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New Docs Reveal US DHS Conspiracy to Violate First Amendment

IG_Semmelweiss 3y ago
from the article: >>> According to the U.S. Supreme Court, it is “axiomatic” that the US government “may not induce, encourage or promote private persons to accomplish what it is constitutionally forbidden to accomplish.”
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
allears 3y ago
I dunno, it sounds to me like more right-wingers complaining that their disinformation is being disrupted.
- HappySweeney 3y ago
  Same, but isn't disseminating disinfo a constitutionally-protected activity (modulo fraud, ofc)?
- lettergram 3y ago
  "disinformation" is protected first amendment speech. Who decides what's "disinformation"? You don't want it to be the government or anyone really to decide what you can or cannot read? You battle bad speech with good speech.
  - aaroninsf 3y ago
    False, you meaning all of us do want a government that takes active measures to prevent weaponized speech. That we don't have a Constitutional framework for distinguishing this is the same sort of catastrophic zero day in our democracy that the comically shitty second amendment language is. That these are unpatchable is a consequence of and overwhelmingly serves bad actors, specifically, right wing antidemocratic bad faith actors, and operates in no small part over the "free speech" being mechanically reproduced by they and their allies in such lovely institutions as the GRU and other centers of literally anti-American memetic warfare.
    - analognoise 3y ago
      If people are dumb enough to succumb to “memetic warfare” (whatever that is) we deserve to lose. I would rather have the “threat” of having to actually convince people we’re right rather than have the government tell people something can’t be said. That’s far more horrifying. People are allowed to be wrong. They’re people. They disagree. If our society is so weak it crumbles when people hear certain things, it deserves to crumble. I don’t think it is and I don’t think we will, however.
  - kelseyfrog 3y ago
    Lies spread faster than truth and repetition legitimizes, repetition legitimizes, repetition legitimizes. Those two axioms are enough to guarantee that, all things being equal, lies will be legitimated over truth. I''ll graciously ask for proof that truth is born out of debate in greater than 50% of cases and baring evidence, cannot take it to be true.
    - nathanaldensr 3y ago
      Regardless of your personal perspective on the definition of "truth," the issue here is not said definition but the First Amendment.
      - kelseyfrog 3y ago
        "Lies spread faster than truth" does not depend on my definition of truth nor does it depend on the 1st amendment, sorry. It's perfectly fine to prioritize free speech protection over lies, but it's delusional (though everyone's right) to believe that we can have both. It's simply not based in reality. More power to those who stick by their principles.
- swsdsailor 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - snapcaster 3y ago
    This comment is really giving off "the internet has melted my brain" vibes. Can you try to make your point without sarcasm?
- nathanaldensr 3y ago
  Being a "right-winger" is not grounds for violating the First Amendment. "Disinformation" is also not grounds for violating the First Amendment. You're basically proving your opposition correct with your casual dismissals.
- MrStonedOne 3y ago
  [dead]
- theryan 3y ago
  This line of thinking is how you could end up having your speech censored. Information or disinformation should be free to flow without consequences. Whoever is in power deems what is information or disinformation which could be extremely dangerous.
- motohagiography 3y ago
  > In 2020, CISA officials and personnel from EIP were often on emails together, and CISA’s personnel had access to EIP’s tickets through an internal messaging system, Jira, which EIP used to flag and report social media posts to Twitter, Facebook, and other platforms. Sharing jira tickets is pretty much the definition of collaboration in every single other organization on the planet. The tickets were opened with the express purpose of suppressing opposition party voices, and it was between a domestic security and intelligence agency and a platform, using an ostensibly "academic" project to do it. You should be more principled. Speech protections don't just protect the right to be disagreeable, they protect your right to be that intellectually lazy as well.
  - orwin 3y ago
    > Sharing jira tickets is pretty much the definition of collaboration in every single other organization on the planet. You're lucky enough to not have used Jira (or Trello :/) as a method of communication between your users and your org. Depends on your meaning of "collaboration" i guess.
  - belltaco 3y ago
    > The tickets were opened with the express purpose of suppressing opposition party voices Source(s)?
    - motohagiography 3y ago
      Subpoenad committee testimony from Roth and co that was covered in the twitter files. Troll.
      - belltaco 3y ago
        The Trump administration was in power in 2020, so I guess your claim is that they were trying to suppress Democratic party voices. Makes sense.
- PKop 3y ago
  Disinformation is an Orwellian term that equates to "opposition political speech and interests". When was it officially enacted that bureaucracies, universities, or social media corporation were the arbiters of public discourse? What is disinformation exactly? I can remember very recently when later proven to be true "information" around COVID was determined at the time to be some insane verboten "disinformation" and was banned on social media platforms. Things like efficacy of masks, whether vaccines prevented the spread or any other manner of debatable political discussions. But who cares if you think this or that thing is false? Of course right-wingers are opposed to violations of their 1st amendment rights. Because being able to communicate freely (or not) has direct bearing on political power.
  - 303uru 3y ago
    So tired of right wingers trying to rewrite history. Shouting "it's a China lab leak", "masks don't work", "masks make it so you can't breathe", "muzzle muzzle muzzle", "the mRNA vaccine is activated by 5G to kill you!!!", etc... is disinformation. Some of it may even in retrospect be true or partially true, but it was being disseminated as fact with zero evidence to back it. Right wingers love shouting FIRE FIRE FIRE to incite fear.
    - PKop 3y ago
      >Some of it may even in retrospect be true or partially true Insanity lol. A person that thinks like this is exactly the type of political danger it is prudent to fear and oppose. Again, "disinformation" is nearly meaningless. That you oppose or disagree with one's opinions or political views is not grounds for that person to be OK with you censoring them. In fact they should view you as a political enemy. It is the fundamental rationale for the 1st amendment. The China lab-leak is likely true. Masks don't work. What a weird position to hold whereby completely rational views are legitimate grounds for complete subversion of the 1st amendment. This is Dunning–Kruger-like in it's complete inversion of who should be deemed crazy, stupid, or politically dangerous.
      - 303uru 3y ago
uLogMicheal 3y ago
14 points and flagged + dead. What is the incentive to censor this on HN? Edit: Flagged again with 33 upvotes in 27 mins.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- deckar01 3y ago
  It is misrepresenting the facts to the extent of being misinformation, which is quite ironic. It builds a grand narrative of conspiracy, but when the substantiating facts are finally sprinkled in they don’t quite match. > we just set up an election integrity partnership at the request of DHS/CISA > Brookie’s acknowledgment contradicts the claim made by the EIP that the idea for the project “came from four students The partnership was not the program. This glaring misrepresentation is what the entire piece is built on.
  - uLogMicheal 3y ago
    A partnership and ticketing portal setup for government to subsidize moderation of private companies on subjective matters is not a censorship conspiracy? Does it really matter where the idea came from if government agents indeed used the tools created?
    - deckar01 3y ago
      The assertion that DHS was funding the program (or using it as a tool) is an unsubstantiated leap. Stanford was gathering and analyzing intelligence with national security implications. There is an obvious public service in sharing this information with DHS.
      - IG_Semmelweiss 3y ago
        That was the original claim. What this article is citing is direct refutation of the claim. Moreover this evidence is valuable because it came unprompted. The evidence may noy be devastating, but its not unsubstantiated either. I don't think anyone contends its ok for any party to share information with the govt that it deems important. But whether that sharing happened is not the claim. The question is who directed the work. The original assertion that the DHS did not direct the work is under suspicion, becauae the alibi came from a related party that is now know to be in a business partnership with the same party that is defending itself from the allegations of illegal 1st amendment interference. And now theres 3rd party information that refutes the alibi.
joefkelley 3y ago
The evidence presented in the article does not match the claims. The emails they include show that there were meetings between DHS and Twitter and between DHS and Stanford, on the topic of election integrity. And that there was a Signal chat (I guess this is kind of sketchy). But there's no evidence of censorship or anything politically-motivated that I can discern.
- uLogMicheal 3y ago
  How long can people pretend censorship is not becoming more abundant? How can democracy exist with an abundance of subjective censorship? There was an entire ticketing portal for government agents to request take downs of content for subjective reasoning. How is that not censorship?
  - brookst 3y ago
    I guess I can join in decrying the decline of 100% free speech in the abstract, but does that mean I shouldn’t be critical of whether an article’s evidence supports the claims it’s making?
    - uLogMicheal 3y ago
      I welcome critical points of view but the fact remains that few are allowed to even see posts like this, much less discuss them with logic. The root comment here dismisses the article without any argument. How is a ticketing portal between government and social media companies for post take downs on subjective matters not evidence of censorship? Why is our government subsidizing moderation?
      - joefkelley 3y ago
        The burden of proof is on the person making a positive claim. So I didn't think I really needed any more argument than "the article's argument is insufficient for me to believe their claims". I wasn't trying to make any more general point about censorship or social media. I don't have a problem in general with a ticketing system for the government to request specific kinds of moderation. There do exist valid carve-outs of free speech, and I see no reason why government and industry couldn't collaborate on that. If it were used to censor political speech, then yes, I would have a problem with that. But I haven't seen evidence of that.
uLogMicheal 3y ago
With this high momentum post now flagged and pulled from the front page let us have yet another example of how discussion of censorship is not allowed in 2023. Shame on anyone standing in the way of public discourse on topics of rights and freedoms.
- jasmes 3y ago
  Your post is being being informally peer reviewed, not censored.
  - uLogMicheal 3y ago
    Flagging a post to prevent review from more is considered peer review now? Removal of posts about censorship is a pattern now, similar to how GPTs have been aligned to prevent portrayal of censorship in a negative light.
- 303uru 3y ago
  Oh shut up. You’re not for free speech, you’re for “everyone has to see/hear my speech”. People voted and they don’t want this on the front page.
brechin 3y ago
I see a lot of requests to label and possibly remove content, but I see no description of how social media companies were compelled to do so. Is there any example of a social media company being impacted by refusing to comply with one of these requests?
- uLogMicheal 3y ago
  https://youtu.be/6OYyXv2l4-I?feature=shared&t=53 https://youtu.be/6OYyXv2l4-I?feature=shared&t=53 How about this comment from Senate Majority leader Schumer? This argument of "It's ok to meddle as long as you do not compel." is atrocious. People, especially those in high positions in social media companies, indeed fear government capability from many angles. Regardless of the permission to meddle but not compel, why is the government paying for agents to act as moderators in the first place? Isn't there more important crime to allocate resources to?
  - brechin 3y ago
    So your argument is that it's coercion through implied threat, or that social media companies are so complicit that they will just do anything the "right" government official asks of them? Is that government censorship, or a problem of weak service operators? I don't think there's a compelling case for government agents' top priority to be moderating online speech, but ensuring that the American people are not being subjected to massive mis/disinformation campaigns is a legitimate cause.

from the article: >>> According to the U.S. Supreme Court, it is “axiomatic” that the US government “may not induce, encourage or promote private persons to accomplish what it is constitutionally forbidden to accomplish.”

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

allears 3y ago

I dunno, it sounds to me like more right-wingers complaining that their disinformation is being disrupted.

HappySweeney 3y ago
Same, but isn't disseminating disinfo a constitutionally-protected activity (modulo fraud, ofc)?
lettergram 3y ago
"disinformation" is protected first amendment speech. Who decides what's "disinformation"? You don't want it to be the government or anyone really to decide what you can or cannot read? You battle bad speech with good speech.
- aaroninsf 3y ago
  False, you meaning all of us do want a government that takes active measures to prevent weaponized speech. That we don't have a Constitutional framework for distinguishing this is the same sort of catastrophic zero day in our democracy that the comically shitty second amendment language is. That these are unpatchable is a consequence of and overwhelmingly serves bad actors, specifically, right wing antidemocratic bad faith actors, and operates in no small part over the "free speech" being mechanically reproduced by they and their allies in such lovely institutions as the GRU and other centers of literally anti-American memetic warfare.
  - analognoise 3y ago
    If people are dumb enough to succumb to “memetic warfare” (whatever that is) we deserve to lose. I would rather have the “threat” of having to actually convince people we’re right rather than have the government tell people something can’t be said. That’s far more horrifying. People are allowed to be wrong. They’re people. They disagree. If our society is so weak it crumbles when people hear certain things, it deserves to crumble. I don’t think it is and I don’t think we will, however.
- kelseyfrog 3y ago
  Lies spread faster than truth and repetition legitimizes, repetition legitimizes, repetition legitimizes. Those two axioms are enough to guarantee that, all things being equal, lies will be legitimated over truth. I''ll graciously ask for proof that truth is born out of debate in greater than 50% of cases and baring evidence, cannot take it to be true.
  - nathanaldensr 3y ago
    Regardless of your personal perspective on the definition of "truth," the issue here is not said definition but the First Amendment.
    - kelseyfrog 3y ago
      "Lies spread faster than truth" does not depend on my definition of truth nor does it depend on the 1st amendment, sorry. It's perfectly fine to prioritize free speech protection over lies, but it's delusional (though everyone's right) to believe that we can have both. It's simply not based in reality. More power to those who stick by their principles.
swsdsailor 3y ago
[flagged]
- snapcaster 3y ago
  This comment is really giving off "the internet has melted my brain" vibes. Can you try to make your point without sarcasm?
nathanaldensr 3y ago
Being a "right-winger" is not grounds for violating the First Amendment. "Disinformation" is also not grounds for violating the First Amendment. You're basically proving your opposition correct with your casual dismissals.
MrStonedOne 3y ago
[dead]
theryan 3y ago
This line of thinking is how you could end up having your speech censored. Information or disinformation should be free to flow without consequences. Whoever is in power deems what is information or disinformation which could be extremely dangerous.
motohagiography 3y ago
> In 2020, CISA officials and personnel from EIP were often on emails together, and CISA’s personnel had access to EIP’s tickets through an internal messaging system, Jira, which EIP used to flag and report social media posts to Twitter, Facebook, and other platforms. Sharing jira tickets is pretty much the definition of collaboration in every single other organization on the planet. The tickets were opened with the express purpose of suppressing opposition party voices, and it was between a domestic security and intelligence agency and a platform, using an ostensibly "academic" project to do it. You should be more principled. Speech protections don't just protect the right to be disagreeable, they protect your right to be that intellectually lazy as well.
- orwin 3y ago
  > Sharing jira tickets is pretty much the definition of collaboration in every single other organization on the planet. You're lucky enough to not have used Jira (or Trello :/) as a method of communication between your users and your org. Depends on your meaning of "collaboration" i guess.
- belltaco 3y ago
  > The tickets were opened with the express purpose of suppressing opposition party voices Source(s)?
  - motohagiography 3y ago
    Subpoenad committee testimony from Roth and co that was covered in the twitter files. Troll.
    - belltaco 3y ago
      The Trump administration was in power in 2020, so I guess your claim is that they were trying to suppress Democratic party voices. Makes sense.
PKop 3y ago
Disinformation is an Orwellian term that equates to "opposition political speech and interests". When was it officially enacted that bureaucracies, universities, or social media corporation were the arbiters of public discourse? What is disinformation exactly? I can remember very recently when later proven to be true "information" around COVID was determined at the time to be some insane verboten "disinformation" and was banned on social media platforms. Things like efficacy of masks, whether vaccines prevented the spread or any other manner of debatable political discussions. But who cares if you think this or that thing is false? Of course right-wingers are opposed to violations of their 1st amendment rights. Because being able to communicate freely (or not) has direct bearing on political power.
- 303uru 3y ago
  So tired of right wingers trying to rewrite history. Shouting "it's a China lab leak", "masks don't work", "masks make it so you can't breathe", "muzzle muzzle muzzle", "the mRNA vaccine is activated by 5G to kill you!!!", etc... is disinformation. Some of it may even in retrospect be true or partially true, but it was being disseminated as fact with zero evidence to back it. Right wingers love shouting FIRE FIRE FIRE to incite fear.
  - PKop 3y ago
    >Some of it may even in retrospect be true or partially true Insanity lol. A person that thinks like this is exactly the type of political danger it is prudent to fear and oppose. Again, "disinformation" is nearly meaningless. That you oppose or disagree with one's opinions or political views is not grounds for that person to be OK with you censoring them. In fact they should view you as a political enemy. It is the fundamental rationale for the 1st amendment. The China lab-leak is likely true. Masks don't work. What a weird position to hold whereby completely rational views are legitimate grounds for complete subversion of the 1st amendment. This is Dunning–Kruger-like in it's complete inversion of who should be deemed crazy, stupid, or politically dangerous.
    - 303uru 3y ago

uLogMicheal 3y ago

14 points and flagged + dead. What is the incentive to censor this on HN? Edit: Flagged again with 33 upvotes in 27 mins.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
deckar01 3y ago
It is misrepresenting the facts to the extent of being misinformation, which is quite ironic. It builds a grand narrative of conspiracy, but when the substantiating facts are finally sprinkled in they don’t quite match. > we just set up an election integrity partnership at the request of DHS/CISA > Brookie’s acknowledgment contradicts the claim made by the EIP that the idea for the project “came from four students The partnership was not the program. This glaring misrepresentation is what the entire piece is built on.
- uLogMicheal 3y ago
  A partnership and ticketing portal setup for government to subsidize moderation of private companies on subjective matters is not a censorship conspiracy? Does it really matter where the idea came from if government agents indeed used the tools created?
  - deckar01 3y ago
    The assertion that DHS was funding the program (or using it as a tool) is an unsubstantiated leap. Stanford was gathering and analyzing intelligence with national security implications. There is an obvious public service in sharing this information with DHS.
    - IG_Semmelweiss 3y ago
      That was the original claim. What this article is citing is direct refutation of the claim. Moreover this evidence is valuable because it came unprompted. The evidence may noy be devastating, but its not unsubstantiated either. I don't think anyone contends its ok for any party to share information with the govt that it deems important. But whether that sharing happened is not the claim. The question is who directed the work. The original assertion that the DHS did not direct the work is under suspicion, becauae the alibi came from a related party that is now know to be in a business partnership with the same party that is defending itself from the allegations of illegal 1st amendment interference. And now theres 3rd party information that refutes the alibi.

joefkelley 3y ago

The evidence presented in the article does not match the claims. The emails they include show that there were meetings between DHS and Twitter and between DHS and Stanford, on the topic of election integrity. And that there was a Signal chat (I guess this is kind of sketchy). But there's no evidence of censorship or anything politically-motivated that I can discern.

uLogMicheal 3y ago
How long can people pretend censorship is not becoming more abundant? How can democracy exist with an abundance of subjective censorship? There was an entire ticketing portal for government agents to request take downs of content for subjective reasoning. How is that not censorship?
- brookst 3y ago
  I guess I can join in decrying the decline of 100% free speech in the abstract, but does that mean I shouldn’t be critical of whether an article’s evidence supports the claims it’s making?
  - uLogMicheal 3y ago
    I welcome critical points of view but the fact remains that few are allowed to even see posts like this, much less discuss them with logic. The root comment here dismisses the article without any argument. How is a ticketing portal between government and social media companies for post take downs on subjective matters not evidence of censorship? Why is our government subsidizing moderation?
    - joefkelley 3y ago
      The burden of proof is on the person making a positive claim. So I didn't think I really needed any more argument than "the article's argument is insufficient for me to believe their claims". I wasn't trying to make any more general point about censorship or social media. I don't have a problem in general with a ticketing system for the government to request specific kinds of moderation. There do exist valid carve-outs of free speech, and I see no reason why government and industry couldn't collaborate on that. If it were used to censor political speech, then yes, I would have a problem with that. But I haven't seen evidence of that.

uLogMicheal 3y ago

With this high momentum post now flagged and pulled from the front page let us have yet another example of how discussion of censorship is not allowed in 2023. Shame on anyone standing in the way of public discourse on topics of rights and freedoms.

jasmes 3y ago
Your post is being being informally peer reviewed, not censored.
- uLogMicheal 3y ago
  Flagging a post to prevent review from more is considered peer review now? Removal of posts about censorship is a pattern now, similar to how GPTs have been aligned to prevent portrayal of censorship in a negative light.
303uru 3y ago
Oh shut up. You’re not for free speech, you’re for “everyone has to see/hear my speech”. People voted and they don’t want this on the front page.

brechin 3y ago

I see a lot of requests to label and possibly remove content, but I see no description of how social media companies were compelled to do so. Is there any example of a social media company being impacted by refusing to comply with one of these requests?

uLogMicheal 3y ago
https://youtu.be/6OYyXv2l4-I?feature=shared&t=53 https://youtu.be/6OYyXv2l4-I?feature=shared&t=53 How about this comment from Senate Majority leader Schumer? This argument of "It's ok to meddle as long as you do not compel." is atrocious. People, especially those in high positions in social media companies, indeed fear government capability from many angles. Regardless of the permission to meddle but not compel, why is the government paying for agents to act as moderators in the first place? Isn't there more important crime to allocate resources to?
- brechin 3y ago
  So your argument is that it's coercion through implied threat, or that social media companies are so complicit that they will just do anything the "right" government official asks of them? Is that government censorship, or a problem of weak service operators? I don't think there's a compelling case for government agents' top priority to be moderating online speech, but ensuring that the American people are not being subjected to massive mis/disinformation campaigns is a legitimate cause.