Merrick Garland Refuses to Release Biden Recordings -- Claiming There's a Threat of a "Deep Fake"

This is blatant lawlessness. They have no justification for the refusal to release the people's evidence.

The Justice Department has refused to release the audio of President Biden's interview with Special Counsel Robert Hur, citing concerns about potential deepfakes. Critics argue the move is to protect Biden from embarrassment.

Key Details:

The DOJ claims releasing the audio could lead to malicious manipulation using deepfake technology.

Biden has exercised executive privilege to keep the recording from the public.

The transcript of the interview revealed several embarrassing moments for Biden, who was described as forgetful and confused.

Diving Deeper:

In a controversial decision, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has refused to release the audio recording of President Joe Biden's interview with Special Counsel Robert Hur, citing the potential threat of deepfakes. The refusal was outlined in a Friday court filing as part of an ongoing legal challenge against Biden's efforts to exercise executive privilege over the recording.

The DOJ argued that the release of the audio would significantly increase the risk of malicious manipulation. Associate Deputy Attorney General Bradley Weinsheimer stated, "The passage of time and advancements in audio, artificial intelligence, and 'deep fake' technologies only amplify concerns about malicious manipulation of audio files. If the audio recording is released here, it is easy to foresee that it could be improperly altered, and that the altered file could be passed off as an authentic recording and widely distributed."

...

The refusal to release the audio has fueled speculation among Republicans that the transcript may have been edited to prevent further embarrassment for Biden. Some suggest that the full audio could reveal discrepancies between what was said and what was documented. Despite these allegations, Weinsheimer maintained that only minor adjustments were made to the transcript, such as removing repeated and filler words.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., criticized Biden's decision to exert executive privilege over the recording, stating, "President Biden is apparently afraid for the citizens of this country and everyone to hear those tapes. They obviously confirm what the special counsel has found and would likely cause, I suppose, in his estimation, such alarm with the American people that the president is using all of his power to suppress their release."

In fact, we already know that the White House scrubbed the written transcript of repeated words and inaudible mumblings before releasing that (fraudulent) document.

The Biden Justice Department has admitted in federal court that the transcript of President Joe Biden's testimony to Special Counsel Robert Hur was edited, with filler words and repeated phrases omitted. The department has also made assertions of executive privilege and privacy to keep the audio of the testimony hidden.

Key Details:

The Justice Department has admitted that the transcript of President Biden's testimony to Special Counsel Robert Hur is not accurate and has been edited.

The department has made assertions of executive privilege and privacy to keep the audio of the testimony hidden, citing potential misuse of AI technology to alter Biden's words.

Judicial Watch, a conservative educational foundation, has initiated a new FOIA request on this issue, calling it Biden's "Nixonian tape scandal."

Diving Deeper:

According to a Judicial Watch report, The Justice Department's filing, submitted late on Friday, states that the transcript of the testimony is accurate, except for minor instances such as the omission of filler words or repeated phrases. The department asserts that these minor differences do not include any substantive exchanges and that there is no material omission of words between the audio recording and transcripts.

However, Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton has criticized the department's stance, stating, "Judicial Watch's FOIA lawsuit forced the Biden team to admit what everyone suspected -- that the transcript is not accurate and was changed in a way to help Biden." He further added, "There is nothing ordinary about this, and the transcript inaccuracy issues seem to help Biden's political campaign needs."

The entire argument that We Must Not Release Relevant Testimony for Fear It Will Be Used to Make a "Deep Fake" Recording is just a reskinned version of the complaint that "this will be used to embarrass the president." Yes, anything embarrassing for the president can and will be used to embarrass the president.

The "threat of a deep fake" is, of course, not one of the justifications courts have previously recognized for the assertion of executive privilege. Neither is "embarrassment to the president" a justification.

Executive privilege is permitted by the courts -- reluctantly -- only to protect the confidential discussions a president has with his aides. The idea claimed -- which is pretty bullshitty, if you ask me -- is that the president must be free to have "candid" discussions with his aides without fear that they will one day be made public record.

But Hur was not Biden's aide; he was Biden's prosecutor. Biden was not having a "candid, confidential" discussion with him about what policies to pursue. He was answering questions in a criminal investigation.

So executive privilege does not apply.

No problem, make up an Urgent New Threat to justify protecting Biden from exposure.

The Russians may use this tape to make a deep fake of Biden's voice!!!

Oh noes!

No one needs the tape to do a deep fake. They are quite able to do deep fakes without this particular tape, because deep fake technology learns from all of the recorded samples of someone's likeness and voice. There are 100,000 hours of tape on Joe Biden. It's a complete lie to claim that this particular tape is needed to make a deep fake voice.

Here's proof:

Obviously, the algorithm for generating Biden's voice, perfectly, already exists. To make a "deep fake," you just need that already-existing voiceprint and input the transcript to get the audio of "Biden speaking." If you wanted to add in extra words and slurs and mumbles, you could do that too.

Equally obviously: No deep fake could ever be worse than the real thing.

Lawless. Absolutely, brazenly lawless.

posted by Disinformation Expert Ace at 05:20 PM

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