The Associated Press reported yesterday that GOP Senators Chuck Grassley (Iowa) and Josh Hawley (Missouri) are demanding that the Department of Homeland Security provide them with specifics on how it planned to coordinate its Disinformation Governance Board with social media companies to remove user content after a whistleblower provided them with key documents about the board.
In an open letter to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Senators Grassley and Hawley wrote that DHS must "provide additional clarity regarding its policies and procedures for identifying (mis-, dis- or mal-information), as well as its efforts to ‘operationalize’ public-private partnerships and the steps it is taking to ensure it does not infringe on the constitutional rights of American citizens."
The public learned about the Disinformation Governance Board when Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas testified about its existence in April.
Observers were troubled by the appointment of Nina Jankowicz as the head of the board. Jankowicz has an abominable relationship with the truth. Back in 2020, she dismissed news about Hunter Biden's infamous laptop as "Russian disinformation." She was an advocate of the discredited Steele dossier that was funded by the Clinton campaign that was the source of the Russian Collusion hoax. She is also a blatant partisan with a history of embracing and spreading disinformation to undermine political opponents.
Observers were also concerned that Mayorkas wasn’t explicit about the powers of the Disinformation Governance Board?
Was the board meant to be a supervisory body that would order social media firms to add disclaimers or warnings about ‘disinformation’ and de-platform frequent peddlers of ‘disinformation’?
Was the board empowered to act on the ground and direct law enforcement to conduct arrests and searches?
Was the board authorized to initiate legal proceedings?
It was alarming that this came at a time when Democrats are in myriad ways attempting to impede upon the fundamental democratic rights of citizens.
read more:
Replies