Federally backed censorship machine raises separation of powers, election meddling questions

 A federal agency-backed censorship machine that affected thousands of web URLs and millions of social posts during the 2020 campaign put a focus on some members of Congress and candidates for federal office, raising concerns about the separation of powers and election meddling.

• Four House members, including Kevin McCarthy of California and oft-censored Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, and one Senate candidate are named in the after-action report by the Election Integrity Partnership, set up "in consultation" with the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).

The revelations show that we've been so out of balance on checks and balances in the federal system, where now the executive branch "essentially lord[s] over the legislative," as then-President Obama did with his "pen and phone" strategy

• If Congress doesn't assert their authority, why even bother having the representatives of the people in Washington D.C., if we're just going to have essentially a one-man show playing out in Washington?"

Greene leveraged multiple social media platforms simultaneously to spread Stop the Steal messages and promote herself

• The report puts scare quotes around Greene’s use of the term “censored” to describe what the tweets being “labeled as disputed and possibly misleading”
• Such labels have been “weaponized to make the case that platforms allegedly have political agendas”

The report cites several examples of Republicans spreading election misinformation

• Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.)
• Sharing a Project Veritas video about Rep. Ilhan Omar's (D-Minn.) connection to a "cash-for-ballots harvesting scheme" within 15 minutes of the investigative journalism group's founder James O'Keefe posting it suggested that the Trump campaign may have had access to the video before the general public, raising questions of coordination.
• It portrays Rep. Mike Kelly as especially dangerous because he filed a lawsuit against the state's mail-in voting law based on "unsupported claims that had circulated throughout online communities."
• Finally, the report devotes several discussions to Senate candidate Shiva Ayyadurai, who made "compilation videos" that were widely shared in tweets about election fraud.

His response

• In a statement to Just the News, he said the "Orwellian named" consortium smeared him shortly before Twitter and Instagram imposed a "search ban" so people couldn't find his accounts.

This is unprecedented in American history for a Congressional race

• The action by the federal government to interfere in an election and stop a candidate they fear is also unprecedented
• Starbuck's family came from Cuba, where communism resulted in enemies lists being made by the elite to target those they feared the most
• What's different in America today?

The Consortium didn't respond to queries about whether it alerted social media companies to posts by the four members of Congress and Senate candidate, or whether anyone from the federal government, DNC or the other liberal organizations with "ticket" privileges had contact with the consortium or filed tickets about them.

• It also didn't answer if and how the tech platforms responded to the consortium's own misinformation reports and those it facilitated.

https://justthenews.com/government/congress/federally-backed-censorship-machine-raises-separation-powers-election-meddling