International
Is the US intelligence apparatus preparing the public for future election interference?
From LifeSiteNews
Is the warning perhaps not what it seems? Is it an attempt to provide camouflage — a strategy known as ‘pre-bunking’ — for future election interference sanctioned by the Washington political machine?
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) together with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) released a joint statement ostensibly intended to assure U.S. voters in advance that the 2024 election that, despite anticipated attacks on the country’s voting systems that might make getting election information hard for citizens to obtain, election results would nonetheless be unaffected and election integrity would be maintained.
The FBI is responsible for investigating and prosecuting election crimes and malicious cyber activity targeting election infrastructure. The CISA plays a role in securing election infrastructure from physical and cyber threats.
The joint statement, however, has been met with skepticism based on the earlier roles of both agencies in past elections and their participation in massive suppression of conservative voices in social media.
As such, is the warning perhaps not what it seems? Is it an attempt to provide camouflage — a strategy known as “pre-bunking” — for future election interference sanctioned by the Democrat-powered Washington political machine — a.k.a., the Deep State — that wants to maintain control of the White House and Congress at any cost?
“CISA & FBI issue bulletin that upcoming cyberattacks may ‘prevent the public from receiving timely information’ about the 2024 election,” conservative commentator Emerald Robinson wrote on X.
“These same agencies told you: America’s voting machines were never connected to the Internet,” Robinson noted.
BREAKING: CISA & FBI issue bulletin that upcoming cyberattacks may "prevent the public from receiving timely information" about the 2024 election.
These same agencies told you: America's voting machines were never connected to the Internet.
— Emerald Robinson ✝️ (@EmeraldRobinson) August 2, 2024
Jeanette Manfra, Acting Under Secretary for Cybersecurity and Communications at the Department of Homeland Security, told Congress in 2017 that America’s voting machines “are not connected to the internet.”
Manfra was responsible for the security of the nation’s voting system. Yet according to a 2020 report by NBC News, a team of 10 cybersecurity experts who specialize in voting systems and elections found nearly three dozen U.S. voting systems connected to the internet.
“We found over 35 (voting systems) had been left online and we’re still continuing to find more,” Kevin Skoglund, a senior technical adviser at the election security advocacy group National Election Defense Coalition, told NBC News at the time.
“We kept hearing from election officials that voting machines were never on the internet,” Skoglund said. “And we knew that wasn’t true. And so we set out to try and find the voting machines to see if we could find them on the internet, and especially the back-end systems that voting machines in the precinct were connecting to report their results.”
Can CISA be trusted?
“CISA has worked with Big Tech corporations to silence Americans since 2020,” noted Logan Washburn, writing at The Federalist last month. “A congressional report from last fall found it had become a “domestic intelligence and speech-police agency” whose behavior was ‘unconstitutional.’”
Last year, the Biden administration blocked the release of documents “revealing the extent to which deep state actors and their third-party allies interfered in the 2020 presidential election by pushing social media censorship,” according to a Breitbart report.
“The government seems particularly eager to stop the release of documents pertaining to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and the closely linked Election Integrity Partnership (EIP), both of which are under intense scrutiny for their 2020 interference efforts,” Breitbart’s Allum Bokhari wrote.
Bokhari reported in May 2023 on the U.S. House Homeland Security Committee’s hearing on the government’s “laundering” of censorship through NGOs and private entities:
In the runup to the 2020 election, the consortium created a system whereby state actors including the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department could file “tickets” alongside news stories, flagging them so that Big Tech platforms could subsequently suppress or attach warning labels to them.
Beyond this blatant case of a private-public censorship coalition, the EIP also engaged in partisan politics, allowing the Democratic National Committee to file tickets through the system, as well as the Democrat-aligned groups Common Cause and the NAACP.
News outlets targeted by the EIP included Breitbart News, Fox News, the New York Post, and the Epoch Times, as well as the social media accounts of prominent conservatives Charlie Kirk, Tom Fitton, Jack Posobiec, Mark Levin, James O’Keefe, and Sean Hannity, amongst others.
President Donald Trump was also frequently flagged by the consortium, as well as his sons Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr.
In April, The Washington Examiner noted the connection of CISA and the suppression of the New York Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story just weeks before the election, which no doubt had a big impact on the election’s outcome, in favor of leftist Joe Biden and against incumbent Republican Donald Trump:
On Oct. 14, 2020, hours after the New York Post published a story based on Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop that Twitter blocked from being shared online, the State Department’s Global Engagement Center reached out to “misinformation” researchers behind the Election Integrity Partnership, a collaboration between universities, left-wing think tanks, social media companies, and the U.S. government to thwart alleged falsehoods online in the lead-up to the presidential election. That outreach from the GEC, a foreign-focused office Republican lawmakers are investigating for its ties to anti-speech projects in the United States, was apparently thanks to guidance from the DHS and its Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, according to internal documents.
The newly unearthed coordination underscores the major role that CISA, an agency under scrutiny from the House GOP for allegedly colluding “with Big Tech and ‘disinformation’ partners to censor Americans” in 2020, played in the Election Integrity Partnership, or EIP. Both CISA and Alex Stamos, who directed the Stanford Internet Observatory, a Stanford University office behind the EIP, have appeared to downplay CISA’s role in the partnership despite some since-released records indicating a closer relationship than previously known, the Washington Examiner reported.
CISA and the FBI: paving the way for domestic election interference?
“With Election Day less than 100 days away, it is important to help put into context some of the incidents the American public may see during the election cycle that, while potentially causing some minor disruptions, will not fundamentally impact the security or integrity of the democratic process,” CISA senior advisor Cait Conley said.
“DDoS attacks are one example of a tactic that we have seen used against election infrastructure in the past and will likely see again in the future, but they will NOT affect the security or integrity of the actual election. They may cause some minor disruptions or prevent the public from receiving timely information,” Conley suggested.
“It is important to talk about these potential issues now, because nefarious actors, like our foreign adversaries or cybercriminals, could use DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) incidents to cast doubt on the election systems or processes,” Conley said.
“Congress is still exposing the extent of the detailed coordination platform between Big Tech platforms and the Censorship Industrial Complex,” noted Republican Rep. Darrell Issa of California, who sits on the House Judiciary Committee, in April. “Rather than promote free speech and free expression, this partnership was dedicated to denying it to those it did not favor.”
Questions remain: Did government agencies facilitate cheating and lie to the American people in 2020 in order to drag Biden across the finish line? Are they preparing to unconstitutionally install Kamala Harris in 2024?
DEI
University System of Georgia to ban DEI, commit to neutrality, teach Constitution
By
“The basis and determining factor” for employment will be “that the individual possesses the requisite knowledge, skills, and abilities associated with the role, and is believed to have the ability to successfully perform the essential functions, responsibilities, and duties associated with the position for which the individual is being considered.”
The University System of Georgia’s Board of Regents has recommended a number of new and revised policies for its institutions, such as a commitment to institutional neutrality, the prohibiting of DEI tactics, and a mandatory education in America’s founding documents.
The University System of Georgia (USG) is made up of Georgia’s 26 public colleges and universities as well as Georgia Archives and the Georgia Public Library Service.
“USG institutions shall remain neutral on social and political issues unless such an issue is directly related to the institution’s core mission,” the board’s proposed revisions read.
“Ideological tests, affirmations, and oaths, including diversity statements,” will be banned from admissions processes and decisions, employment processes and decisions, and institution orientation and training for both students and employees.
“No applicant for admission shall be asked to or required to affirmatively ascribe to or opine about political beliefs, affiliations, ideals, or principles, as a condition for admission,” the new policy states.
Additionally, USG will hire based on a person’s qualifications and ability.
“The basis and determining factor” for employment will be “that the individual possesses the requisite knowledge, skills, and abilities associated with the role, and is believed to have the ability to successfully perform the essential functions, responsibilities, and duties associated with the position for which the individual is being considered.”
Beginning in the 2025-2026 academic year, the school’s civic instruction will require students to study founding American documents among other things.
USG students will learn from the Declaration of Independence, the United States Constitution and Bill of Rights, the Articles of Confederation, the Federalist Papers, the Gettysburg Address, the Emancipation Proclamation, and Martin Luther King Jr.’s Letter from Birmingham Jail, as well as the Georgia Constitution and Bill of Rights.
When reached for comment, the Board of Regents told The Center Square that “these proposed updates strengthen USG’s academic communities.”
The recommended policies allow a campus environment “where people have the freedom to share their thoughts and learn from one another through objective scholarship and inquiry,” and “reflect an unyielding obligation to protect freedom, provide quality higher education and promote student success,” the board said.
The board told The Center Square that it proposed strengthening “the requirements for civics instruction” with the inclusion of “foundational primary sources” because of higher education’s duty to students.
Colleges and universities “must prepare [students] to be contributing members of society and to understand the ideals of freedom and democracy that make America so exceptional,” the board said.
As for ditching DEI, the board explained that “equal opportunity and decisions based on merit are fundamental values of USG.”
“The proposed revisions among other things would make clear that student admissions and employee hiring should be based on a person’s qualifications, not his or her beliefs,” the board said.
The Board of Regents also said it wants to “ensure [its] institutions remain neutral on social and political issues while modeling what it looks like to promote viewpoint diversity, create campus cultures where students and faculty engage in civil discourse, and the open exchange of ideas is the norm.”
USG’s Board of Regents recently urged the NCAA to ban transgender-identifying men from participating in women’s sports, in line with the NAIA rules, The Center Square previously reported.
Censorship Industrial Complex
G20’s Online Speech Clampdown Calls Set To Ignite Free Speech Fears
G20 leaders convened in Rio de Janeiro have called for enhanced responsibility and transparency from digital platforms to tackle the growing challenges of “misinformation,” “disinformation,” “hate speech,” and others on their long list of supposed online “harms.”
The summit’s final declaration highlighted the transformative role of digital platforms in global communication but noted the adverse effects of digital content’s rapid spread. It called for increased accountability from platforms to manage speech, which should raise eyebrows among free speech advocates who’ve heard all this before.
We obtained a copy of the declaration for you here.
During the summit, the leaders highlighted the transformative impact of digital platforms in communication and information dissemination across the globe. However, they also alleged negative ramifications of unchecked digital spaces, where “harmful” content can proliferate at an unprecedented pace and scale.
In response, the G20’s final declaration underscored the critical role of digital platforms in ensuring their ecosystems do not become breeding grounds for speech they don’t like.
The declaration states: “We recognize that digital platforms have reshaped the digital ecosystem and online interactions by amplifying information dissemination and facilitating communication within and across geographical boundaries. However, the digitization of the information realm and the accelerated evolution of new technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), has dramatically impacted the speed, scale, and reach of misinformation and disinformation, hate speech, and other forms of online harms.”
The G20 goes on to say that it emphasizes the “need for digital platforms’ transparency and responsibility in line with relevant policies and applicable legal frameworks and will work with platforms and relevant stakeholders in this regard.”
The declaration even says more measures need to be taken to control what it says is the spread of online misogyny and the need to combat it “online and offline.”
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