rarified sliver
of affluent, professional-class Americans censoring a huge and
ever-expanding pool of everyone else.
Take away the highfalutin talk about countering hate and
reducing harm, and anti-disinformation is just a bluntly
elitist gatekeeping exercise. If you prefer to think in
progressive terms, it's class war.
If one small demographic over here has broad control over
the whole speech landscape and a great big one over there has
no control whatsoever, it follows that one of those groups will
end up with more political power than the other. Which one is
the winner? To paraphrase Ira Glasser, it probably ain't yours.
It isn't just one side or the other that will lose if these
programs are allowed to continue; it's pretty much everyone,
which is why these programs must be defunded before it's too
late.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Taibbi follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chair Jordan. Thank you, Mr. Taibbi. Well done.
Ms. Subramanya, you are recognized now for five minutes.
STATEMENT OF RUPA SUBRAMANYA
Ms. Subramanya. Thank you, Chair Jordan. I'm pleased to be
able to join you today to testify to the importance of free
expression.
I'd like all of you to think of me as a time traveler from
the not-too-distant future coming back to the present to offer
you a glimpse of what could lie ahead for America.
I live in a time, in which, in the name of fairness, you
can't share the stories you write from a news publication on
social media.
I live in a time in which, in the name of the common good,
you can be kicked out of your bank and online payment system
simply for expressing the wrong political views.
I live in a time in which, in the name of social justice,
you can commit a serious crime but get a more lenient sentence
if you happen to be the right skin color.
I live in a time in which, in the name of safety, you can
be arrested for exercising your right to peaceful protest if
you happen to be protesting the wrong thing.
Of course, I'm not a real time traveler; I just live in
Canada.
Americans, and perhaps those in this chamber, surely think
Canadians are too nice, we're too polite to embrace this sort
of proto-authoritarianism. It's more accurate to say that our
niceness made us susceptible to the new authoritarianism
undermining the foundations of our liberal democracy.
If it sounds like I'm overstating things, allow me to share
three stories that illustrate this creeping authoritarianism.
First, a few months ago, I reported a story from my
publication, The Free Press, about a high school principal in
Toronto who had been humiliated in front of his colleagues by a
DEI consultant. The principal's crime, besides being White and
male, was that he objected to the consultant's assertion that
Canada is a less-just society than America. The humiliation he
experienced ultimately led him to commit suicide.
I wanted to share that story on Facebook. When I tried to,
I was barred from posting it. I received a message that stated,
``In response to Canadian Government legislation, news content
can't be shared.''
I was confused. Then I remembered the recently adopted
Online News Act. The law forces social media companies to pay
online media companies to link to their content. Facebook,
instead of paying for that content, barred its users from
posting it.
Government officials insist that this is only a matter of
fairness, a way of making sure that media companies are
compensated for the news they report. Really, this new law
props up legacy media dinosaurs like the Canadian Broadcasting
Corporation, Bell Media, and other companies, which are
subsidized by the Federal Government and all which can be
counted on to echo Justin Trudeau's world view and toe the
party line.
Not being able to post was annoying, but it wasn't the end
of the world for me. I don't depend on Facebook for my income.
The same cannot be said of Christopher Curtis, which brings me
to my second story.
Chris is a 38-year-old renegade journalist entrepreneur in
Montreal who runs a digital newsletter called The Rover. He
calls himself ``woke.'' You might think that he's exactly the
kind of journalist the Trudeau government would elevate. He's
on the political left. He publishes stories about the plight of
the homeless and police brutality.
The problem is that, unlike government-funded news
companies, independent media companies are truly independent,
which means they report stories that don't comport with
whatever the government wants them to report.
For example, in September 2020, The Rover reported a story
on Federal mistreatment of Mohawk Indians. This month, it
published a story about migrant workers who had been abused and
trafficked with the unwitting help of the Federal Government.
Under this new law, The Rover can't build its audience.
Unable to post content on Facebook or Instagram, the newsletter
can't reach new subscribers. It cannot grow its subscriber
base.
This is a slow death, says Chris. For now, he's unsure how
he's going to support his partner and their three-year-old
daughter. He's thinking of going back into construction.
Which takes me to my third story. Danny Bulford, now 41,
used to be an officer in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the
equivalent of the FBI. For years, he was a sniper in the Prime
Minister's protective detail. Then, in 2021, Danny quit because
he didn't want to get his COVID vaccination.
In early 2022, truckers descended on Ottawa to protest new
COVID vaccine requirements. Danny joined them. The government
declared a State of Emergency. Danny, like many demonstrators,
was arrested and later released without charge.
Then, something chilling happened. On February 17, 2022,
Danny logs into his bank accounts, starting with his checking
and savings accounts at the CIBC, but instead of seeing his
balance--he had about $160,000 in there--the only thing he saw
was a dash.
Then, he logs onto Scotia Bank to see about an additional
checking account. Once again, there was no sign of any money in
his account.
Finally, he logs into the Royal Bank of Canada, which
handles his Mastercard account, and he was told he had no
access to any credit.
Danny's wife was also unable to access any of these
accounts. Suddenly, they were worrying about how to cover their
next mortgage payments and how to feed their three kids.
That is what it means to be debanked. Debanking has been
one of the Trudeau government's weapons of choice. Since 2018,
it has frozen the accounts of more than 800 Canadians who did
things they didn't approve of, including those of 280 who took
part in the truckers' protest, which the government regarded as
illegitimate.
Soon after, Danny moved his money out of the big banks and
into local credit unions, hoping it would be safer there. Danny
told me,
The worst part of this is not believing in the country I've
spent my career serving. It's this feeling that we're being
watched, torn apart, made to feel like the much hated other in
our own country.
Canada was once a bastion of free expression, but now not
so much. Consider that at the same time the government and its
corporate allies are curbing the free expression of truckers
and journalists, the government is defending the rights of pro-
Palestinian demonstrators, many of whom traffic in what can
only be called anti-Semitism.
Think about that. Vaccine skepticism, not OK. Peddling
medieval blood-libel legends about Jews, OK.
I'm all for protecting free speech. I am from the free
press. I just want that protection applied fairly.
I also want to be clear; these are just a handful of
hundreds of stories I could've picked. What is happening in
Canada is a gradual suffocation of free expression. It is
draped in a cloak of niceness, inclusivity, and justice, but it
is regressive, authoritarian, and illiberal.
I came here today not simply to warn you about what lies
ahead, but to plead with you to do something about it. Now is
not the time to be polite. Now is the time to defend loudly the
liberties and rights that have given us the greatest freedoms
in human history.
Across the world right now, governments, in the name of the
good, are considering or adopting measures like we have in
Canada. Look at Dublin. They're about to enact a draconian
hate-crime bill that poses a dire threat to free speech. In
Paris, President Emmanuel Macron has called for censoring
online speech. This is to say nothing of Russia, China, and
Iran.
America is so exceptional--indispensable, really. Please do
not succumb to the same illiberalism, authoritarianism. Please
keep fighting for what you know is right. Canada is watching.
The world is watching.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Subramanya follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chair Jordan. Well said. Thank you. Very well said.
Ms. Troye, you're recognized for five minutes, and we'll
give you a little extra if you need it.
STATEMENT OF OLIVIA TROYE
Ms. Troye. Chair Jordan, Ranking Member Plaskett, and
Members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to
testify today.
The threat of the weaponization of the Federal Government
is a serious topic that requires sober analysis. Unfortunately,
what we see here today and what we have seen from this
Committee over the past year is instead a politically motivated
fantasy detached from reality.
Members of this Committee and their witnesses make grand
and vague accusations about government censorship, but those
foggy allegations are refuted by the facts--that private social
media companies moderating content on their own private
platforms is not government censorship. It is those private
companies exercising their own First Amendment rights to rid
their platforms of misinformation.
In my experience as a national security official, the
Federal Government strictly adhered to the First Amendment by
advising and assisting social media platforms in combating
misinformation while the ultimate decision about what action,
if any, to take rested solely with the platforms themselves.
I know what real weaponization of the Federal Government
looks like because I've seen it with my own eyes. I worked in
the Trump White House, where I served as Homeland Security and
Counterterrorism Advisor to Vice President Mike Pence.
On numerous occasions, I witnessed President Trump and his
allies attempt to use the powers of the Presidency to further
his private political agenda at the expense of the American
people.
Trump Administration officials attempted to manipulate
intelligence assessments to support its ban on nationals from
Muslim countries entering the United States.
They delayed natural-disaster aid to blue States who had
not supported President Trump's election.
In the early days of the pandemic, they resisted sending
Federal assistance to New York, as thousands of innocent
Americans suffered.
Instead of continuing to spread conspiracy theories about
government censorship, this Committee should instead focus on
the very real and very dangerous threat posed by the leading
Republican candidate openly threatening to use every lever of
Presidential power against his political opponents if he
returns to the White House.
Former President Trump has promised, quote, ``retribution''
against those who have wronged and betrayed him and his
political movement. He has pledged to, quote, ``root out the
radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of
our country.'' Trump has called the press ``the enemy of the
people'' and has vowed to, quote, ``come down hard'' on MSNBC
and ``make them pay,'' quote, ``for its critical coverage of
him.'' He has promised to, quote, ``arrest'' his political
opponents, saying he would ``have no choice.'' ``Lock them
up.'' He has said that his own Chair of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff committed treason and that, quote, ``in times gone by,
the punishment would have been death.'' Most ominously, he has
called for ``the termination of all rules, regulations, and
articles, even those found in the Constitution.'' His words.
As a lifelong Republican, I have dedicated my entire career
to protecting Americans from terrorist attacks regardless of
their partisan affiliation. Former President Trump's menacing
promise to wield the powers of government as a weapon against
his political adversaries poses a grave threat to the rule of
law in the United States of America.
The American people deserve that their Representatives in
Congress see that threat and speak to it honestly instead of
the political theater we see here today.
I welcome the Committee's questions.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Troye follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chair Jordan. Thank you, Ms. Troye.
We will now go to five-minute questions from the Members.
We will start with the gentleman from California, Mr. Issa.
You're recognized for five minutes.
Mr. Issa. Thank you.
I want to note the appearance of President Trump by the
Ranking Member and by one witness. Today is not about President
Trump. The actions that occurred during his administration are
available for everyone to look at. Our witnesses today are
asking, and answering effectively, questions about the effects
of suppression of free speech.
As a father of a Canadian daughter-in-law, I want to thank
you for making people understand that this well-liked, nice
country to our North can also make the kinds of mistakes that
we seem to be making.
So, one of the questions that I have is--two of you have
been here before, and I think it's important to ask: You
mentioned some of the current activities as you continue to
monitor it and you, particularly, mentioned the protest and the
activities related to Israel's attempt to get back its
hostages.
Can you elaborate on some of the specifics that you think
you see here in the way of either suppression or amplification?
Is there any evidence that we're continuing to see, if you
will, a bias that social media doesn't have a problem reporting
one side, but does have a problem reporting the other side?
Mr. Shellenberger. Um--
Mr. Issa. I know it's a tough question.
Mr. Shellenberger. Yes. We've certainly, I think we've all
seen calls to Matt's point that this is not a partisan issue,
that we should all--that the test of your commitment to free
speech is that you would like to see the speech that you really
despise protected and that you would defend it.
I think we've seen calls for censoring pro-Palestine, pro-
Hamas speech and have been disturbed by that, and Rupa has
described that. We've also seen calls for censorship of the
other side. We've seen misinformation spread on all sides.
So, I think that what you're hearing from us is a general
call that everybody needs to just calm down and remember that
this country's greatness is really founded on that protection
for that kind of--that protection of speech that we all might
consider to be hateful.
I always remind people that one of the most--some of the
most important court decisions by the Supreme Court were
protecting the speech of neo-Nazis in the Brandenburg decision
and the decision in Skokie.
If we can tolerate neo-Nazis marching through neighborhoods
of Holocaust survivors, certainly I think we're capable of
tolerating people defending violent attacks.
Mr. Issa. That brings us to a question. As we bring you
back here and some new witnesses, do we have a challenge in
America, that we're constantly looking at what should be
censored rather than how do we get more free speech so that the
counter-opinions are heard as loudly as those who yell and are
heard the first time?
Mr. Taibbi. Well, first, thank you for the question. I
think it's important to remember that the First Amendment not
only guarantees people the right to speak and voice their
opinions, but it also guarantees the right of all of us to hear
those opinions, that's a crucial element of the promise--
Mr. Issa. So, that goes to a followup. If that's the case,
your suggestion about an instantaneous and transparent
unveiling of any and all reduction, throttling, et cetera--
let's assume for a moment it's technically possible, quickly.
It's certainly possible, but let's just say it was technically
possible quickly.
We're a legislative body. Do you believe it's appropriate
for us, in a transparency act, to mandate that this happen so
that we no longer have the kind of things that happened to the
Chair, where he simply was systematically throttled, so that he
wasn't censored; he simply wasn't heard very loudly? If we had
that, do you believe that it would've changed the outcome?
Should Congress look at mandating it?
Mr. Shellenberger. I can say something about that.
Mr. Taibbi. Yes, sure.
Mr. Shellenberger. Yes, I strongly support transparency. If
you require, for example, that government officials or people
supported by the government, such as this EIP or VP group--and,
by the way, just to give you some quotes--
Mr. Issa. You mean what the Ranking Member described as
legitimate suggestions and it was independent?
Mr. Shellenberger. Right.
Mr. Issa. Isn't that always the defense, though, is that we
didn't make the decision and the other guy didn't make the
decision, it just happened?
Mr. Shellenberger. Right.
Mr. Issa. I'm down to just a few seconds, and I do want to
thank our Canadian for pointing out that we are but one step
away from defunding, here in the United States, bank accounts.
This administration has returned, so you understand, in the
United States, to making sure that people selling products or
involved in activities that they don't want to fail to have
access. That is another form of censorship that I'm sorry it's
gone so far in Canada, but trust me, it's underway in this
country.
Mr. Chair, I thank you.
I thank both of you. Sorry to cut you off.
I yield back.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman yields back.
The gentleman from Virginia is recognized.
Mr. Connolly. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Ms. Troye, I want to thank you for your powerful statement
and for your courage.
I understand why my friend from California wants to tell us
that this hearing isn't about Donald Trump. Because that's too
difficult a topic--
Mr. Issa. Gerry, as my friend, I did want to--
Mr. Connolly. Mr. Chair--
Mr. Issa. --thank you for bringing--
Mr. Connolly. Mr. Chair--
Chair Jordan. Hold on. The time--
Mr. Connolly. Mr. Chair, it's my time. I reclaim my time.
Chair Jordan. The time belongs to the gentleman from
Virginia.
Mr. Connolly. Imagine it's October 2020, and someone tells
you that President Donald Trump is going to use violence and
chaos directed at the Congress and the Vice President of the
United States to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020
Presidential election.
For many, that would've been hard to believe. I'm sure my
friends on the other side would've said, ``There they go again.
Critics of Trump will just claim anything.''
Everyone here saw what happened on January 6th. We now
have, in fact, a Federal indictment charging him with that very
matter.
This month, we learned that Donald Trump's shadow
administration at Project 2025 is planning Executive Orders
that would invoke the Insurrection Act and allow him to send
military out to patrol American streets.
Ms. Troye, some of my colleagues across the aisle have
suggested that Trump's quotes about using military in our
cities and the rumored plans to invoke the Insurrection Act are
simply bluster designed to galvanize his base.
Would you dismiss Trump's plans to deploy the military
against American citizens as bluster?
Ms. Troye. Thank you for the question.
Absolutely not, having worked in the Trump Administration
when President Trump at the time repeatedly raised the
Insurrection Act as a potential to be used on protesters, even
safe protesters, repeatedly.
I can tell you that there were some serious heated
discussions with members of his own Cabinet--the Secretary of
Defense, the Chair of the Joint Staff--heads of law
enforcement, who expressed significant concern about the things
being discussed to be used against our own American citizens.
That is something that should be taken very, very
seriously.
Mr. Connolly. On June 1, 20- --on June 1, Americans watched
as the National Guard participated in a violent crackdown near
the White House.
That's what you're referring to, is that not right?
Ms. Troye. Correct.
Mr. Connolly. There was a heated debate. The President was
the one asking that Federal troops, military, U.S. military, be
called, up to 10,000 troops, to quell peaceful protests in
Washington, DC.
Is that accurate?
Ms. Troye. That is correct. I was there that day.
Mr. Connolly. That was the President arguing to use the
military?
Ms. Troye. That is correct.
Mr. Connolly. Presumably, General Milley, at the time,
resisted those calls. Is that correct?
Ms. Troye. That is correct, and so did Secretary Esper.
Mr. Connolly. That might have something to do with
President Trump referring to the Chair of the Joint Chiefs,
General Milley, his Chair, as a traitor and invoking the fact
that, in the old days, the price to be paid for convicted
treason is death.
Is that correct?
Ms. Troye. That is correct. Chair Milley was just doing his
job and military service.
Mr. Connolly. Do you believe that the deployment of 10,000
troops at that time would've been consistent with the mission
of the American military, suppressing peaceful demonstrations
by fellow Americans in the Nation's capital?
Ms. Troye. President Trump was told repeatedly that this
would not be an appropriate use of the military resources. He
was also told that his efforts to resituate law enforcement and
use law enforcement agencies that were not appropriate for
crowd control were also incorrect uses of what our law
enforcement and these entities are traditionally used for.
Mr. Connolly. In your testimony, you cited violent
language, increasingly incendiary language being invoked by
President Trump about his so-called enemies.
One of the words he used was ``vermin.'' What does that
echo in your mind? Anyone else come to mind historically who
referred to enemies of the State as ``vermin''?
Ms. Troye. Yes. The horrible Hitler.
Mr. Connolly. Goebbels.
Thank you. Thank you so much for your courage. Thank you
for being here. I hope the American people take heed from your
strong words today about the threat that's looming.
I yield back.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman yields back.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Kentucky for five
minutes.
Mr. Massie. I thank the Chair.
Ms. Troye, you stated in your opening statement that this
Committee was indulging in fantasy detached from reality, that
Members of this Committee and their witnesses make grand and
vague accusations about government censorship, and that we are
spreading conspiracy theories about government censorship.
Would one of those conspiracy theories be that government-
funded agencies were flagging and trying to censor official
congressional accounts on social media? Are you denying that
this occurred?
Ms. Troye. I would have no knowledge of that. I'm not aware
of that happening.
Mr. Massie. Well, we're going to make you aware of that
right now.
Mr. Shellenberger, can you speak to this tweet? I saw that
you flagged this in one of your recent articles on Substack.
Can you tell us why this tweet brought attention in your
article?
Mr. Shellenberger. Yes, because that was one of the tweets
that the Virality Project at Stanford Internet Observatory had
flagged to Twitter as misinformation and that--I believe it was
labeled or censored in some other way.
Mr. Massie. So, it was--the Stanford Virality Project, that
is funded by the government, is it not?
Mr. Shellenberger. Yes, it is.
Mr. Massie. So their purpose, ostensibly, is to stop
misinformation, malinformation, and to flag things they say
that might be against the terms of service of the social media
companies. Is that correct?
Mr. Shellenberger. Yes, that's right.
Mr. Massie. Ms. Troye, is there any reason you think that
this should've been flagged for removal?
Ms. Troye. It depends on whether you're spreading
inaccurate information.
Mr. Massie. Well, it references a study from Israel--
Ms. Troye. You seem to do that often.
Mr. Massie. --a published study from Israel, and the tweet
just restates the title of the study.
Does it trouble you that--
Ms. Troye. It's up to the social media companies to review
their policies. It's an internal choice.
Mr. Massie. Yes. Are you going to sit here and maintain
that it's a conspiracy theory that this occurred? We have the
documents. Mr. Shellenberger has the documents that show that
this occurred.
Ms. Troye. Well, then it was flagged for a reason.
Mr. Massie. What's the reason? Is there ever a good reason
to censor a Member of Congress?
This is my official account. This is not a personal
account. This is not a campaign account. This is my
communication with my constituents.
By the way, I bring this up not to claim that Members of
Congress have more right to free speech than the general
public. In fact, I don't even think the press or the media has
more rights to the First Amendment than the general public. The
general public has the same rights that we have.
I bring this up to show (1) that your testimony is false,
but (2) if they can do this to a Member of Congress's official
account, they can do it to anybody.
Chair Jordan. Uh-huh.
Mr. Massie. Now, I want to move on to the origins of these
programs.
Mr. Shellenberger, can you tell us about the Cyber Threat
Intelligence League? Was this just a group of vigilantes,
concerned citizens, or was it in any way connected to the
government? What did they endeavor to do?
Mr. Shellenberger. Yes, this was--so, first, it's a pretty
ludicrous founding, which was that this is a group of--it was
Israeli--so-called former Israeli intelligence, former British
intelligence also working at Microsoft, and others, who
basically said, ``we're going to volunteer our services.''
These are some of the world's greatest, so-called,
cybersecurity professionals volunteering their services to
multibillion-dollar hospital and healthcare organizations,
whose own IT organizations spend millions of dollars a year on
cybersecurity, supposedly volunteering this. This was the
premise of the whole thing.
Then, it created this third part that I mentioned. They had
physical security, cybersecurity; they added cognitive
security. The people that did that were two U.K. and U.S.
military contractors.
This was one of the most sophisticated disinformation
operations that I've ever seen. I've been involved in
progressive causes for over 30 years. I've never seen anything
so organized, anything that was so focused on a particular goal
and that had so many people that came from military and
intelligence organizations. It gave me the creeps, just reading
about it.
Mr. Massie. In the documents, is it true that they used
their agency seals--FBI, CISA--when they were communicating
with each other?
Mr. Shellenberger. That's right. The whistleblower provided
screenshots of Slack conversations that included officials from
DHS, Facebook, and the CTI League.
Mr. Massie. So, it would be hard for somebody to claim that
these folks weren't agents of the government or acting in
coordination with the government or using things that they
learned in their government--were some of them still employed
by the U.S. Government when they were undertaking this?
Mr. Shellenberger. Yes. Pablo Breuer was working for the
U.S. Navy at the time. The others were--many of the others were
claiming to be volunteering their time even while working their
day jobs for the government.
Mr. Massie. I thank you, Mr. Chair, and I yield back.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman yields back.
The gentleman from Massachusetts is recognized for five
minutes.
Mr. Lynch. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Chair, there's a term in behavioral science called the
``weaponization of incompetence'' that is--it refers to ``the
tactic of employing deliberate or feigned ineptitude or
stupidity in order to avoid an unwanted task or
responsibility.'' I dare say, that is what the Republican
leadership is involved in in this Committee.
This is--the last hearing--even though this Subcommittee
was launched with great fanfare, we have not had a hearing in
this Subcommittee, this select Subcommittee, since July. Since
July.
Not only has so much time passed, but at today's hearing we
bring back the same two witnesses that we heard back in July.
Actually, Mr. Shellenberger mentioned nine months ago that he
had been here.
So, I'm just cognizant of the fact that this is an
investigation of the Federal Government, right? The Federal
Government. That's who we're supposed to be investigating. We
have 4.3 million Federal employees, we have two million
retirees, all of whom would be available to come here and
testify about their experience for these allegations of
weaponization of the Federal Government. Yet, we bring back the
same two witnesses we had many months ago and we bring back, by
her own description, a time traveler from Canada.
I love Canada, by the way. If this was a hearing on the
Canadian Government, I would have Canadians lined up out in the
hallway ready to testify.
The only witness here with actual experience in the Federal
Government and could testify to that is Ms. Troye. I'm very
thankful for her testimony.
I'm old enough to remember Republicans who knew what they
were doing. I miss them. I miss them.
I'm old enough to remember a Republican President who stood
up--stood up--to Russian dictators, not sucked up to Russian
dictators; American Presidents, Republicans, who told Mr.
Gorbachev, ``Take down this wall,'' stood up for democracy,
defended our democratic allies in Europe, didn't look for
excuses, that, ``Well, the money's not in the budget, so we
can't defend Europe.'' That's what I see here today.
Ms. Troye, the effect of incompetence in government at
extreme levels, is that not, itself, a threat to national
security?
Ms. Troye. Yes, it absolutely is.
Mr. Lynch. So, in our government, we recently spent 22 days
without a Speaker of the House due to infighting. We went
through multiple candidates. It was like an episode of one of
those reality shows. We got another candidate and another
candidate.
The only reason the recent Speaker got elected is because
he had the distinct quality that no one really knew him, and so
he was chosen as our next Speaker.
The litmus test was whether or not the next Speaker was
subservient enough and adherent enough to the former President,
who runs the Republican Party out of Mar-a-Lago.
Mr. Lynch. That's not all. In June, the House Republican
leadership brought us to the verge of a catastrophic default on
our national debt, one that leading economists warned would be
a first in American history and undermine the full faith and
credit of the U.S. Government and lead to a global economic
meltdown.
So, now we are facing a war in Europe, a war in the Middle
East. We're facing a looming shutdown again of the U.S.
Government, and we're dealing with the weaponization of the
deep State, which seems pretty shallow at this point, with the
parcity of witnesses that the Republican majority has produced.
I hope at some point we get back to the business that
America sent us here to do. This is not it. This is crazy
conspiracy theory that we're pursuing here, and we ought to get
back to the business that America demands us by virtue of our
oath of office.
I yield back.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman yields back.
The Chair now recognizes the gentlelady from New York, Ms.
Stefanik, for five minutes.
Ms. Stefanik. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
It has been almost 1 year since the first bombshell Twitter
Files. Looking back now--and my questions are for Mr. Taibbi
and Mr. Shellenberger--what was the most alarming thing that
you came across during your review of internal Twitter
documents? I have a number of followup questions, so keep it
short.
Mr. Taibbi. Sure. Thank you for the question. I think the
most alarming thing that we saw was the regular stream--
organized stream of communication between the FBI, the
Department of Homeland Security, and the largest tech companies
in the country. They had an organized system for flagging
content, not occasionally but in enormous numbers, involving
spreadsheets of accounts that ran to the hundreds and
thousands. This was shocking to us.
To the Congressman's point, this isn't crazy conspiracy
theory. We've already had four Federal judges rule that they
believe this activity violates the First Amendment. This is
quite serious.
We didn't know whether it was against the law, but we
certainly thought it was shocking enough to be in the public
interest, and that for me was the most serious.
Mr. Shellenberger. Yes. For me, it was seeing the so-called
former FBI officials within Twitter and working with--and other
groups, including this Aspen Institute, participating in an
effort to so-called pre-bunk the Hunter Biden laptop before it
was ever published in the New York Post, and then to get it
censored by Twitter in violation of Twitter's own terms of
service, whose internal staff had concluded that the New York
Post tweet had not violated their terms of service and they
censored it anyway.
Ms. Stefanik. Mr. Shellenberger, I want to ask you further,
that revolving door between the FBI and Twitter, and I also
want to ask about those third-party, essentially, government
proxies. You referenced the Aspen Institute. Can you delve
deeper into both of those questions, both of those topics?
Mr. Shellenberger. Sure. As the former General Counsel of
the FBI, Jim Baker, and the former Deputy Director of the FBI
had both taken jobs at Twitter, there were so many FBI people
at Twitter that they had their own internal group and their own
little crib sheet to describe the difference between the terms
that they use at the FBI versus at Twitter.
Mr. Taibbi. CIA had it as well.
Mr. Shellenberger. Yes, CIA as well had their own little
internal group. I'm sorry, what was the second question?
Ms. Stefanik. The third-party proxies with the Aspen--
Mr. Shellenberger. Oh, yes. Within the Aspen Institute--
this was the weirdest thing--we discovered that Aspen Institute
had created a workshop, that it was attended by basically all
of the major media, including--as well as all the major social
media platforms, to basically pre-bunk in advance the Hunter
Biden laptop, even though it had not been--there was no
evidence that it existed, outside of the fact that the FBI knew
that they had it because they got it in December 2019.
So, to have the Aspen Institute trying to persuade people
not to cover the Hunter Biden laptop story in August-September
2020, was quite chilling and disturbing to see.
Ms. Stefanik. These content moderators at social media
platforms like Twitter wield an enormous amount of power in
terms of determining not only what Americans can say but also
what Americans can see.
Do you believe, Mr. Taibbi and Mr. Shellenberger, that it's
appropriate for unelected bureaucrats or these tech companies
to collude to influence what Americans can say or read?
Mr. Shellenberger. Absolutely not. I wanted to stress again
that all this was happening secretively with the blessing of
the Department of Homeland Security, with them sending things
to--this is from the EIP at Stanford to Twitter and Facebook,
saying,
We repeat our recommendations that this account be suspended.
We recommend labelling all instances of this article. We
recommend that you flag as false.
This and all these demands being made secretly without any
public review.
My view is that we don't--the government doesn't decide who
can speak in the town square. Why should the government be
deciding who can speak on social media platforms? We, the
people, should decide our own content as adults, legal content.
It should not be decided by either government or big tech.
Ms. Stefanik. Mr. Taibbi and Mr. Shellenberger, do you
believe that this censorship is a form of election
interference?
Mr. Shellenberger. Absolutely it is. There's no question in
my mind.
Ms. Stefanik. Mr. Taibbi?
Mr. Taibbi. Yes, I think it certainly can be. In the latest
story that we did on the CTI League, we saw the
overpartisanship of the people involved in this operation. That
was actually the reason the whistleblower came forward. The
people involved used to sit--one of--the quote was, ``they
assumed anyone who was smart thought the way they did.''
They talked about the potential election of Donald Trump
being an end-of-the-world event. They talked about the
wackadoodles who actually watch FOX News. Even as someone who
doesn't vote for Republicans, it was shocking to me to see
this. This was a consistent theme of not just the CTI League,
but most of the censorship organizations that we looked at,
they all tend to drift in one direction.
Ms. Stefanik. I yield back.
Chair Jordan. The gentlelady yields back.
The Chair now recognizes the gentlelady from Florida.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
All of us here today have heard the stories of the depth of
human depravity from the Hamas attacks resulting in unthinkable
brutality, including the mass murder of innocent Jews and
civilians on October 7th. Witnessing such barbarities steals
part of your humanity, and it demonstrates how hatred can drive
humans to do unspeakable things to one another. Nowhere, is
hatred more evident than on social media.
Since the October 7th attack, anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim
hate speech has exploded online. In just 1 month after the
attack, the hashtag ``Hitler was right'' appeared in over
46,000 posts. The rhetoric isn't limited to hate speech and
death threats. Jewish conspiracy theories and disinformation
continually find a safe harbor on social media platforms. Even
the racist and anti-Semitic Great Replacement Theory was
recently amplified on Twitter/X by none other than its owner,
Elon Musk, and the right-wing darling, Tucker Carlson.
Terrorists use the platforms to terrorize target
populations, and Hamas even used the personal accounts of
hostages and victims to live stream their brutality to incite
further violence.
Mr. Taibbi, yes or no, should social media companies allow
rape and murder to be live-streamed by terrorists on their
platforms to create fear and incite violence.
Mr. Taibbi. I believe that would violate their terms of
service, would it not?
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. So, your answer is no, they should
not be allowed to do that?
Mr. Taibbi. Live stream rape and murder?
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Right.
Mr. Taibbi. No. I think that would count as speech that
would be prohibited under their terms of service.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Good. You do have absolutist
policies, but--
Mr. Taibbi. I do not have absolutist--I do not have--
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Please don't interrupt me. You have
absolutist--I've asked you a question. You answered it.
You do have absolutist policies. At least they have some
limits, but I think a Homeland Security official--
Mr. Taibbi. With respect, Congresswoman, all journalists
operate under limits.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Excuse me. Reclaiming my time.
If a Homeland Security official echoed your opinion, you
would call it censorship, but I'm glad that at least you
acknowledge that rape and murder should not be allowed on
social media platforms.
Ms. Troye, I have the same question. Yes or no, should
social media companies take down brutal images of rape and
murder live-streamed by Hamas or similar groups like ISIS?
Ms. Subramanya. I agree with--
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. No. Ms. Troye.
Ms. Subramanya. Oh.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Ms. Troye.
Ms. Subramanya. Ms. Troye? You were looking at me. Sorry.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Sorry.
Ms. Troye. Yes, I believe they should follow their internal
policies and they should absolutely not leave content up like
that. I can tell you, as someone who worked on the Christchurch
shooting where that terrorist live-streamed the attack, which
was horrifying, horrific, we did have conversations. We had
official meetings with social media as an international
community to discuss terrorists' use of the internet and this
violent rhetoric on there and what it would lead to potential--
more potential violence. These conversations were done in
conjunction with social media companies, and it was up to them
on their policies to make their decision on whether that met
the threshold.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. That's exactly the point. Can you
talk about, during your time at the Trump White House, did you
experience situations where information shared on social media
presented a national security concern?
Ms. Troye. Yes, there were multiple times. I will also
reference what happened at the El Paso Walmart shooting where
there was reference to the Great Replacement. That manifesto
was posted on social media. That social media platform did not
cooperate, they did not remove it, and I want to remind people
that my aunt was in that Walmart when that shooting happened.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Shifting gears, I want to ask about
actual weaponization of the Federal Government, not the bogus
red herrings that my Republican colleagues want to chase today,
as you referenced in your opening statement.
In your time on Trump's National Security Council, how were
NSC staffers treated if they pushed back on so-called deep
State narratives?
Ms. Troye. Well, a lot of the time they were fired.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Given what you saw on Trump's fresh
threats to literally weaponize the government to attack his
critics, what would a potential second term look like?
Ms. Troye. I think that you would see many experts across
U.S. Government and the intelligence community purged. There is
currently a plan, Project 2025, it talks about exactly that. I
think that you would see a lot of the expertise be replaced by
loyalists, and as a result of that, you would see a lot of
damage to programs across the U.S.Government that I want to
remind people that all Americans utilize and need.
There would be loyalists in charge of disaster relief aid,
like I've mentioned, who would be making those decisions.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you.
So, making sure that we have social media companies that
are able to communicate with the Federal Government, to ensure
that we protect people's lives and national security interests
is critical.
Mr. Chair, we know social media companies fail to
adequately moderate content, and this consistent failure
spreads hate and deadly information. Hate online jumps off the
screen and results in real-world acts of violence. Instead of
focusing on real-world dangers, Republicans pillory public
officials and academics who call out the companies who profit
from the harm that they help cause. Then, somehow they twist it
into a narrative where conservatives are the victims, even as
Trump revives Nixon's enemies list right in front of our eyes.
It's time for Republicans to stop gaslighting Americans.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Goldman. Mr. Chair, I have a unanimous consent motion.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman is recognized.
Mr. Goldman. I'd ask unanimous consent to introduce a
November 21, 2023, letter to Linda Yaccarino, CEO of X, and
Elon Musk, owner of X, that was signed by 25 Members of
Congress, expressing grave concern surrounding X's failure to
abide by its own policies governing the promotion of
misinformation and hateful, violent, and terroristic propaganda
videos and for using those videos for profit.
Chair Jordan. OK. Without objection.
Mr. Massie. Mr. Chair, I have a unanimous consent request.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman from Kentucky is recognized.
Mr. Massie. I ask unanimous consent to submit for the
record an article entitled, ``CTIL files #1: U.S. and U.K.
Military Contractors Created Sweeping Plan for Global
Censorship in 2018, New Documents Show,'' by Michael
Shellenberger, Alex Gutentag, and Matt Taibbi, November 28,
2023.
Chair Jordan. Yes. Without objection.
Chair Jordan. The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from
Florida for five minutes.
Mr. Steube. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
It's just absolutely fascinating to me how the folks on the
left side of this dais are calling these things conspiracy
theories when just through the Missouri v. Biden case, there is
a treasure trove of actual evidence in a court proceeding,
witness testimony, factual evidence, that shows that all this
has been happening under the Biden Administration and that
there is true censorship from this White House into the
American people.
Mr. Shellenberger, I want to start with you. On November 2,
2023, you posted an article on your Substack, entitled, ``FBI
and DHS Directors Mislead Congress About Censorship.''
In the post, you detail Senator Paul's recent questioning
of DHS Secretary Mayorkas and FBI Director Wray regarding their
respective departments' censorship activities. Notably,
Secretary Mayorkas and Director Wray both testified that their
agency personnel complied with the law and did not violate
First Amendment rights by targeting Constitutionally protected
speech on social media platforms.
Given what we have learned in recent months from the
Missouri v. Biden case and your investigative reporting shining
the light on the Cyber Threat Intelligence League, is it fair
to say that Secretary Mayorkas and Director Wray lied to
Congress when they told Senator Paul that their agency
personnel did not target Constitutionally protected speech?
Mr. Shellenberger. Yes, it's fair to say that they misled
Congress. I can't be sure of their intention, but they're wrong
that those agencies weren't involved in demanding censorship by
the social media platforms.
Mr. Steube. Just briefly, how were they involved in
censoring speech? I don't want to read your whole article,
just--
Mr. Shellenberger. Sure. FBI agents were directly flagging
content to Twitter, saying, this appears to violate your terms
of service, what about this, what about that. Same thing with
DHS staff. Then, of course, DHS created the Election Integrity
Partnership, which then became The Virality Project, which was
in the process of demanding mass censorship of Americans.
Mr. Steube. Based on them reaching out, a lot of these
social media companies then acted on that, like the Hunter
Biden laptop, all these different activities, correct?
Mr. Shellenberger. Yes, absolutely. You have to remember,
the context is that this was at a time when the social media
companies were being threatened to lose their ability to
operate, which is the Section 230.
One of the most dramatic instances which is in the Facebook
Files is where the White House is demanding that Facebook
censor content that they think could lead to people becoming
hesitant to take the vaccine. Facebook responded and said that
they were removing often true content of vaccine side effects.
Mr. Steube. Your piece also notes that Director Wray
acknowledged that the FBI has been forced to alter its
coordination with social media companies to comply with the
injunction issued by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in
Missouri v. Biden.
Mr. Shellenberger. Right.
Mr. Steube. Would you agree that this is an acknowledgment
that the FBI's prior censorship conduct does, in fact, violate
the First Amendment rights of Americans?
Mr. Shellenberger. Absolutely.
Mr. Steube. Mr. Chair, I'd ask unanimous consent to enter
into the record Mr. Shellenberger's Substack post from November
2, 2023.
Chair Jordan. Without objection
Mr. Steube. Unless Congress acts, will there be any
consequences for these government officials who have actively
supported censorship of certain viewpoints on social media?
Mr. Shellenberger. We all hope that the Supreme Court rules
against these kinds of activities consistent with its past
precedence that the government cannot appoint somebody else to
violate the law, which is what was going on here. I don't think
we can rely on the Supreme Court. I do think Congress should
establish, through Section 230 reform, the requirement that we,
the people, are allowed to moderate our own content by choosing
our own filters, and that it should not be up to the big tech
platforms. If you don't want to have a Section 230, then you
can just be a publisher like Matt and I are or The New York
Times is.
Mr. Steube. Well, and I've worked on Section 230
legislation, the Chair is working on that, and I think that's
something that absolutely has to happen this Congress so that
people get their freedom and their First Amendment rights back.
It's clear to me that Congress must act and hold these
government officials accountable. The censorship industrial
complex, as you put it, and Mr. Taibbi has dubbed it, is an
existential threat to our First Amendment freedoms. Unless we
come together to impose transparency and accountability
measures to prevent the government from engaging in such
behavior, this activity will unfortunately continue.
I'm proud to be a cosponsor of the Chair Jordan's Free
Speech Protection Act that he sponsored in partnership with
Senator Paul. This legislation is needed to ensure that
government officials face significant consequences for engaging
in the censorship and suppression of speech protected by our
Constitution.
Further, we must enact transparency measures so that
officials cannot hide behind public-private partnerships to
skirt around their legal obligations. Sadly, we cannot trust
many Federal officials to adhere to their oath they took to
uphold and defend the Constitution, and it's up to Congress to
ensure our First Amendment rights are protected.
In the remaining time I have, Mr. Taibbi, if you could just
comment on what you weren't able to respond to from Ms.
Wasserman Schultz.
Mr. Taibbi. Well, first, just for the record, I've said on
many occasions that I'm not a free speech absolutist. In fact,
no journalist is or can be. We all operate under very serious
restrictions involving libel, defamation, and incitement. We
have to navigate each one of those rules every time we publish
anything, and we always look fondly on that process because we
believe those rules protect us.
So, we're not free speech absolutists. We're just not in
favor of government censorship. That's the issue here. There's
a profound difference between litigating something like libel
or defamation and having an unelected, unaccountable, unseen
committee remove your content without any due process. That's
what we're talking about.
Mr. Steube. I yield back. Thank you for being here.
Chair Jordan. The time of the gentleman is expired. The
gentleman yields back.
The gentlelady from Texas is recognized.
Ms. Garcia. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to all the
witnesses for being here.
Ms. Troye, I just want to start with saying
congratulations. I know today is your anniversary. What a way
to kick off your tenth-year anniversary.
Let me just say that, as a fellow Texan, I certainly
recognize, respect, and admire the courage that you have shown
in appearing here today and also making other statements and
speaking up about some of the issues that we will talk about
today.
Before coming to Congress, many, many years ago, I was a
judge in Houston, in Texas. I oversaw courtrooms as the
presiding judge. So, I understand well the need for privacy to
make the justice system work.
Everyone here has heard of witness protection. We know the
bad guys want to scare and intimidate the opposition. You've
talked about a bad guy today, and I think you said that in one
interview that I saw you did, that former President Trump
would-- ``never saw a line he wouldn't cross.'' You also said
that he was about bullying, ``retribution, attacking,
humiliating, badgering any opposition.''
So, we all understand the importance of safeguarding
sensitive information, and that's why I'm appalled at the
number of people that are being doxed. For those who don't know
what doxed means, it simply means that someone takes sensitive,
personal, identifying information from court cases or private
documents and they blast it out to the world without the
person's permission.
This harmful practice often targets people who are
outspoken politically, and the information is being published
by political opponents, like biased news outlets with slanted
views or individual bad actors hiding safely behind their own
anonymous keyboards.
Ms. Troye, have you ever been targeted by trolls on the
internet? If so, are you willing to share how that experience
has impacted you and your family?
Ms. Troye. Yes. I am the subject of trolling consistently,
and it has been intimidating at times. At times my family has
had to leave our home, and it has been stressful and unnerving.
I am very much in touch with law enforcement locally at times
when these incidents have happened.
I have personally actually been doxed by a member of
President Trump's Cabinet, an acting Member of his Cabinet,
when he filed a lawsuit against me, and instead of redacting my
home address, he published it and Breitbart circulated it. It
was circulated on social media.
Fortunately, I was actually not living at that address at
the time, but I will tell you that I felt very deeply for the
family, the innocent family that was, where I had to send law
enforcement to their home and warn them that there could be
potential danger to their family because my address had been
put out there thinking that is where I lived.
Ms. Garcia. So, is there other personal information or
sensitive information about you that has been put out there
about you, your husband, or any member of your family?
Ms. Troye. Certainly, information about my family has been
published, information about, believe it or not, my pets. I am
a dog lover. I love Ringo and Stevie. They're my two Woodles. I
love them more than anything. They're like our kids. My husband
knows this. Certainly, the pictures of them at times have been
returned to me with their heads beheaded. I don't know how you
can actually do that to just an innocent animal.
These are the kinds of things that I know myself and other
colleagues have been on the receiving end of.
Ms. Garcia. So, you've been targeted mostly online, this
bullying harassment, or have you also been harassed or--
Ms. Troye. We've had people--yes.
Ms. Garcia. --anything in your home or when you're
shopping?
Ms. Troye. I've certainly had harassment in public. I've
certainly had people troll and case our house. We have a lot of
security. I will tell you that I have turned on social media
monitoring for this hearing because I know how this goes when
scenarios like this happen, and I know it's happened to others
who have testified in situations. I know that it happened to
colleagues of mine during the first Trump impeachment on
Ukraine. I lived that firsthand internally in the White House.
I know what they were subjected to.
Ms. Garcia. So, this has a chilling effect on free speech
and, more importantly, it makes people hesitate to speak up and
come and testify and tell us what they know and what they
witnessed?
Ms. Troye. I can guarantee you; I've had so many
conversations with people in national security, former members
of Trump's own Cabinet, who do not want to speak out publicly
even though they have the same concerns that I do. I think that
there would be plenty of people in government service who could
sit here and refute some of the claims and attacks against
them, but it comes at great personal cost. It comes at great
cost to your finances. It comes at great cost of the safety of
your families.
We've seen Republicans, Republican Members of Congress that
I had deep respect for, not run for office again because they
wanted to protect their families given what we've seen and the
trends that have happened. That was a great disappointment to
someone like me who looked up to these people.
Ms. Garcia. Right. All just become targets and face
retribution and attacks on social media, so I understand it. I
know for me even, we did a weaponization hearing in the
morning, and by the end of the day, I had a death threat. I, in
fact, talked about it with Federal courts in New Mexico
yesterday. So, it happens. You don't have free speech. The
attacks are there. So, thank you for coming.
Mr. Chair, I think my--is my time up? Yes, it is? I would
like to enter this--
Chair Jordan. You'd like to keep going?
Ms. Garcia. No, I'd like to enter for the record--
Chair Jordan. We would all like to do that.
Ms. Garcia. No, I would like to ask unanimous consent to
enter into the record an article, ``U.S. Supreme Court
temporarily blocks order in Missouri social media lawsuit.''
Chair Jordan. Sure Without objection.
Ms. Garcia. Ask for unanimous--thank you.
Chair Jordan. The gentlelady yields back.
Ms. Subramanya, I would argue it's already here. You said
in your statement you want to give us a glimpse of what lies
ahead. I think it's already here. In the course of our
investigation in this Committee, on January 15, 2021, the FBI
sent to Bank of America, tell us all your customers' purchases
in the Washington, DC, area for a specific date, customers
transacting debit card or credit card Washington, DC, purchases
on specific dates in this town. Anyone. Whether you're here for
the rally, whether you're here for any kind of protest--if
you're just in visiting your mom.
They further said, and they capitalize ``ANY''--any
historic purchase going back 6 months for any weapons or
weapons-related vendor purchases. That is frightening stuff.
Because you gave the example, a Danny Bulford, you gave the
example. I think it's already here.
Ms. Subramanya. Absolutely. In fact, I'm working on issues
related to that here in the U.S. There are people who have been
debanked in America. They generally tend to be on the
conservative side. I've interviewed pastors, missionaries, who
do good work overseas. They've been debanked for--with no
explanation. The reasons are very vague, that your risk profile
doesn't match what we can--what we're comfortable with.
So, these are people who've been debanked for doing good
work, and they generally tend to be on one side of the
political spectrum.
Chair Jordan. By the way, I think in your testimony you
said this guy, Mr. Bulford, was former Royal Canadian Mounted
Police, was not charged with anything, wasn't being held, was
released, and that's when the debanking took place. Is that
accurate?
Ms. Subramanya. Yes, roughly. They were all happening
around the same time.
Chair Jordan. He wasn't charged with anything--
Ms. Subramanya. No, nothing.
Chair Jordan. --and he couldn't get access to his account?
Ms. Subramanya. So, the Trudeau government invoked the
Emergencies Act. It's only been invoked twice during the two
World Wars. One of the outcomes of the Emergency Act was to go
after people who were peacefully protesting against the COVID-
19 vaccine requirements. If you donated to the cause, you found
yourself debanked. This is what ended up happening with 280
people.
Chair Jordan. Mr. Taibbi, is there a realignment happening?
I look at today's panel. The Democrats invited an individual
who worked in a Republican Administration, and Republicans
invite two former Democrats, award-winning journalists. One was
the hero of the environment as recognized by Time Magazine. The
other one worked for Rolling Stone. We invite a foreigner to
come tell us, hey, don't let this stuff happen here. If America
goes this way, the whole world's in even bigger trouble.
It seems to me there's a realignment happening. I think
I've invited more Democrat witnesses to testify in front of
this Committee than the Democrats have, because the focus is on
the First Amendment. I don't care whether you're Republican,
Democrat, Independent, Conservative, or Progressive. What I
care about is the ability to speak and to speak in a political
fashion and not have the government come after you for doing
so.
So, I think there is a total realignment happening in the
culture and in politics and, frankly, I think that's a darn
good thing--not what they're doing, but the realignment.
Mr. Taibbi. Well, yes, I definitely agree with you that
there's a realignment going on. Until very recently, I think
free speech and free speech culture was uncontroversially
embraced really by both parties during the entire early period
of the war on terror. Those issues strongly animated most
Democrats that I knew. Most of my friends were in opposition to
laws like the PATRIOT Act--or at least concerned about the
potential for overreach there.
Most people understood, for instance, the work of the ACLU
in defending cases like the Skokie march. To the point about
hate speech that was brought up before, I think it's important
to point out that the reason that they defended those marchers
is not because they liked hate speech or they liked Nazis.
Chair Jordan. Right.
Mr. Taibbi. It's because the American tradition understands
that the moment you grant a government official the right to
prohibit one kind of speech, you're going to have a whole
series of people--
Chair Jordan. Yes.
Mr. Taibbi. --those people are all civil rights activists.
They were afraid that the next thing that would happen would be
Southern officials banning NAACP marches.
That used to be sort of universally understood in America,
and for some reason, in the last decade or so, there's been a
complete change in how we look at those issues.
Chair Jordan. Yes. I just want to do one last thing in the
remaining few seconds that I have left. Let's put this on the
screen, because I think this is interesting too. It tells you
how upside-down things have become.
We have testifying in front of us today Ms. Subramanya, who
is from Canada, telling us, look, get ready because we've seen
what's happened in our country, and we don't want it happening
here.
This is a recap of a phone call from one of the executives
at Facebook with folks from the White House. The person
recapping this just happens to be the former U.K. minister and
member of Parliament, Nick Clegg, and he says this:
I countered that removing the content like the White House
wanted them to do would represent a significant incursion in
traditional boundaries of free expression in the United States.
So, we have a Canadian warning us. We got a member of
Parliament warning--I think it's interesting, the irony here,
that someone from Great Britain telling us about what our
rights are. We had a little skirmish way back in 1776 about
this very kind of thing.
This is how upside down it has gotten. Three--I don't know
Ms. Subramanya's politics, but two former Democrats, three
journalists, and they invite a Republican. It just tells you
what is going on, but I think, again, underscoring how
important this is. It's not crazy, it's not bogus, it's not
unfounded, as the Democrats have said, and the Fifth Circuit
has certainly said it's not those three things.
I'm over my time, but I'll now yield to Mr. Allred. The
gentleman from Texas is recognized for five minutes.
Mr. Allred. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I yield my time to the
Ranking Member, Ms. Plaskett.
Ms. Plaskett. Thank you to my colleague for yielding the
time.
Just first let's get correct, Ms. Troye is the first
Republican that we have called as a witness. Unfortunately, we
get one and you get three. That's the unfortunate part of being
in the minority. So, you probably have invited more Democrats
than we have, but she's the first Republican.
I would remind you, Mr. Chair, if you didn't know, that the
gentleman on the wall over there, Lamar Smith, the good man
from Texas, was my first boss here when I was a staffer on the
Hill. I also worked for Rob Portman when he was a Member of the
House, and worked in the Bush administration.
I've stayed where I am. People ask me, why are you a
Democrat, I thought you were registered Republican. I was. I
looked around and the Republican Party had moved and shifted to
the right, and I was exactly still where I was, and so realized
that I could not be a part of that party anymore.
In asking some of these questions, one of the things that
you brought up, Ms. Troye, that I thought was very interesting,
is the discussion of these loyalty tests. We have heard the
President say that he's going to do this again.
I bring this up because the loyalty test is about his use
of the Federal Government to exact revenge on individuals.
Trump has said that he is going to weaponize his next
administration, but to do that, he must have individuals who
will do what he asks them to do outside of their duties in
whichever specific position that is.
I know that in the last administration, we've learned that
the President was obsessed with loyalty from his staff. We all
want loyalty. We all want people who are going to give us their
loyalty. Some of us think of loyalty in a different way. I
think of loyalty from my staff as telling me when I'm messing
up, telling me when something is wrong, because they don't want
me to do the wrong thing. That is loyalty.
President Trump has a different sense of loyalty. His aide,
Johnny McEntee, even conducted loyalty tests, including one-on-
one interviews with political appointees across different
agencies.
Of course, I had been an appointee in a Republican
administration, democratic administrations. They have
interviews with you to see where your ideology is, but it is
not necessarily to see if you are going to give blind
allegiance to the President.
In this one it says that these interviews were to root out
threats of leaks and other potential subversive acts.
If he wins again, Trump has pledged to overhaul agencies
and expand this loyalty test to not just political appointees,
but nonpolitical career employees who have spent decades
building their knowledge and expertise and possess invaluable
experience that brings continuity to our government across
different administrations.
I know when I worked at the Department of Justice, it was
important in each one of the divisions to have one person who
was a career person to sit in all the discussions to ensure
that there's continuity of government. They're vital public
servants.
This notion of throwing our systems and career officials,
like national security officials, out the window based on
political ideology should be troubling to us all.
Ms. Troye, are you familiar with the loyalty test, and can
you explain their purpose within the Trump Administration?
Ms. Troye. I am. I'm very familiar with the loyalty test.
It certainly was being enacted toward the end of the Trump
Administration, where they were staffing people who, I would
say, did not have the credentials traditionally into very
senior roles in the National Security Council.
For example, in the directorate of resilience, which I
mentioned in my opening remarks where I said that it could
impact disaster relief aid, I want to be very clear about that
on how dangerous it is, because this person was potentially
going to be in charge that had no background in it, did not
understand how the interagency works on this, did not
understand FEMA, did not understand HUD, did not understand
what it takes to push this through the process.
I will say that should loyalists be placed in positions
like this going forward, the loyalty test being that you will
not abide by the rule of law, that you will bend the rules, you
will not follow the regulations and procedures, I think that we
are heading down a further dark path that will affect all of
us, doesn't matter, Democrats or Republicans.
I know that in the Trump Administration, for example, there
was a Fire Management Assistance Grant for California during
the horrific 2018 wildfire season where Trump did not want to
issue the aid. In fact, I believe he told Brock Long, who was
the head of FEMA at the time, ``Don't give them a dime, because
they were a blue State.'' I can tell you that it was only until
Donald Trump was shown that Orange County voted in his favor
majority that he finally released that aid.
That should not play a role in how we respond to American
citizens when they are in need, especially in things like
disaster.
So, when I look at Florida and I see Ron DeSantis, who is
an opponent to Trump, I think about those people in Florida,
primarily Republicans, who are always in the path of hurricanes
at times, and I think about what it's going to look like for
them when aid is not received should Trump get back into
office.
Ms. Plaskett. Thank you very much. I yield back.
Chair Jordan. The gentlelady yields back.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman--if any of you need
a break, just let us know. I should've mentioned that earlier.
Just let us know, and we'll be happy to do that.
The gentleman from North Carolina is recognized for five
minutes.
Mr. Bishop. There is a very odd oppositional dynamic in
this hearing which is striking. Ms. Troye, I want to get it by
asking you this. You said something along the lines that the
belief that there has been social media censorship against
conservatives is sort of a figment of conservatives'
imagination. Ms. Wasserman Schultz summarized it as a red
herring--bogus red herring.
You're aware of the Missouri v. Biden district court
decision that recited evidence that the White House, the FBI,
CISA, all engaged in working through the social media companies
to conduct censorship. It was preliminarily enjoined. You're
aware that the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has reviewed
that, found that the findings of the District Court were well
supported by evidence, and modified and substantially affirmed
the preliminary injunction against the government entered by--
are you aware of all that? Does it affect your view that all
this is a figment of imagination?
Ms. Troye. I am aware of the decision. I also want to
clarify, I have not actually--never said that this is a
conspiracy. You've not heard that comment from me.
Mr. Bishop. So, do you believe there is censorship going on
by means of the Federal Government on social media platforms--
or has been?
Ms. Troye. I can only speak about my experience, and I will
say that I've sat in a lot of these interagency meetings with
social media companies. Ultimately, it was their decision. I
will say that when content was removed, it was ultimately up to
them. We followed the process.
Mr. Bishop. Yes, but see, that's what the court has said is
the problem, is that the agencies have engaged in this
subterfuge where they say, well, we want you to make the
decision. They're all over them to the point that their
constant involvement makes it government involvement. That's
the threat.
Mr. Shellenberger, let me turn to you, because I was
thinking about where we are. Twitter Files revealed these
connections, right, direct connections between Elvis Chan of
the FBI and social media companies, of CISA and the social
media companies. Then your further reporting and yours, Mr.
Taibbi, revealed the next layer, which is what you call the
censorship industrial complex, the connection between CISA
funding these adjacent agencies--people at Stanford, people at
University of Washington--and so they could offload this exact
subterfuge and they could pre-bunk stuff and stop whole
narratives from taking hold.
Now, your CTI League shows yet another dynamic in two ways,
it seems. You've got this guy--we ought to get his name out
there for folks--Pablo Breuer, you said, a commander with the
Special Operations Command, I believe, and he's involved in
this CTI League. They got Israeli, you mentioned British
intelligence, and you say in part of your report, the authors--
talking about one of the reports--advocated for police,
military, and intelligence involvement in censorship across
Five Eyes nations and even suggested that INTERPOL should be
involved.
Why is that significant, Mr. Shellenberger?
Mr. Shellenberger. Because--
Mr. Bishop. If it's not blindingly obvious and do it as
quickly as you can because I've got one other thing I really
want to get to, if we can.
Mr. Shellenberger. Well, because we don't want the police
and the military to decide what we can say and read, and that's
what makes our country amazing, is that our Founding Fathers,
they said--it's the First Amendment, ``speech comes before
government,'' right. It's not--in Europe, the king would decide
whether you could say things. We didn't want it that way. We
said we wanted to decide.
Mr. Bishop. Here's what it tells me that's chilling--and,
Ms. Subramanya, I'm reminded of your presence here as a
Canadian. So, if they can't do it directly from the FBI, then
they get institutions, academic--pseudo-academic institutions
involved. If they find that's going to be blunted because we
can go take their funding away because it's U.S. agency
funding, then they get the Five Eyes involved.
If they can't stop it here in the United States, they can
go get the European Union or the other governments to say--or
Canada, to deem this stuff to be threatening. That's what--and
the dynamic deepens and deepens.
This is a big deal. Here we are, every person on the
minority side has talked about Donald Trump. I would think, Ms.
Troye and others, that if you're concerned--if you're genuinely
concerned about Donald Trump as a threat, what we're talking
about today should be all the more threatening to you because
we're talking about setting precedents and diminishing the
ability of Americans to express themselves.
So, Ms. Subramanya, back to you. Republicans have been
involved in this, by the way. The former Chair of the Senate
Intelligence Committee, Mac Thornberry, helped to repeal the
Smith-Mundt Act. Nikki Haley said the other day that we ought
not be allowed to have anonymous Twitter accounts.
What do you make of this dynamic that I describe in that
and what you're seeing in this hearing, that the party that has
established--frankly, the Liberals established fundamental
principles of free speech through the war in court. They've
been continued consistently by the Supreme Court, but now
they're under threat, but the other side just wants to talk
about Donald Trump. What is going on?
Ms. Subramanya. Oh, boy. So, look, I can't speak to what's
happening here in America in terms of the internal political
situation here. What I can point to is the fact that I come
from a country where free expression, the right to express
oneself freely has been under threat. It happened in a very
short period of time. It just happened under 10 years. It's
happening all over the world now.
It's happening in Ireland. Ireland is about to pass
legislation which is among the most--it's one of the most
draconian hate speech laws in the world. They're trying to
stamp out hate.
How does one stamp out hate? It's part of the human
condition. This is extremely worrying. The government cannot
define hate, but yet they have this legislation. It can even
come down to a situation where you could have a meme on your
phone and the Irish police would have the authority to come and
arrest you even if you haven't shared that meme.
This is where we're going. We're going--it's straight out
of Minority Report where the precogs determine that you're
about to be hateful and they come and arrest you. This is
happening in a Western, liberal democracy. So, we have to look
at the warning signs. We have to look at what's happening in
Canada. We have to look at what's happening in Ireland, France,
and the EU.
You're absolutely right, governments will find ways to go
about censoring people. We know that's happening under the
Biden Administration where they got media companies like
Facebook and Twitter to deplatform content on their sites,
which the administration didn't like. Since it comes from a
private platform, it doesn't violate the First Amendment at
first glance, but if it was under duress from the Federal
Government, then there are grounds to--
Mr. Bishop. Yes. Thank you, ma'am.
Ms. Subramanya. --believe that it violates the spirit of
the First Amendment.
Mr. Bishop. My time is long expired. Mr. Chair, I yield.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman yields back.
It's all frightening, but the name, Cyber Threat
Intelligence League, it sounds like it's out of a Marvel comic.
Like they give it this name, but it's like it's frightening
what's going on.
The gentleman from California is recognized for five
minutes.
Mr. Garamendi. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Summaria?
Ms. Subramanya. Subramanya.
Mr. Garamendi. Subramanya. Thank you. You just happened to
provide the opening for my comments.
Indeed, we need to be very, very aware of the potential use
of government to weapon--the weaponization of government
against individuals, against free speech, against those who
would oppose the government.
Your concern is a very real concern, and America has a need
to be concerned, because we have a former President and a
gentleman who wants to be President again, who is in the
process of articulating and laying out his agenda for a new
term as President. Donald Trump has been very, very clear how
he intends to use the government to really achieve the things
that you are fearful of happening. It's very clear what he
intends to do. He has said so publicly in his political
rallies.
Just a couple of weeks ago, he reposted on Truth Social,
his network, calling for the New York Attorney General and a
Supreme Court judge to be placed under citizen's arrest. These
two individuals, you'll remember, are the prosecutor and the
judge in his civil fraud case in New York. Clearly, would use
his power as President to attack the judicial system in
America.
He has since gone on to attack both, again on social media,
and threatens to indict any opponent he faces and take them out
if he wins in 2024.
Indeed, we do have reasons to be concerned about the future
should this man become President.
I think one of my colleagues on the majority side indicated
that we should look to the four-years when Trump was President,
to what he did then as President, and many of the things that
the witnesses are concerned about did, in fact, take place
during his Presidency.
One example of a larger pattern of Mr. Trump's rhetoric, he
has repeatedly and egregiously used his position of power to
spread conspiracy theories, fan the flames of discord with
inflammatory rhetoric and make threats of political
prosecution.
Words have power, particularly when they're used by someone
who's so prominent in our news.
Certainly, all of you, including all of us, are concerned
about the right to free speech. I would be very interested to
see what legislation comes forward as a result of these
hearings where we are basically repeating what we heard nine
months ago.
So, what is the legislation that would address this? Mr.
Shellen-berger, you presented four different ideas. I'm not
going to ask you to repeat those. They're in the record, and
I'm curious to see if the majority will take them up or just,
again, to flog this horse one more time.
We've seen the real consequences of Mr. Trump's behavior.
We saw it after he repeatedly attacked the FBI for what he
thought were their transgressions. So, what happened to career
FBI agents? They are threatened, seriously threatened, in their
homes, death threats.
Of course, January 6th is well known, and we won't go into
that in great detail.
So, Ms. Troye, from your experience in the White House, has
Donald Trump used his rhetoric as a weapon, weaponization of
government?
Ms. Troye. Absolutely. Some of the examples that I provided
are examples of how the government was used against the people
under Donald Trump.
Honestly, when I heard your opening statement, I felt like
you were describing what I had lived for four years working in
the U.S.Government, of the fears that I saw that were coming to
fruition, almost word for word to be honest, and I was thinking
about it in what the future does hold should Trump come back
into office because that is sort of the government that he
wanted.
It was to use the government to his favor, to attack his
political enemies, and to silence any dissent when he fired
heads of intelligence agencies just for telling the truth about
potential foreign adversaries or things that were happening
with our election or merely just for taking a stand on things
that he wanted to do in foreign policy that would've put us
into very dangerous predicaments.
Mr. Garamendi. Thank you very much.
My time having expired, I yield back.
Chair Jordan. The gentleman yields back.
The Chair recognizes the gentlelady from Florida.
Ms. Cammack. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
For the life of me, I cannot find anywhere in the public
notices, in our meeting memos, in our congressional hearing
documents, any mention of where this is a hearing about
President Trump. It escapes me. I know that we have a literacy
crisis in this country, and I am shocked that it has made its
way to the Halls of Congress. I think we should do something
about that.
Anyways, I speak for all Americans, I believe, when I say
that it really shouldn't matter who's in office. It really
shouldn't matter who is in the White House because, regardless,
we should all be concerned about our Constitutional rights. We
should all be here protecting our Constitutional rights.
So, I would encourage my Democratic colleagues that maybe
they should, I don't know, focus on the evidence that has been
presented here, because it impacts all Americans, not just
Republicans but Democrats too.
So, I think that we could actually do something to address
the weaponization of government in a bipartisan fashion,
because it has tremendous impacts on our everyday life.
So, I'm going to just jump right into it. Ms. Troye, I
appreciate you being here. My colleague, Mr. Bishop, touched on
this, but I want to just make sure that I am exceptionally
clear.
You said that, quote, ``the government is not taking social
media posts down.'' This is from your opening statement. You
said that the censorship of American people is, quote, ``the
result of the social media companies exercising their First
Amendment rights.''
You were part of Vice President Pence's team, were you not?
Ms. Troye. Yes, that is correct.
Ms. Cammack. So, as someone who is familiar with White
House officials, you can confirm that the Deputy Assistant to
the President and Director of Digital Strategy, Rob Flaherty,
and the White House Senior Advisor, Andrew Slavitt, are indeed
government officials and not social media executives, correct?
Ms. Troye. Yes. When they were serving in the White House,
they are government officials.
Ms. Cammack. OK. So, on February 6, 2021, at 9:45 p.m.--I
just love when we have timestamps and all this in writing. It
helps tremendously--when Mr. Flaherty emailed Twitter
executives demanding the immediate removal of accounts linked
to Biden's adult daughter, he stated,
Please remove this account immediately.
He also stated, quote,
I have tried to use your form three times. It won't work. I
think this is ridiculous that I need to upload my ID to prove
that I am an authorized representative of the President.
Two minutes later, at 9:47 p.m., Twitter executives responded,
saying,
Thanks for sending this over, we'll escalate for further review
here.
He shot back,
I cannot stress the degree to which this needs to be resolved
immediately.
Those accounts were then suspended and taken down.
Now, fast-forward about a month, Mr. Slavitt, Biden's White
House Senior Advisor, said in writing,
You know, it would be nice to establish trust with Twitter
executives. Internally, we have been considering what our
options are on what to do about noncompliance.
Is that a threat? Would you consider that a threat from
Biden White House officials to social media company executives
to censor Americans' First Amendment rights?
Ms. Troye. I think you would have to ask that question of
them. I can't speak for what was intended by that message.
Ms. Cammack. If you were in that position, what would you
do?
Ms. Troye. Well, actually, I can tell you because I've had
conversations with social media companies during the Trump
Administration while on Mike Pence's office where I did call a
social media company, and we did say, ``Could you please take
these photos down, if possible, because a U.S. missionary was
killed brutally in Cameroon,''--
Ms. Cammack. Yes.
Ms. Troye. --Charles Wesco from Indiana, whose brother
serves as a Republican in the Indiana State legislature, it was
his brother who was killed brutally. The Ambassador from
Cameroon, U.S. Ambassador, did weigh in and say,
Can we take these down while they circulate to notify the next
of kin before they see these horrific images of their father
brutally murdered in a crossfire between two different opposing
groups in Cameroon?
Ms. Cammack. Absolutely. Ms. Troye, that is heartbreaking
and--wait, hold on. I've got to reclaim my time here. So, Ms.
Troye, what I'm saying is--
Ms. Troye. Can I finish my answer?
Ms. Cammack. No, ma'am. I presented you with a parody
account that the White House had to take down--a parody. That
is a very different situation than graphic photos of a tragedy.
Would you agree?
Ms. Troye. I am speaking about--
Ms. Cammack. That's a simple yes or no.
Ms. Troye. --a situation where a White House--
Ms. Cammack. Ms. Troye, if you cannot distinguish between a
parody account and memes and jokes versus graphic photos,
that's a problem.
Ms. Troye. I can't speak to what they were referencing. I
don't know--
Ms. Cammack. I just laid it out for you, but I'll reclaim
my time.
I'm going to switch to you, Mr. Shellenberger and Mr.
Taibbi. Thank you guys for appearing here before. In very short
order, I have to go appear before the CDC Director, Dr. Cohen.
Please talk about the treasure trove of evidence that you
have found with regards to the CDC silencing world-renowned
epidemiologists, such as Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, and the impact
that this has had on public health and the health of various
Americans around the country because of the work of the CDC and
FDA silencing these voices.
Chair Jordan. The time of the gentlewoman is expired, but
the witnesses can respond and answer the question.
Ms. Cammack. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Shellenberger. Just very briefly, during a crisis, you
need free speech so you can respond--you can have these issues,
you can debate them. What we saw was both Harvard
epidemiologist Martin Kulldorff and Stanford epidemiologist Jay
Bhattacharya were both censored. Dr. Bhattacharya was put on
the Trends Blacklist.
The things that they were advocating were mainstream
epidemiology, and their voices were stifled. We now have seen
the consequences of it, most particularly this horrendous
learning loss among children that could've been avoided if we
had adopted what Dr. Bhattacharya was recommending.
Chair Jordan. Mr. Taibbi, go ahead.
Mr. Taibbi. Just quickly if I could, the Trends Blacklist
image that we saw with Dr. Bhattacharya, that was one of the
very first things that we found in the Twitter Files, and it
was an early example of what we came to understand as
malinformation. It's the idea of something that's not untrue or
it is true but is believed to produce an undesirable political
result. This is extremely dangerous.
Dr. Bhattacharya had a legitimate scientific opinion. He
turned out to be correct. His study was later ratified by the
WHO and--but it was considered to be against the policies of
the current government, and so he became one of the most
suppressed people in the country during 2020-2021, which is
exactly what the First Amendment was designed to prevent.
Ms. Cammack. Thank you.
Chair Jordan. I would just point out before recognizing Mr.
Goldman that we will take you up on what you said, Ms. Troye.
Ms. Cammack asked you a question about Mr. Slavitt and Mr.
Flaherty, and you said we should ask them, and we're going to.
That's why we sent them a subpoena this morning. We want
them to come in and answer these questions about why the White
House was attempting to censor Americans' speech.
With that, I recognize the gentleman from New York for five
minutes.
Mr. Goldman. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My colleagues and friends from North Carolina and Florida
are asking why we are talking about Donald Trump. The answer is
because this Subcommittee is called the Subcommittee on the
Weaponization of the Federal Government. Because of that, we
actually--the only evidence that we have here in front of us
today about the Weaponization of the Federal Government is from
Ms. Troye, who has outlined in detail--and I'm sure she has
more detail--how Donald Trump weaponized the Federal Government
against his enemies and for his own political interests and how
he intends to do it again.
So, if we really want to talk about the weaponization of
the Federal Government, we should talk about it, and that's
Donald Trump. That's not this grand, crazy conspiracy of how
the administration has utilized the social media companies,
against whom the First Amendment does not apply to suppress
speech.
This is actually the second hearing, I guess our quarterly
hearing now, on the Twitter Files, with the same witnesses that
we had.
In the first hearing, I asked Chair Jordan if he could
identify any evidence of the government under the Biden
Administration actually censoring anyone through the social
media companies. He pointed out to me an email on January 22nd
from Clarke Humphrey to flag a tweet that was from Robert F.
Kennedy, Jr., as evidence.
Mr. Goldman. The problem was--and the Chair did not
acknowledge the tweet was never taken down. How can you have
censorship if the tweet was not taken down?
Since March 9th, that hearing, this Committee has had 29
witnesses--
Chair Jordan. Would the gentleman yield?
Mr. Goldman. I will not only just because I have a bunch.
You're the Chair, so I'm sure you'll respond after me.
The 29 witnesses have testified and every single one
testified that the government never coerced, pressured, or
threatened any social media company to remove any content.
Mr. Taibbi, I introduced a letter that I led to X--let's
call it ``X'' now; that way, we can know the difference between
when Elon Musk took it over and before, when it was Twitter--
from November 21st.
Have you read this?
Mr. Taibbi. No.
Mr. Goldman. Well, do you think it would be problematic if
X leaves up terrorist violence and propaganda, in violation of
the terms of service?
Mr. Taibbi. Terrorist violence or terrorist propaganda?
Mr. Goldman. If it violates their terms of service, is it
problematic?
Mr. Taibbi. Well, it depends on what the content is, but
they're a private company. They can do what they want with the
content.
Mr. Goldman. A-ha. They're a private company, and they can
do what they want with the content.
Do you think it's problematic that X would profit off of
the terrorist violence, propaganda, and content on their social
media platform?
Mr. Taibbi. Well, first, just to go back to the--
Mr. Goldman. No, no. Just answer the question. I don't have
time. Do you think it's a problem if they profit off of it?
Mr. Taibbi. Well, if the company makes money doing what it
does, I don't necessarily see a problem with that.
Mr. Goldman. OK. Interesting.
So, let me just move on, because you said the biggest
concern--
Mr. Taibbi. The difference--
Mr. Goldman. Sir--
Mr. Taibbi. The difference between--
Mr. Goldman. I'm sorry. You said the biggest concern that
you had from the Twitter Files was the systematic flags for
social media companies.
Now, that Stanford EIP that you're talking about, I'm sure
you are aware, has documented that the social media platforms
to whom they flagged potentially problematic tweets took action
on only 35 percent of them, and only 13 percent of them were
removed.
Mr. Shellenberger, you said the biggest problem--and let me
just ask you, Mr. Taibbi, real briefly: You would agree that
these flags, the systematic flags that you saw, were flags for
a violation of the terms of service of the social media
company; is that right?
Mr. Taibbi. Sometimes. Sometimes, in the case of the
instances like Congressman Massie, they were actually true
information.
Mr. Goldman. Well, that may be the case, but the flag was
for a violation of the terms of service.
Mr. Taibbi. It's for their interpretation of a violation--
Mr. Goldman. Then the social media company has to determine
whether or not it is actually a violation of their terms of
service. In 87 percent of those flags, they were not removed.
Mr. Shellenberger, I have a brief time. You said that the
censorship--the biggest problem you have is the censorship that
you talk about as election interference.
Do you agree that Russia used social media, including
Twitter, to interfere in the 2016 Presidential Election?
Mr. Shellenberger. Yes.
Mr. Goldman. Thank you.
Now, briefly, if I may, Mr. Chair, just have the extra time
that my colleagues have had--you've talked about the Hunter
Biden laptop and how the FBI knew it existed.
You are aware, of course, that the laptop, so to speak, was
actually--that was published in the New York Post was actually
a hard drive that the New York Post admitted here was not
authenticated as real. It was not the laptop the FBI had.
You're aware of that, right?
Mr. Shellenberger. It was the same contents.
Mr. Goldman. How do you know?
Mr. Shellenberger. Because it was the same--
Mr. Goldman. You would have to--
Mr. Shellenberger. --everyone has verified it's the same
contents.
Mr. Goldman. --authenticate it to know it was the same
contents. You have no idea.
Mr. Shellenberger. Are you suggesting that it's a
conspiracy--
Mr. Goldman. You know hard drives can be manipulated.
Mr. Shellenberger. Are you suggesting the New York Post
participated in a conspiracy to construct the contents of the
Hunter Biden laptop?
Mr. Goldman. No, sir. The problem is that hard drives can
be manipulated by Rudy Giuliani or Russia--
Mr. Shellenberger. What's the evidence that this happened?
Mr. Goldman. Well, there is actual evidence of it, but the
point is, it's not the same thing.
Mr. Shellenberger. There's no evidence of--so, you're
engaging in a conspiracy theory.
Mr. Goldman. I'm glad you agree with me, Mr. Shellenberger,
that transparency is the most important thing.
My last question for you is, do you think it would be
transparent if Hunter Biden came to this Congress and testified
in a public hearing, and more transparent than if he testified
privately?
Mr. Shellenberger. It's literally, I've never thought about
that. I have no idea.
Mr. Goldman. You don't know?
Mr. Shellenberger. I've literally never thought about that.
Chair Jordan. The time--
Mr. Goldman. Is public testimony more transparent than
private testimony?
Mr. Shellenberger. This is random now we're here. Are you
familiar with the First Amendment?
Mr. Goldman. Mr. Chair, I yield back.
Mr. Shellenberger. It says the Congress shall take no
action to abridge freedom of speech.
Chair Jordan. Yes.
Mr. Shellenberger. That's what you just described.
Chair Jordan. Mr. Shellenberger, is 13 percent censorship
still censorship?
Mr. Shellenberger. Absolutely.
Chair Jordan. The other 87 percent is what we call the
chilling effect that the courts have long recognized that they
engaged in. That is the problem.
Mr. Shellenberger. There's a broad--by the way, part of the
operation, Congressman Goldman--
Chair Jordan. Holy cow.
Mr. Shellenberger. --part of the operation was to change
the terms of service. So, you see them constantly trying to
change the terms of service.
You see them--it was 35 percent of the URLs that were--this
is according to EIP--were labeled, removed, or soft-blocked.
That's all forms of censorship. Censorship is not just removal.
Chair Jordan. The gentlelady from--
Mr. Goldman. Sixty-five percent were not. So, how can the
government be so coercive that they were--
Mr. Shellenberger. So, does the First Amendment say--
Mr. Armstrong. That's about par for the course on
government efficiency.
Mr. Shellenberger. Does the First Amendment say the
government can censor 35 percent?
Chair Jordan. The time of the gentleman has expired.
Mr. Goldman. They're not censoring. They're flagging.
Chai Jordan. The chair recognizes--
Mr. Goldman. The social media companies--
Mr. Shellenberger. Under coercion.
[Cross-talk.]
Mr. Taibbi. Thirty-five percent of the First Amendment?
Chair Jordan. The Chair recognizes--
Mr. Goldman. It's not the First Amendment. It's the terms
of service, as you said.
Chair Jordan. Oh, my gosh.
Mr. Goldman. They are flagging it for the social media
companies to make their own decisions. That is not the First
Amendment. That is the terms of service.
Chair Jordan. You've just seen the--
Mr. Taibbi. Well, Congressman, you're an attorney. You know
that four Federal judges have already ruled that--
Mr. Goldman. I know that it's on appeal in front of the
Supreme Court right now.
Mr. Taibbi. OK.
Chair Jordan. That debate was very constructive.
Ms. Hageman. Whew. That was fun.
Chair Jordan. I think that got to the heart of the issue.
That's the problem, right there.
The gentlelady from Wyoming is recognized for five minutes.
Ms. Hageman. Thank you.
When you were here in March, I commented that sunshine is
the best disinfectant and that this place needs to be
fumigated. We've been working hard to do that over the last
seven months, but it hasn't been easy, and our work continues.
Mr. Shellenberger, when you last testified before our
Subcommittee, you responded to a question from Chair Jordan
when he asked about the Hunter Biden laptop story. I'm going to
quote what you said, quote,
Now, maybe the FBI agents were going to Mark Zuckerberg at
Facebook and to Twitter executives and were warning about a
hack-and-leak potentially involving Hunter Biden. Maybe those
guys didn't have anything to do with the guys that had the
laptop. We just don't know.
Well, you know what? Now, we do know. We know after
interviewing Laura Dehmlow, who at the time of the Hunter Biden
laptop story was on the Foreign Influence Task Force. We have
learned from her that she and others on that task force did, in
fact, know about the laptop before the New York Post story
broke, and they knew it was his.
In other words, the work done in the year since the release
of the Twitter Files has continued to expose the extent of the
censorship industrial complex. These discoveries show the
importance of your testimony and the oversight work that has
been done by this Committee.
What do you think this shows in terms of the complexity and
scope of the censorship industrial complex?
What I mean by that is, even with the trove of information
that you released over a year ago, or approximately a year ago,
we're still filling in the gaps to understand the extent of
what the Federal Government has engaged interms of violating
the First Amendment.
Mr. Shellenberger. Yes, I think what it--one of the most
important things that it shows is that this censorship is in
service of disinformation.
It wasn't that they prevented the New York Post from
publishing. It wasn't even that they did--the tweet eventually
did come back on Twitter; it was eventually allowed. The
disinformation that was planted, that myself and all my family
and friends believed, was that there was something fraudulent
about the Hunter Biden laptop, which we now know was actually
the Hunter Biden laptop. It's been verified now by all the
major media and everybody else. It created the perception that
it was misinformation by the Russians. Of course, that
conspiracy theory continues to be peddled today.
So, that's what it did. That's how these guys at CTIL
thought about it. That's how all these operatives that are used
to waging disinformation campaigns and psy-ops in foreign
countries turned those tools against the American people.
Ms. Hageman. That's the critical point.
Mr. Shellenberger. Yes.
Ms. Hageman. They have been turned against the American
people.
Mr. Shellenberger. Absolutely.
Ms. Hageman. What do you think about the fact that the FBI
agents warning Twitter about a hack-and-leak were the same
agents who knew of the existence and legitimacy of that laptop?
What do you think about those people?
Mr. Shellenberger. It's shock--it's shock--like you said, I
was trying to only report on what we knew at the time, but,
obviously, when that came out, it's absolutely shocking that
you would have the FBI sitting on this information in 2019, and
then seeding the idea that there would be a hack-and-leak
coming.
It wasn't just the Aspen Institute; it was also that
Stanford came out, and they used that as a pretext to attack
the Pentagon Papers principle, upheld by the Supreme Court,
that when journalists, like us, are leaked information, we can
publish it and we're protected by the First Amendment.
We saw Stanford Institute attacking that precedent, saying,
journalists should no longer following the Pentagon Papers
principle, they should no longer report on information leaked
to them, they should not do what Matt and I and Alex just did
with publishing these files leaked to us by a patriotic
whistleblower who knew absolutely that this was wrong, that it
was a violation of the First Amendment, that it was a violation
of it in the spirit in the letter.
That's the kind of--to see these institutions of the
establishment argue against this great American tradition of
journalism and the First Amendment, it's quite appalling.
Ms. Hageman. It's shocking.
Mr. Shellenberger. Shocking.
Ms. Hageman. Ms. Subramanya, here in the House, we are
exposing the U.S. Government's censorship by proxy, which uses
social media companies, academia, and private companies to
circumvent the First Amendment.
At the same time, we are watching with horror as liberal
democracies in Europe and Canada are not even trying to hide
their efforts to censor their citizens. We know where this is
going and without exposure and reform, we could be doomed to
the same fate.
In your opening statement, you discuss the impact of the
Online News Act and the other censorship efforts seen in
European nations and you issue a stern warning that I hope all
Americans will take to heart.
Could you describe the trends that you are seeing and,
specifically, what tools or mechanisms of control these
governments are trying to exert over free speech?
Ms. Subramanya. Thank you for that question.
Some of the examples are from my testimony. So, debanking
is one obvious tool that the Canadian Government in a sense has
pioneered, as far as Western liberal democracies are concerned.
China has been doing that for years, but it's now come to the
West. They went after peaceful protesters and punished them,
weaponized the financial system, weaponized the government
against them, to teach them a lesson, ``You can't do this ever
again.''
This sort of thing has a chilling effect on people's
ability to express themselves freely. That's certainly happened
in Canada. What's happening in Ireland, again, another country
that I mentioned, what's happening in France, the EU directive
on online speech--all these things are just extremely
problematic.
What is--I want to say something here. What is under threat
here is a core value of Western civilization.
Ms. Hageman. That's right.
Ms. Subramanya. That is what is being undermined here. That
goes back to the Enlightenment. That is what we have to fight
for.
The way you tackle misinformation, disinformation, all
these things which are bandied about loosely by people who want
to censor you--the best solution to these things is more robust
debate. That goes back to the Enlightenment period. That's what
I want everybody to remember.
Ms. Hageman. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Taibbi and Mr. Shellenberger.
Thank you for battling for all us. Thank you for working so
hard to protect our First Amendment rights. We really, really
are terribly indebted to you--and you, as well, Janine (ph).
Thank you.
Chair Jordan. The gentlelady yields back.
Ms. Subramanya, well said.
The Chair now recognizes the Ranking Member.
Ms. Plaskett. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
In 2017, as some of you may recall, one of Trump's first
official actions as President was to issue the chaotic
Executive Order barring any travel from seven predominantly
Muslim countries, effectively serving as a Muslim ban.
He continued these attacks on immigrant communities
throughout his Presidency. He has promised to strip immigrants,
if elected again, of their benefits and work permits, execute
the largest deportation effort in American history, strip
immigrant children of American citizenship even if they're born
here, and reinstate and expand the Muslim ban.
Ms. Troye, you were an advisor in the White House when the
Muslim travel ban was implemented. Can you tell us, as a
national security expert, how that--what happened when that ban
took place? Was there advice given before the President issued
that?
Ms. Troye. Sure. There were numerous discussions.
Just to clarify, during the travel ban time, I was at DHS.
I was the lead intelligence officer on the travel ban,
coordinating the entire community.
There were significant discussions on intelligence
assessments conducted. I will say that there were heated
discussions in meetings where members of the Trump
Administration, loyalists, who wanted to override community
intelligence assessments to suit the countries that they wanted
on the list. There was significant pushback. There was advice
from career intelligence officers, senior intelligence officers
like myself, about the threshold of these assessments.
I will tell you that it went to the extent where there were
senior officials googling what they considered to be
intelligence input and sending it to me to be included in
official community coordinated intelligence assessments and
saying that those were facts, which was appalling to me,
because that is not how the intelligence community--that's not
how we operate.
So, there were numerous situations like that where that was
the dynamic that we faced on critical issues like this, which
impact numerous matters of national security that I can't get
into because they're classified. Those matters of national
security when discussing certain countries and the impacts of
the travel ban were serious, and they were raised.
Ms. Plaskett. So, in the execution of that travel ban, can
you explain to us or share with us the interagency actions in
the immediate announcement of the travel ban? Was this
something that had been worked through?
Ms. Troye. No.
Ms. Plaskett. How did that happen?
Ms. Troye. No. We were blindsided by--when it was issued,
especially at DHS.
As you saw--it was horrible--there was chaos at the
airports, which you saw. We did not have the proper time to
figure out how we were going to implement this Executive Order.
There was no coordination of how we would carry those things
out, especially in the aftermath of it. I remember CBP agents
sitting at airports and TSA--like, everyone was mass confusion
about what was happening.
The leadership of the Department was not consulted or given
a heads-up.
That is kind of how that played out at the beginning.
Ms. Plaskett. This is from a newly elected President who
did not understand the levers of power that he had on coming
into office. I can only imagine in the next administration,
should he be elected, what he would do, understanding an
individual who has a long history of racist controversies, who
has xenophobia in his usage of what he has done.
A 1991 book by John O'Donnell, and Trump's criticism of a
Black accountant. He says,
Black guys counting my money, I hate it. The only kind of
people I want counting my money are short guys that wear
yarmulkes every day. I think that the guy is lazy, and it's
probably not his fault, because laziness is a trait in Blacks.
It really is. I believe it's out of his control.
When questioned about it, he said, ``The stuff O'Donnell said
about me is probably truth.''
This is an individual who, when he was in the White House,
denied making the comment about ``shithole countries'' that
people should go back to, although Senators, U.S. Senators,
present at the meeting said that it had happened.
Ms. Troye, you signed a statement with over 130 national
security experts that explained how Trump had routinely
vilified immigrants in this country, which, among other things,
makes him unfit to be the Commander in Chief.
Many of us are offended when he demonizes individuals,
immigrants, from a moral and personal perspective, but what
effect does it practicably have on national security stability
when Trump broadly demonizes immigrant groups in this country?
Ms. Troye. Well, I am the daughter of immigrants. My mom is
a Mexican immigrant, and I am of Mexican descent. I will say--
Ms. Plaskett. Which the President said were rapists, right?
Ms. Troye. Correct. I remember that.
I will say that it leads to anti-immigrant sentiment. It
leads to attacks on immigrants. It leads to situations like--
when they repeat the ``Great Replacement'' narratives, it leads
to mass shootings, like the one in El Paso at the Walmart where
my aunt was in, when the shooter talked about the Hispanic
invasion of Texas. It leads to situations like that. It leads
to the violence and hate that you are continuing to see and the
divisiveness of this country.
I will tell you that it also speaks to--another scenario
that I remember clearly was when Trump kept calling it the
``China virus.'' He did it on purpose. It was--the attacks on
Asian people in this country increased during the pandemic.
That is one thing that I know was recognized internally in
the White House, that this rhetoric would increase attacks on
Asian-Americans here, Asians in our country. I will tell you
that Mike Pence took that very seriously. He did not use that
lingo, because he knew that it would lead to these types of
hateful acts that we're still seeing in our country today.
Ms. Plaskett. Thank you.
Chair Jordan. The gentlelady yields back.
We have one more questioner. I don't know about Ms.
Sanchez, but I think we have Mr. Armstrong on our side. Then
I'll give the Ranking Member a couple minutes for some thank-
yous and closing comments. I'll just take a minute or two. Then
we'll be done.
So, if you can hang with us, Mr. Armstrong is recognized
for five minutes.
Mr. Armstrong. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Upstairs, the CDC Director is testifying in front of an
Oversight Committee hearing. When I get a chance to go up
there, I'm going to ask them about the CDC buying--using
taxpayers' data to buy location on American citizens to see if
they comply with COVID lockdown.
Down here, we're talking about censorship and social media.
The reason I bring those two things up is because I think that
the First Amendment and the Fourth Amendment are what make the
United States unique in the world. There is no other government
on this planet that has such robust protections of both speech
and privacy.
They have also held up and been incredibly resilient
throughout the course of time. The Fourth Amendment has dealt
with listening devices and drones and telephoto lenses. The
First Amendment--you talked about Skokie v. Illinois.
The problem is, I don't know if they survive the digital
age, not without Congress's help. We're going to deal with the
Fourth Amendment and privacy and all of that.
The First Amendment means that
The government has no power to restrict expression because of
its message, its ideas, its subject matter, or its content.
Thurgood Marshall. Pretty smart guy. The problem we run into
with the government's current and extensive efforts to censor
speech on social media comes down to a few essential questions:
What is permissible speech, and who decides what's permissible
speech?
So, we've talked about it and we've alluded to it and we've
written a report about it, but I want to talk just really
briefly.
Mr. Shellenberger, what is the Election Integrity
Partnership? What is it?
Mr. Shellenberger. So, the Election Integrity Partnership
was--the idea for it came from the Department of Homeland
Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. It
was a collaboration of four NGO's, really led by Stanford
Internet Observatory, to flag content and urge the social media
platforms to censor it in one way or another, whether to take
it down or put a label on it or throttle it.
Mr. Armstrong. The government was involved in funding it
and creating it?
Mr. Shellenberger. Correct.
Mr. Armstrong. Was it effective?
Mr. Shellenberger. As we were discussing, it resulted in
action on--they responded--the platforms responded to 75
percent of the content that was being flagged by the EIP, and
then in 35 percent of those cases they took action.
Mr. Armstrong. Mr. Taibbi, you earlier wanted to jump in on
this subject, and I'm going to allow you an opportunity to
talk.
The question is, was the government involved and engaged in
censoring speech leading up to the 2020 election?
Mr. Taibbi. Yes, I think so. Absolutely. Through the EIP
and through a variety of other means.
I think it's also worth pointing out--you brought up the
purchasing of geolocation data. Many of the companies that do
social media monitoring are also in the business of selling
geolocation data to the government, so it's a very similar
pattern.
Even though there's been a Supreme Court ruling that says
that you can't get geolocation data without a warrant--I
believe it was Carpenter v. United States right?
Mr. Armstrong. U.S. v. Carpenter. Yes.
Mr. Taibbi. Yes. It subsequently came out that multiple
agencies were doing that anyway through middleman companies.
This is basically the same pattern that we see with speech with
groups like the EIP or CTIL. It's essentially a workaround, a
legal work-around.
Mr. Armstrong. Well, I think we're going to the--and it
didn't quit in 2020. We're going to get to that.
The problem is, we define ``misinformation'' and
``disinformation'' very differently, and what I've come to
figure out what it means from the government is ``anything
critical of the government.''
It's already evolved from that. I sat in Brennan's
transcribed interview, and he just blatantly said, ``I don't
care if it's true or not.''
In June 2021, CISA's Countering Foreign Influence Task
Force created a mis-, dis-, and malinformation team, the MDM
team.
What is malinformation, Mr. Shellenberger?
Mr. Shellenberger. That's accurate information that could
lead people to have the wrong conclusion. So, the main example
of this is often true stories of vaccine side effects that
might lead people to be hesitant about taking the vaccine.
Mr. Armstrong. So, not only were they censoring information
they deemed to be inaccurate, they were censoring accurate
information. They're continuing to do it now.
Mr. Shellenberger. Not only that, but both CTIL and the
leaders of the Stanford Internet Observatory emphasized that
malinformation was the main event. Stopping narratives was the
main event; it was their main focus. The smaller stuff, the
inaccurate tweets, that was less of a concern. They were really
focused on the big objectives--in this case, making sure people
took the vaccines.
Mr. Armstrong. So, an agency funded and created by the
government, a partnership funded and created by the
government's number-one stated goal is to censor true
information.
Mr. Shellenberger. Whole narratives, whole ways of
thinking.
Mr. Armstrong. That should terrify everybody--Democrat,
Republican, Independent, young, old, anybody else.
Mr. Shellenberger. May I add--
Mr. Armstrong. I yield back.
Mr. Shellenberger. May I add one thing, Congressman?
Mr. Armstrong. Sure.
Mr. Shellenberger. Which is just that, if the Democrats are
very, very concerned about President Trump. I would ask them,
if they're so concerned about President Trump, would you want
him to control the censorship apparatus? Would you want that,
given all the things that you've said? Would you like him to be
able to call Twitter and Facebook and all these other platforms
and demand that they censor content? It doesn't seem consistent
to me.
Chair Jordan. Well said.
The gentleman yields back.
The Chair recognizes the Ranking Member for a closing
comment, and then we'll close the Committee.
Ms. Plaskett. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just want to thank
the witnesses for being here.
Chair Jordan. I, too, want to thank our witnesses.
Ms. Troye, thank you for being here.
Ms. Subramanya, thank you. You said just a few minutes ago
that this is about Western civilization. I think the gentleman
from North Dakota said it well. The First Amendment, Fourth
Amendment are at the heart of that, and that's why we're doing
this. So, thank you.
Frankly, I think you're--I just met you today, but you
strike me as almost too nice, because it's not ``debanking'';
it's stealing, it's taking. They're taking someone's property.
That's what they did to this guy who served in the Canadian
Mounted Police. What they did, frankly, I hope doesn't ever
happen in this country.
Thank you for being here. It was very good.
To our witnesses, Mr. Taibbi, Mr. Shellenberger, thank you
for coming back. I think the Democrats said that this is like a
quarterly thing. I think we should make it a quarterly thing.
The First Amendment and Fourth Amendment are that darn
important.
For your work a year ago, you two guys and a few others, I
don't know that we'd have all the information we have. So,
someday, someone's going to write the history books and they're
going to recognize folks like you who are willing to stand up,
frankly, coming from the other party--because most of this
censorship has been against conservatives and Republicans, but
some are Democrat, and I'm against all of it. They're going to
write--when they write the history, they're going to say, these
two guys stepped forward, along with a few others, to bring
this to a--to make the country aware of this.
Then we have done, now, four reports--on CISA, on the FTC,
on this JIRA ticketing system that the EIP and the Stanford--
all these guys are working on, and others, but it started
there.
So, again, thank you, and we'll have you back, if you'll
come.
We'll definitely have you back, too, Ms. Subramanya. You
were great.
So, thank you all for being here, and that concludes
today's hearing.
[Whereupon, at 12:31 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
All materials submitted for the record by Members of the
Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal
Government can be found at: https://docs.house.gov/Committee/
Calendar/ByEvent.aspx?EventID=116615.
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