.
US government has zero respect for “sovereignty” or “territorial integrity” of US, in fact welcomes invasions. Conversely, US government lectures Americans, 42 million of whom live below the poverty line, to get all choked up about “Sovereignty and Territorial Integrity” of its bloated de facto Colony of Ukraine more than 4700 miles away:
........
Above,10/21/2018, “Migrant caravan continues march toward US,” CBS News…US is $30 trillion in debt........
...............
.
“I’ll start paying attention to Musk’s talk about free speech if and when Twitter stops censoring Russian media and unbans people like Scott Ritter who were removed from the platform for questioning official empire narratives about what’s happening in Ukraine."
4/26/22, “Caitlin Johnstone: The Billionaire Savior of Twitter,“ Consortium News
“Twitter has done an about-face and sold the company to the richest person in the world for $44 billion….
Many critics on the left are responding to the news by ringing alarm bells about a powerful oligarch controlling an influential social media platform, as though Twitter was anything besides oligarch-controlled before today and
as though billionaires buying up media is some shocking new development.
Some anti-imperialists have expressed tentative hope that this new development may lead to some rollback of the
jarring escalations in censorship we’ve been seeing on the platform
in defense of U.S. empire narratives,
due to the plutocrat’s [Musk’s] comments on the importance of free speech.
From what I can see, though, the overwhelming majority of excitement on Twitter about Musk’s purchase is coming not from those who challenge power in any meaningful way....This important distinction was summed up by journalist Michael Tracey, who tweeted,
“The biggest test for Elon Musk will not be whether he rolls back the most obvious ‘woke’ content policies–that should be a given–but
whether he continues to let Twitter be used as
a vehicle for the US national security state
to ‘counter’ official enemies like Russia and China.”…
You don’t get to be a billionaire, much less a billionaire with massively influential media ownership,
unless you collaborate with existing power.
Musk has certainly been collaborating with the oligarchic empire very nicely up until this point, and
it’s a safe bet that his purchase would not be happening
if the empire felt its
narrative control machine
was in any way threatened by it.
Believing Elon Musk is going to save Twitter is as naive as believing Joe Biden was going to save America. Arguing over which oligarchs should control the media is as silly and undignified as arguing over which oligarch-owned politicians should run the government.
Billionaires coming to the rescue only happens in movies and comic books. You’re as likely to be saved by Elon Musk as you are by Bruce Wayne or Tony Stark.
How many times are people going to fall for this “a billionaire is about to
stick it to the man and save us all” schtick?
It’s very sad that we’re at a point where speech is being throttled so severely that people are
hoping an eccentric billionaire will swoop in and rescue them from oppression.
Real life is like a dumber, more boring version of Gotham City, except Batman is working with the bad guys.
I’ll start paying attention to Musk’s talk about free speech
if and when Twitter stops censoring Russian media
and unbans people like Scott Ritter who were removed from the platform
for questioning official empire narratives
about what’s happening in Ukraine.
Until then I’m going to assume he’s at most only interested in
protecting speech that
doesn’t threaten the powerful….
The billionaires are not coming to save us….The leaders of the capitalist class are not going to overturn the systems of oppression and exploitation which form the very foundation of capitalism. Superhero stories are designed to prevent us from realizing that
only we the people have the power to rescue ourselves.”
………………..
“Caitlin Johnstone is a rogue journalist, poet, and utopia prepper who publishes regularly at Medium. Her work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking her on Facebook, following her antics on Twitter, checking out her podcast on either Youtube, soundcloud, Apple podcasts or Spotify, following her on Steemit, throwing some money into her tip jar on Patreon or Paypal, purchasing some of her sweet merchandise, buying her books Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix, Rogue Nation: Psychonautical Adventures With Caitlin Johnstone and Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers.
This article is from CaitlinJohnstone.com and re-published with permission.
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.”
.
Via "Consent Decree" from 1982-Dec. 2017, “RNC and its employees were prohibited from engaging in Election Day activities, including poll watching."…In Nov. 2016, “party officials knew to keep their distance” from “Donald Trump’s vote-counting operations on Election Night” Sean Spicer said.
8/8/2018, “End of 1982 Consent Decree: GOP finally can contest vote fraud after 36 years,” Investment Watch blog, Dr. Eowyn
“Did you know that since 1982, the Republican Party had been legally prohibited from contesting elections due to suspected vote fraud, because of
a legal agreement called
the Consent Decree the GOP made with the Democrat Party?
Finally, 36 years later, a judge has ended the agreement, freeing the Republican Party to ensure electoral integrity by investigating and pursuing suspected vote fraud….
THE 1982 CONSENT DECREE
As I explained in my post of November 15, 2012, “Why the GOP won’t challenge vote fraud,” in 1981, during the gubernatorial election in New Jersey (NJ), a lawsuit was brought against the Republican National Committee (RNC), the NJ Republican State Committee (RSC), and three individuals (John A. Kelly, Ronald Kaufman, and Alex Hurtado), accusing them of violating the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA), 42 U.S.C. §§ 1971, 1973,
and the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States.
The lawsuit was brought by the Democratic National Committee (DNC), the NJ Democratic State Committee (DSC), and two individuals (Virginia L. Peggins and Lynette Monroe).
The lawsuit alleged that:
To settle the lawsuit, in 1982 — while Ronald Reagan was President (1981-1989) —
the RNC and RSC entered into an agreement or Consent Decree, which is national in scope,
limiting the RNC’s ability to engage or assist
unless the RNC obtains the court’s approval in advance.
The two parties [RNC and RSC] agreed that “in the future, in all states and territories of the United States,” they would:
(d) refrain from giving any directions to or permitting their employees to campaign within restricted polling areas or to interrogate prospective voters as to their qualifications to vote prior to their entry to a polling place;
(e) refrain from undertaking any ballot security activities in polling places or election districts where the racial or ethnic composition of such districts is a factor in the decision to conduct, or the actual conduct of, such activities there and where a purpose or significant effect of such activities is to deter qualified voters from voting; and the conduct of such activities disproportionately in or directed toward districts that have a substantial proportion of racial or ethnic populations shall be considered relevant evidence of the existence of such a factor and purpose;
(f) refrain from having private personnel deputized as law enforcement personnel in connection with ballot security activities.
The RNC also agreed that the RNC, its agents, servants, and employees would be bound by the Decree,
“whether acting directly or indirectly through other party committees.”
To put it bluntly, the Consent Decree in effect gave a carte blanche to the Democrat Party to commit vote fraud in every voting district across America that has, in the language of the Consent Decree, “a substantial proportion of racial or ethnic populations.” The term “substantial proportion” is not defined.
In 1987, the Consent Decree was modified to define “ballot security activities” as “ballot integrity, ballot security
or other efforts to prevent or remedy vote fraud.”
Since 1982, the Consent Decree had been renewed every year by the original judge, Carter appointee District Judge Dickinson R. Debevoise, who, even after he retired, returned every year for the sole purpose of renewing his 1982 order for another year.
Debevoise died in August 2015.
In 2010, the RNC appealed “to vacate or modify” the Consent Decree in “Democratic National Committee v Republican National Committee,” Case No. 09-4615 (C.A. 3, Mar. 8, 2012). But an appeals judge at the New Jersey District Court, Obama appointee Judge Joseph Greenaway, Jr.,
declined to vacate the decree.
Flash forward to December 1, 2017, when the Consent Decree was due to expire.
According to NJ.com, the Democrat Party tried to extend the Consent Decree, claiming that the 2016 Trump presidential campaign had colluded with the RNC in voter intimidation efforts, and
that Trump’s commission to examine suspected Democratic voter fraud was, in the words of Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ),
“a thinly veiled voter suppression effort”.
But Sean Spicer, who had been a top RNC official before entering the Trump White House as spokesman, testified there was no collusion of the Trump campaign with the RNC, and that the RNC had stayed away from all 2016 election day activities, including any voter-intimidation, voter-suppression or ballot-security efforts. Nor did any party officials discuss voter fraud allegations with the Trump campaign. Spicer said:
“It had been abundantly clear for the six years that I worked at the RNC that the RNC and its employees were prohibited from engaging in Election Day activities, including poll watching, so I
intentionally stayed away from all of that.
The [RNC] counsel’s office had been vigilant in informing both senior staff and subordinates on the importance of the consent decree and the activities that we were clearly should not be engaged at or be even perceived as engaging in. And so we had grown accustomed to not even coming too close to a line that would
in any way, shape, or form lead one to believe that we were engaged in those activities.”
RNC lawyer Bobby Burchfield said Spicer’s testimony proved there was no collusion and asked the presiding judge, U.S. District Court Judge John Michael Vazquez, to allow the 1982 Consent Decree to expire.
As reported by NJ.com on January 9, 2018, Judge Vazquez ruled that the Democratic National Committee did not prove that the RNC violated the Consent Decree prior to
its Dec. 1, 2017, expiration date.
And with that, Judge Vazquez, an Obama appointee, ended that noxious
1982 Consent Decree legal agreement between the RNC and DNC
RNC spokesman Michael Ahrens said “We are gratified that the judge recognized our full compliance with the consent decree and rejected the DNC’s baseless claims” and that Judge Vazquez’s ruling
“will allow the RNC to work more closely with state parties and campaigns
to do what we do best, ensure that more people vote through our unmatched field program.” As a result,
the GOP will be able to boost its Election Day turnout operations, including targeting potential voters
and get them to the polls,
which the Democrats have been able to do but the Republicans have not for 36 years.
Nominated by Obama to the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey in March 2015, John Michael Vazquez, 47-48, who received his J.D. from Seton Hall University School of Law, was confirmed by the Senate on January 27, 2016, by a vote of 84 to 2. Thank you, Judge Vazquez, for your fair and judicious ruling.”
…………………………………………..
Added: ““We [the RNC] had grown accustomed to not even coming too close to a line that would in any way, shape, or form lead one to believe that we were engaged in those activities,” he [Spicer] said.” In Nov. 2016, “party officials knew to keep their distance” from “Donald Trump’s vote-counting operations on Election Night” Sean Spicer said.
12/29/2017, “Here’s what Sean Spicer said in N.J. voter intimidation case," nj.com, Jonathan D. Salant, Washington
“White House spokesman Sean Spicer testified there were no signs keeping Republican National Committee staff members
vote-counting operations on Election Night, but
party officials knew to keep their distance.
“It had been abundantly clear for the six years that I worked at the RNC that the
RNC and its employees were prohibited from engaging in Election Day activities,
including poll watching,
so I intentionally stayed away from all of that,” said Spicer, then a top Republican National Committee official.
Spicer’s testimony came as the Republican National Committee sought to end limits on its voter activities imposed 35 years ago as a result of GOP activities in the 1981 New Jersey gubernatorial election narrowly won by Thomas H. Kean.
That consent decree expired Dec. 1, [2017] but Democrats are seeking to extend it.
Spicer said the poll monitoring and data operations were housed in a small room on the fifth floor of Trump Tower, with entry restricted. He said he and Republican National Chairman Reince Priebus were the only RNC officials who were on the fifth floor.
While there were no signs telling party officials to keep out,
they knew to stay away, Spicer said.
Spicer said neither he nor any Republican National Committee officials were involved in what could be seen as any voter-intimidation, voter-suppression
Nor did any party officials
discuss voter fraud allegations
with the [2016] Trump campaign, he said.
“The counsel’s office had been vigilant in informing both senior staff and subordinates on the
importance of the consent decree
and the activities that we were clearly should not be engaged at or
be even perceived as engaging in,” Spicer said.
“And so we had grown accustomed to
not even coming too close to a line
that would in any way,
shape, or form lead one to believe that we were engaged
in those activities,” he said.
Spicer joined the Trump White House after the campaign but resigned his post in July.
Democratic lawyer Angelo Genova had sought to question Spicer to show links between the RNC and Trump, who has claimed without evidence that millions of people voted illegally in the 2016 election
and formed a commission to examine voter fraud, which
studies have shown is virtually non-existent.
U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., has called the panel “a thinly veiled voter suppression effort” and
has introduced legislation to disband it.
Following Spicer’s testimony, Genova asked U.S. District Court Judge John Michael Vazquez to let him question Priebus, who later became Trump’s chief of staff, as well as Trump campaign aides Mike Roman
and Brad Parscale.
RNC lawyer Bobby Burchfield said Spicer’s testimony proved there was no collusion and asked Vazquez to end the case with the consent decree expired.
“This court has repeatedly observed that the DNC has failed to submit evidence of RNC participation in ballot security efforts or voter suppression efforts during the 2016 election cycle,” Burchfield said. “Much as the DNC wants to continue these proceedings, however, it has provided no sound reason to do so.”
The limits were imposed after the 1981 New Jersey gubernatorial election in which the state Republican Party reportedly targeted heavily minority communities that tend to support Democratic candidates.
Trump and Republicans have championed the use of
that have been found to
discriminate against minority voters.
The type of in-person voter fraud such laws are designed to protect against is
extremely rare, studies have shown.
For example, after the 2016 election, reviews by election officials in California, North Carolina, Ohio and Tennessee found just 324 potential fraud cases out of more than 29 million ballots cast, or one-thousandth of 1 percent, according to the Center for Election Innovation and Research in Washington.
And Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles,
found just 31 possible fraud cases out of more than 1 billion votes
from 2000 through 2014."
………………………………………
Added: Having observed 2012 sham Romney effort, voters comment on so-called Republican “Consent Decree” in place since 1982 (created after a 1981 NJ governor election):
11/12/2012, “No Joke: The GOP Can Not Legally Help Stop Vote Fraud,” Politijim…
“During the weekly True the Vote webcast, Catherine Engelbrecht related a meeting she had with RNC Chairman Reince Priebus,
asking what the GOP would do about voter integrity.
The answer? Nothing. They aren’t legally able to. (I’m not joking.)”…
Two of the clauses read this way:
(e) refrain from undertaking any ballot security activities in polling places or election districts where the racial or ethnic composition of such districts is a factor in the decision to conduct, or the actual conduct of, such activities there and where a purpose or significant effect of such activities is to deter qualified voters from voting;…
(f) refrain from having private personnel deputized as law enforcement personnel in connection with ballot security activities….
ACORN Whistleblower Anita Moncrief…pointed out during her comments tonight that in visiting the [2012] Democrat advocacy groups in Ohio, they were organized, motivated and purposeful in getting out their vote as was witnessed by the long line of Somali and Ethiopian voters bussed in to polling places. When she visited the Romney campaign offices, she said there was utter confusion, many were just sitting around waxing about how the couldn’t wait to Free Willy. (ORCA was the name of the failed computer program the Romney campaign tried to use to “micro-target” volunteers to get out the vote where it was needed.)
It was down ALL DAY,
and finally late in the day people were sent out with printed
registration cards to go find people to vote….Moncrief said one other
thing of interest. When she visited random Ohio polling places [in 2012], there was almost NEVER a GOP poll watcher and ALWAYS a Democratic one.”…
………………….
Six among voter comments in 2012 about Republican so-called “Consent Decree:”
…………………..
“johnrhett
………………………………………..
Added: 8/16/2016, “How this bit of nasty N.J. history may foil Trump’s vow to stop ‘rigged election’," nj.com, Jonathan D. Salant
“[Republican] Party officials have [allegedly] attempted to get from under the constraints several times, but the courts have upheld the agreement, including
the U.S. Supreme Court in 2013. [No link provided].
The agreement is due to expire in [Dec. 1,] 2017 unless the Republicans are found to have violated its provisions,
in which case the
Democrats can seek to extend it.”..
.........................................
Comment:
For 35 years the Republican Party and Republican National Committee
agreed that based on one 1981 election in New Jersey that the entire
party was inherently racist, that it couldn't be trusted to restrain its
racist impulses, so shouldn't be allowed to compete on a level playing
field with the Democrat Party.
.
Letter signed by 7 global parasites who’ve never stopped being embarrassments and “threats to national security:” James R. Clapper, Former Director of National Intelligence; Jane Harman, Former U.S. Representative from California, Former Ranking Member, House Intelligence Committee; Jeh C. Johnson, Former Secretary of Homeland Security†; Michael J. Morell, Former Acting Director and Deputy Director, Central Intelligence Agency; Leon E. Panetta, Former Secretary of Defense, Former Dire1ctor, Central Intelligence Agency; Admiral Michael S. Rogers, Former Commander, U.S. Cyber Command, Former Director, National Security Agency; Frances F. Townsend, Former Assistant to the President for Counterterrorism and Homeland Security”
Wed., 4/20/22, “Greenwald: Former Intel Officials, Citing Russia, Say Big-Tech Monopoly Power Vital To National Security,” zero hedge
Authored by Glenn Greenwald via Substack,
“When the U.S. security state announces
that Big Tech’s centralized censorship power must be preserved,
we should ask what this reveals about whom this regime serves.
A group of [5] former intelligence and national security officials on Monday issued a jointly signed letter warning that pending legislative attempts to restrict or break up the power of Big Tech monopolies — Facebook, Google, and Amazon —
would jeopardize national security because, they argue, their
is crucial to advancing U.S. foreign policy.
The majority of this letter is devoted to repeatedly invoking the grave threat allegedly posed to the U.S. by Russia as illustrated by the invasion of Ukraine, and it repeatedly points to the dangers of Putin and the Kremlin to justify the need to preserve Big Tech’s power in its maximalist form.
Any attempts to restrict Big Tech’s monopolistic power
the U.S. fight against Moscow.
.....
While one of their central claims is that Big Tech monopoly power is necessary to combat (i.e., censor) “foreign disinformation,” several of these officials are themselves leading disinformation agents: many were the same former intelligence officials who signed the now-infamous-and-debunked pre-election letter fraudulently claiming that the authentic Hunter Biden emails had the “hallmarks” of Russia disinformation (former Obama Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former Obama CIA Director Michael Morrell, former Obama CIA/Pentagon chief Leon Panetta). Others who signed this new letter have strong financial ties to the Big Tech corporations whose power they are defending in the name of national security (Morrell, Panetta, former Bush National Security Adviser Fran Townsend).
The ostensible purpose of the letter is to warn of the national security dangers from two different bipartisan bills — one pending in the Senate, the other in the House — that
would prohibit Big Tech monopolies from using their vertical power to “discriminate” against competitors (the way Google, for instance,
uses its search engine business to bury the videos of competitors to its YouTube property, such as Rumble, or the way Google and Apple use their stores and Amazon uses its domination over hosting services to destroy competitors).
One bill in the Senate is co-sponsored by Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA), and has attracted ample support in both parties, as has a similar House bill co-sponsored by House Antitrust Committee Chair David Cicilline (D-RI) and ranking member Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO). The amount of bipartisan support each bill has garnered — and the widespread animosity toward Big Tech reflected by this Congressional support —
has shocked Google, Amazon, Apple, and Facebook lobbyists,
who are accustomed to getting their way in Washington with lavish donations to the key politicians in each party.
This letter by former national security officials is, in one sense, an act of desperation. The bills have received the support of the key committees with jurisdiction over antitrust and Big Tech. In the Senate, five conservative Republican Committee members who have been outspoken critics of Big Tech power — Grassley, Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Ted Cruz (R-TX), Josh Hawley (R-MI), Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) — joined with Democrats to ensure the passage of one bill out of the Judiciary Committee by a 16-6 vote, with a companion bill passing that Committee with the support of 20 of twenty-two Senators. As The Intercept‘s Sara Sirota and Ryan Grim report: “Both bills have Big Tech reeling” since “a floor vote would likely be a blowout for Big Tech.”
The extreme animus harbored by large parts of the left and right toward Big Tech make it very difficult for any lawmaker to go on record in opposition to these proposed bills if they are forced to publicly take a position in a floor vote. Many Senators with financial ties to Big Tech — including the two California Senate Democrats who represent Silicon Valley and are recipients of their largesse (Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Alex Padilla) — have expressed reservations about these reform efforts and have refused to co-sponsor the bill, yet still voted YES when forced to vote in Committee. This shows that public pressure to rein in Big Tech is becoming too large to enable Silicon Valley to force lawmakers to ignore their constituents’ wishes with lobbyist donations. These politicians
will work behind the scenes to kill efforts to rein in Big Tech,
but will not vote against such efforts
if forced to take a public position.
As a result, Big Tech’s last hope is
to keep the bill from reaching the floor
where Senators would be forced to go on record, a goal they hope will be advanced by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York due to his close ties to Silicon Valley. “Both [Schumer’s] children are on the payroll of companies the proposals would seek to rein in,” reported The New York Post: “Jessica Schumer is a registered lobbyist at Amazon, according to New York state records. Alison Schumer works at Facebook as a product marketing manager.” Despite that, Schumer claimed to The Intercept that he supports both bills and will vote in favor of them, even though he has engaged in maneuvers to impede the bills from getting a full floor vote.
This is where these former intelligence and national security officials come in. While these former CIA, Homeland Security and Pentagon operatives have little sway in the Senate Judiciary and House Antitrust Committees, they command great loyalty from Congressional national security committees. Those committees, created to exert oversight of the U.S. intelligence and military agencies, are notoriously captive to the U.S. National Security State. The ostensible purpose of this new letter is to
insist that Big Tech monopoly power
is vital to U.S. national security —
because it is necessary for them
to censor “disinformation” from the internet,
especially now with the grave Russian threat reflected by the war in Ukraine — and they thus demand that the anti-Big-Tech bills first be reviewed not only by the Judiciary and Antitrust Committees,
but also the national security committees
where they wield power and influence,
which have traditionally played no role in regulating the technology sector:
“We call on the congressional committees with national security jurisdiction – including the
Armed Services Committees, Intelligence Committees, and Homeland Security Committees in both the House and Senate –
to conduct a review of any legislation that could hinder America’s key technology companies in the fight against cyber and national security risks emanating from Russia’s and China’s growing digital authoritarianism.”
Why would these former national security and intelligence officials be so devoted to preserving the unfettered power of Big Tech to control and censor the internet? One obvious explanation is the standard one that always runs Washington:
several of them have a
financial interest in serving Big Tech’s agenda.
Unsurprisingly, Apple CEO Tim Cook has himself pushed the claim that undermining Big Tech’s power in any way
would threaten U.S national security.
And there is now an army of well-compensated-by-Silicon-Valley former national security officials echoing his message. A well-researched Politico article from September — headlined: “12 former security officials who warned against antitrust crackdown have tech ties” — detailed how many of these former officials who invoke national security claims to protect Big Tech
are on the take from the key tech monopolies:
[Politico] “The warning last week from a dozen former national security leaders was stark: An antitrust crackdown on Silicon Valley
could threaten the nation’s economy
and “cede U.S. tech leadership to China.”
But the group was united by more than their histories of holding senior defense and intelligence roles in the Trump, Obama and George W. Bush administrations:
All 12 have ties to major tech companies, either from working with them directly or serving with organizations that get money from them, according to a POLITICO analysis….
Seven of the 12, including Panetta, hold roles at Beacon Global Strategies, a public relations firm that according to a person familiar with the matter counts Google as a client…Five of the former officials, including former director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency Robert Cardillo and former National Security Agency deputy director Richard Ledgett, serve as advisory board members at Beacon. Panetta and Michael Morell, a former acting CIA director under President Barack Obama,
are senior counselors for the firm….
Frances Townsend, who was a counterterrorism and homeland security adviser to President George W. Bush, is on the national security advisory board for American Edge, a Facebook-funded group that opposes changes to strengthen antitrust laws….
Townsend is also on the board of directors of the Atlantic Council, which counts Facebook and Google as funders; the board of trustees for Center for Strategic and International Studies, which counts Apple and Google as funders; and the board of directors of the Council on Foreign Relations, which receives money from Microsoft and counts Facebook and Google in its highest membership category.”
As Rep. Buck, the Colorado House Republican who favors reform, put it: “It is not surprising that individuals who receive money from Big Tech are defending Big Tech. At the end of the day, Big Tech is harming U.S. competition and innovation through anticompetitive practices.” In other words, these former intelligence officials are exploiting their national security credentials
to protect an industry in which they have a deep financial interest.
The view that preservation of Big Tech is vital for national security is by no means a unanimous view even in that world. Retired Gen. Wesley Clark and others have vehemently argued that this claim is a “myth.” As veteran internet security expert Bruce Schneier observed: “These bills will encourage competition, prevent monopolist extortion, and guarantee users a new right to digital self-determination.” But the National Security State has enough True Believers combined with paid shills to make it appear as if Americans should be desperate to preserve and protect Big Tech’s power because this power is
crucial to keeping America safe and, particularly, fighting Russia.
There are indeed valid and rational reasons
for these officials to view Big Tech monopoly power as
a vital weapon in advancing their national security agenda.
As I documented last week when reporting on the unprecedented censorship regime imposed in the West regarding the war in Ukraine, Big Tech censorship of political speech is not random.
Domestically, it is virtually always devoted to silencing any meaningful dissent from liberal orthodoxy or official pieties on key political controversies. But in terms of foreign policy, the censorship patterns of tech monopolies
virtually always align with U.S. foreign policy, and for understandable reasons: Big Tech and the U.S. security state are in a virtually complete union, with all sorts of overlapping, mutual financial interests:
“Note that this censorship regime is completely one-sided and, as usual, entirely aligned with U.S. foreign policy. Western news outlets and social media platforms have been flooded with pro-Ukrainian propaganda and outright lies from the start of the war. A New York Times article from early March put it very delicately in its headline: “Fact and Mythmaking Blend in Ukraine’s Information War.” Axios was similarly understated in recognizing this fact: “Ukraine misinformation is spreading — and not just from Russia.” Members of the U.S. Congress have gleefully spread
fabrications that went viral to millions of people,
with no action from censorship-happy Silicon Valley corporations.
That is not a surprise: all participants in war use disinformation and propaganda to manipulate public opinion in their favor, and that certainly includes all direct and proxy-war belligerents in the war in Ukraine.
Yet there is little to no censorship — either by Western states or by Silicon Valley monopolies — of pro-Ukrainian disinformation, propaganda and lies. The censorship goes only in one direction: to silence any voices deemed “pro-Russian,” regardless of whether they spread disinformation….Their crime, like the crime of so many other banished accounts,
about the US/NATO propaganda campaign. Put another way,
it is not “disinformation” but rather
that is targeted for silencing.
One can spread as many lies and as much disinformation as one wants provided that it is designed to advance the NATO agenda in Ukraine
(just as one is free to spread disinformation provided that its purpose is to strengthen the Democratic Party, which
wields its majoritarian power in Washington to demand greater censorship
and commands the support of most of Silicon Valley).
But what one cannot do is question the NATO/Ukrainian propaganda framework without running a very substantial risk of banishment.
It is unsurprising that Silicon Valley monopolies exercise their censorship power
in full alignment with the foreign policy interests of the U.S. Government.
Many of the key tech monopolies — such as Google and Amazon — routinely seek and obtain highly lucrative contracts with the U.S. security state, including both the CIA and NSA. Their top executives enjoy very close relationships with top Democratic Party officials. And Congressional Democrats have repeatedly hauled tech executives
before their various Committees
to explicitly threaten them with legal and regulatory reprisals
in accordance with the policy goals and political interests of that party.”
Needless to say, the U.S. security state wants to
maintain a stranglehold on political discourse in the U.S.
They want to be able to impose propagandistic narratives
advocate for militarism without dissent.
To accomplish that, they need
a small handful of corporations which are subservient to them
to hold in their hands as much
concentrated power over the internet as possible.
If a free and fair competitive market were to arise whereby social media platforms more devoted to free speech could fairly compete with Google and Facebook— as the various pending bills in Congress are partially designed to foster — then that new
diversity of influence, that diffusion of power, would genuinely threaten the ability of the CIA and the Pentagon and the White House to police political discourse and suppress dissent from their policies and assertions. By contrast, by maintaining all power in the hands of the small coterie of tech monopolies which control the internet and which have long proven their loyalty to the U.S. security state,
the ability of the U.S. national security state
to maintain a closed propaganda system
around questions of war and militarism is guaranteed.
In this new letter, these national security operatives barely bother to hide their intention to exploit the strong animosity toward Russia that they have cultivated, and the accompanying intense emotions from the ubiquitous, unprecedented media coverage of the war in Ukraine, to prop up their goals. Over and over, they cite the grave Russian threat — a theme they have been disseminating and manufacturing since the Russiagate fraud of 2016-
to manipulate Americans to support the preservation of Big Tech’s concentrated power,
and to imply that
anyone seeking to limit Big Tech power or make the market more competitive
is a threat to U.S. national security:
.....
“This is a pivotal moment in modern history. There is a battle brewing between authoritarianism and democracy, and the former is using all the tools at its disposal, including a broad disinformation campaign and the threat of cyber-attacks,
to bring about a change in the global order.
We must confront these global challenges. . . . U.S. technology platforms have given the world the chance to see the real story of the Russian military’s horrific human rights abuses in Ukraine. . . . At the same time, President Putin and his regime have sought to twist facts in order to show Russia as a liberator instead of an aggressor....
The Russian government is seeking to alter the information landscape by blocking Russian citizens from receiving content that would show the true facts on the ground. .. . . . Indeed, it is telling that among the Kremlin’s first actions of the war was blocking U.S. platforms in Russia. Putin knows that U.S. digital platforms can provide Russian citizens valuable views and facts about the war that he tries to distort through lies and disinformation. U.S. technology platforms have already taken concrete steps to shine a light on Russia’s actions to brutalize Ukraine. . . . Providing timely and accurate on-the-ground information – and disrupting the scourge of disinformation from Russian state media – is essential for allowing the world (including the Russian people) to see the human toll of Russia’s aggression. . . . [T]he United States is facing an extraordinary threat from Russian cyber-attacks . . .
In the face of these growing threats, U.S. policymakers must not inadvertently hamper the ability of U.S. technology platforms to counter increasing disinformation and cybersecurity risks, particularly as the West continues to rely on the scale and reach of these firms to push back on the Kremlin . . . . Russia’s invasion of Ukraine marks the start of a new chapter in global history, one in which the ideals of democracy will be put to the test.
The United States will need to rely on the power of its technology sector
to ensure that the safety of its citizens
and the narrative of events
continues to be shaped by facts, not by foreign adversaries.”
It is hardly controversial or novel to observe that
the U.S. security state always wants and needs a hated foreign enemy
precisely because it allows them
to claim whatever powers and whatever budgets they want in the name of stopping that foreign villain.
And every war and every new enemy ushers in new authoritarian powers and the trampling of civil liberties: both the First War on Terror, justified by 9/11, and the New Domestic War on Terror, justified by 1/6, should have taught us that lesson permanently. Usually, though, U.S. security state propagandists are a bit more subtle about how they manipulate anger and fear of foreign villains to manipulate public opinion for their own authoritarian ends.
Perhaps because of their current desperation about the support these bills have attracted, they are now just nakedly and shamelessly
trying to channel the anger and hatred that they have successfully stoked toward Russia
to demand that Big Tech not be weakened, regulated or restricted in any way.
The cynical exploitation could hardly be more overt:
if you hate Putin the way any loyal and patriotic American should,
then you must devote yourself to
full preservation of the power of Google, Facebook, Apple, and Amazon.
It should go without saying that these life-long security state operatives do not care in the slightest about the dangers of “disinformation.” Indeed — as evidenced by the fact that most of them generated one Russiagate fraud after the next during the Trump years and perpetrated one of the worst pre-election frauds in modern history by falsely declaring the Biden emails to be “Russian disinformation —
few people love disinformation,
and are as practiced in disseminating it,
as the signers of this pro-Big-Tech letter.
They are trained disinformation agents, who have increasingly turned their dark arts inward, domestically, onto the American people.
But what they know is that Americans, especially Democrats but also a sizable minority of Republicans,
have been conditioned over the last six years to
support not just corporate but also state censorship
if justified in the name of stopping disinformation.
So fears of “disinformation,”
along with the intense bipartisan hatred toward and fear of Russia,
are their chosen weapons to protect Big Tech,
insisting that Big Tech’s monopolistic powers
are crucial to the U.S. ability to fight Moscow: both militarily but also in the information wars.
Manipulative and dishonest as this may be, they are not entirely wrong.
They have indeed succeeded in commandeering Big Tech’s censorship power
for their own ends.
Aside from the fact that some are paid shills for this industry, that is the main motive they have for wanting all this internet censorship power centralized rather than dispersed. Keeping it in the hands of the few, corporations they can control, allows them to wield the immense power of a systemic regime of censorship, whereby
they can simply silence
and banish
any questioning of their decrees and dissent from their policies.
When it comes to where real power resides in the U.S., how it is exercised, and for whose benefit, this letter is profoundly illuminating. While these Big Tech advocates in the U.S. Security State are obviously lying about their motives, they are laying bare the fact that they are in a close alliance with Big Tech, and that
Big Tech’s rapidly increasing censorship regime
is being used to advance the power of these Security State operatives
to lie and propagandize.
This is the union of power — the U.S. Security State, Big Tech and their corporate media allies — that gave us Russigate and so many other journalistic frauds, including the pre-election suppression of reporting on Joe Biden’s activities in Ukraine and China by falsely labeling it “Russian disinformation.”
When these operatives announce that it as vital that nothing be done to reel in or reform Big Tech’s power to censor the internet, we should pay attention to what this reveals about who is part of this union of power and for whose benefit this power is being deployed.”
……………………………….
Two among comments
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“css1971
“advancing U.S. foreign policy”
Notice how this is independent of political oversight. “US foreign policy” exists on it’s own,
not dictated by the American people and the politicians they elect.
What they are saying is “US foreign policy” is owned by the bureaucracy. Unelected bureaucrats. The Deep State.”
……………………………….
“66Mustanggirl
Free speech is enshrined in the First Amendment.
Without it, We The People have no true free exercise of religion, have no right to peaceably assemble, and have no path to petition OUR government for redress of grievances,
thereby rendering our Constitution and the rest of the rights contained in the Bills of Rights
null and void.
It is literally the foundation upon which the Constitution, our Federal Democratic Representative Republic, and We The People exist and any attack on it is a direct attack on our Constitution, our country, and We The People.
By giving unaccountable and untouchable Corporate and Social Media entities,
many of whom have military and governments contracts,
including those with foreign countries,
the power to censor the American people
and decide what speech and what rights
will be allowed to exist in OUR country,
Congress has betrayed its solemn oath to uphold and protect the Constitution,
Thereby betraying those who elected them to office by abdicating their responsibilities to protect the rights it contains,
Thereby leaving We The People no path to petition OUR government for redress of grievances and *POOF* We The People are no more.
If We The People cease to exist,
as a legitimate branch
of OUR representative government.
According to the Geneva Convention, any intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, racial, ethnic, or religious group
In 1951, African Americans set a precedent by bringing a historic petition to the United Nations charging the United States with just that.
This attack on free speech by Progressive Marxists within the Democratic Party, the Intel Community, [the entire Republican Establishment] and our government
is a direct attempt to obliterate the “We The People”.
I have my petition to the UN listing civil, political, and religious rights grievances on behalf of myself and the 334 million Americans who make up We The People being reviewed by lawyers as we speak.”
