Margot Cleveland: The State Department Pressured LinkedIn to Add Censorship "Tools" to The Site

There is no First Amendment. They repealed it without bothering to repeal it.

As usual, "modern ways of thinking" -- a consensus of upper middle class leftists -- say that a part of the Constitution simply no longer exists, and poof! It no longer exists.

The federal government peddled technology to Big Tech companies to assist them in censoring Americans' speech on social media in the run-up to the 2020 election, according to emails Missouri and Louisiana uncovered in their First Amendment lawsuit against the Biden administration.

Specifically, the State Department marketed this censorship technology through its Global Engagement Center. In other words, our tax dollars not only funded the development of tools to silence speech that dissented from the regime's narrative. They also paid for government employees to act as sales reps pitching the censorship products to Big Tech.

I've been "tasked with building relationships with technology companies," Samaruddin Stewart, then a senior adviser for the State Department's Global Engagement Center or "GEC," wrote in an early-February 2020 introductory email to LinkedIn, allegedly requesting a meeting. According to the lawsuit, his email also suggested he would be reaching out to other social media companies interested in "countering disinformation."

On March 9, 2020, Stewart again contacted LinkedIn, referencing an earlier verbal discussion and writing:

I'll send information [to LinkedIn representatives] about gaining access to Disinfo Cloud -- which is a GEC funded platform that offers stakeholders an opportunity to discover companies, technology, and tools that can assist with identifying, understanding, and addressing disinformation.

These two emails are explosive. Yet because they were revealed in two passing paragraphs of the 164-page complaint filed by Missouri, Louisiana, and a handful of other plaintiffs against the Biden administration, they -- and their enormous significance -- have been overlooked.

Gee, this seems to be the sort of thing that FBI Chief Censorship Agent Elvis Chan should be involved in.

Deposition testimony by FBI Agent Elvis Chan suggests GEC's marketing of the censorship tools went beyond making cold calls (or emails) to LinkedIn and other Big Tech companies.

Oh there he is! I was worried!

It also seemingly went further than providing product advice and samples on Disinfo Cloud: The GEC's Technology Engagement Division apparently hosted infomercials to help the private vendors market their censorship software.

Chan, the assistant special agent in charge of the cyber branch at the FBI's San Francisco field office, was "one of the primary people" communicating with social media companies about supposed "disinformation," and thus is one of the named defendants in Missouri v. Biden. As part of that litigation, the plaintiffs deposed Chan. During questioning, Chan testified that ahead of the 2020 election, he periodically spoke with Stewart, who would meet with the social media companies separately from Chan.

According to Chan, Stewart met with policy individuals with the various social media companies about "different initiatives." Those initiatives included various kinds of vendor-made software "that they would pilot to see if they could detect malign foreign influence on social media platforms."

If we are not living by the Constitution, then we are not governed by consent, but mere brutal force.

posted by Ace at 03:10 PM

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