Department of Homeland Security (DHS) chief Alejandro Mayorkas announced to Congress on 27 April 2022 that DHS has established a “disinformation governance board” to ensure election security and prevent misinformation from being used ahead of the upcoming midterm elections. The board will use the weight of DHS to fight “misinformation” but promises to protect “free speech, privacy, and civil rights.”
The announcement came as Mayorkas was answering questions from lawmakers. Invoking the bogeyman of previous “Russian interference” in the 2020 elections, Representative Jim Langevin (D-R.I.) asked the DHS chief what the department was doing to prevent misinformation from skewing the 2022 midterms. Mayorkas said, “We have just established a disinformation governance board in the Department of Homeland Security to more effectively combat this threat, not only to election security but to our homeland security.” He added that the board will also work to stop the spread of misinformation in “minority communities.”
The board will be under the executive direction of Nina Jankowicz — a “Russian disinformation” expert who served as a Disinformation Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars in Washington, D.C. In response, Republicans blasted the move, with many comparing it to the “Ministry of Truth” that disseminated propaganda in the classic dystopian fiction novel “1984,” while others pointed to Jankowicz’ past, accusing her of promoting disinformation herself. “Biden’s Department of Homeland Security just selected this woman to lead its ‘Disinformation’ Unit,” wrote Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ). “Looks like she has to counter her own disinformation!”
“Liberals use the phony term ‘misinformation’ to smear those who hold any opinion that differs from their elitist, progressive worldview,” wrote Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC). “This is an Orwellian abuse of power by Biden DHS against Americans’ right to free speech,” he added.
“They didn’t need a ‘Disinformation Governance Board’ until @elonmusk threatened their control over the narrative,” wrote Rep. Troy Nehls (R-TX).
“Rather than police our border, Homeland Security has decided to make policing Americans’ speech its top priority. They’re creating a Disinformation Board,” wrote Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO). “No, really. And take a look at the views of the leftist radical running it,” he added.
“The libs spent the last weeks planting the seeds for the back-up plan in case the Twitter deal actually happened,” wrote Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO). “Today’s news of a Biden backed ‘Disinformation Governance Board’ is dystopian,” she added. “They can’t afford to let the truth be anything but what they say.”
“Just revealed: Biden’s DHS is creating a ‘Disinformation Governance Board’ dedicated to ‘countering misinformation,’” wrote Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt (R). “The same people who lied about COVID, Trump, the Laptop from Hell and the Russia Hoax will now be creating a real Ministry Of Truth,” he added. “No way.”
“DHS’ Ministry of Truth. Congress must investigate. Now,” wrote Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-GA).
“Is there anything more dystopian than a Disinformation Governance Board run by the federal government?” asked Florida congressional candidate Willie J. Montague.
“This is Communism,” asserted California congressional candidate Errol Webber.
“Will Nina comment in this post?? Ministry of Truth is here,” wrote Florida congressional candidate Erick Aguilar.
“Department of Homeland Security is creating a ‘Disinformation Governance Board,’” wrote Nevada congressional candidate Carolina Serrano. “Wasn’t the Department of Homeland Security created to combat terrorism?” “SURELY there won’t be any overlap here, right? …Right?” she added.
“When I get to the Senate I’ll defund the Biden Administration’s Ministry of Truth,” wrote J.D. Vance, a GOP candidate for U.S. Senate in Ohio. “This is downright scary.”
Trump accused the Biden Administration of “putting a longtime political operative in charge of censoring Free Speech” in a Truth Social post.
It is noteworthy that Jankowicz ticks off several of the Left’s important boxes. She is not only a woman, but she appears to be a woman who hates men. She is the author of How to Be A Woman Online: Surviving Abuse and Harassment, and How to Fight Back. If the title alone is not enough, she recently tweeted this excerpt:
Men “burst violently into your mentions and your life like the Kool-aid man, demanding your attention, hawking opinions that they believe are unarguably, manifestly correct and indispensable.”
She also blindly regurgitated the now-debunked idea that the “laptop from Hell” — with data showing Biden connections to Ukrainian corruption and a “pay for play” scheme featuring then-Vice President Biden — was (say it with me) “Russian Disinformation.”
During the final presidential debate between Trump and Biden, she tweeted:
Back on the “laptop from hell,” apparently- Biden notes 50 former natsec officials and 5 former CIA heads that believe the laptop is a Russian influence op.
Trump says “Russia, Russia, Russia.”
Now that she has been elevated to her new position as “Arbiter of All Truth,” Jankowicz is feeding that tweet through the spin machine on a double-rinse cycle. Immediately after her appointment was announced, she tweeted:
For those who believe this tweet is a key to all my views, it is simply a direct quote from both candidates during the final presidential debate. If you look at my timeline, you will see I was livetweeting that evening.
And while she can point to the fact that she was “livetweeting” during the debate, that point does nothing to change the fact that the “laptop from Hell” tweet was a tacit endorsement of Biden’s claim. As evidence of that, the next morning — after time to reflect and not while “livetweeting” — Jankowicz tweeted her analysis of the “election security section of the debate,” writing:
I was thinking of pitching a quick piece about the election security section of the debate, but I realized it can be summed up in a tweet:
One candidate cogently discussed actual policies for keeping our democracy safe.
The other spouted convaluted [sic] conspiracies.
To be fair, in retrospect, what Jankowicz tweeted is true — she just had the roles reversed. And lest there be any confusion on that point, her time spent “livetweeting” the night before was spent spewing snarky comments about almost anything Trump said and gushing about almost anything Biden said.
Also, her “livetweeting” excuse falls apart as soon as one realizes that she sent a total of six tweets during the debate, so it is not as if she were transcribing the debate for people who have access to the Internet but for some inexplicable reason, couldn’t watch the debate for themselves.
Jankowicz is also an enemy of free speech, which should go a long way in a job where she will have the authority to silence those with whom she finds fault. On April 25 — while waiting in the wings for the announcement of her appointment as Arbiter of All Truth — she tweeted about “free speech absolutists” making her “shudder,” writing:
And by couching her disdain for free speech in terms of support for women and other “marginalized communities,” Jankowicz muddies the water of logic and reason while ticking off another box beloved by the Left. She is a rabid pro-fill-in-the-blank-of-victimhood, bleeding-heart liberal.
Aside from being a woman who appears to hate men, someone who regurgitates Party Line lies, an enemy of free speech, and a bleeding-heart liberal, Jankowicz also goes wherever the political wind blows her. In September of 2017, she wrote an almost coherent op/ed piece for the New York Times under the headline, “The Only Way to Defend Against Russia’s Information War.”
Before reading on, remind yourself that this topic is her area of “expertise.”
Spewing affirmations of Russian interference in the presidential election (after all, how else to explain the election of Donald Trump?), Jankowicz laments the sad state of people falling for “Russian disinformation,” writing:
On Sept. 14, Molly McKew, a writer and consultant who describes herself as an “information warfare expert,” testified before Congress that these “media outlets” and others “deep within the shadow space” have infected America. In response, Ms. McKew would have us “develop a rapid response capability for irregular information warfare” to “secure our information space.” She also recommended more regulation for social media.
And:
What no one seems to care to discuss is the people who are targets of Russian disinformation, why its narratives find fertile ground among them and what can be done to change that.
According to the Pew Research Center, only 20 percent of Americans trust their government. The same low percentage has “a lot” of trust in the national news media. It’s impossible to say definitively what causes this mistrust, but its growth has coincided with the rise of both the adrenaline-driven internet news cycle and the dying of local journalism over the past two decades. Without news that connects people to their town councils or county fair, or stories that analyze how federal policies affect local businesses, people are left with news about big banks in New York and dirty politics in Washington.
Readers compare this coverage with their dwindling bank balances and crumbling infrastructure and feel disconnected and disenfranchised, and latch onto something — anything — that speaks to them. That might be President Trump’s tweets. Or dubious “news” from an extreme right- or left-wing site might ring true. Or they might turn to Russian disinformation, which exploits this trust gap.
Jankowicz blames the spread of “Russian disinformation” (which has been shown to be nearly nonexistent, by the way) on “the rise of both the adrenaline-driven internet news cycle and the dying of local journalism over the past two decades” as if a lack of reporting on “news that connects people to their town councils or county fair” leave people vulnerable to a conspiracy between Trump and Putin to skew the election.
Wow.
But as bad as all that is (and it is bad), her solution in 2017 is simply amazingly, mind-numbingly worse:
The fight starts in people’s minds, and the molding of them. In K-12 curriculums, states should encourage a widespread refocusing on critical reading and analysis skills for the digital age. Introductory seminars at universities should include a crash course in sourcing and emotional manipulation in the media. Similar courses could be created as professional development for adults, beginning with state employees. Large corporations could be offered government incentives to participate, too.
She cites a program by IREX, a nongovernmental organization operating in Ukraine (which at the time was just breaking free from Biden’s financial manipulation) and a similar program in Finland as evidence that what Americans lack is basic critical thinking and reading comprehension skills.
And while that may be true, her solution is insane:
The American government should also work to level the information playing field, increasing its investment in public broadcasters and demanding a hefty financial commitment from companies like Facebook and Twitter — the unwitting agents of Russia’s information war — to support the proliferation of local, citizen-focused journalism. If social networks are unwilling to be the arbiters of truth (despite 45 percent of American adults’ getting news from Facebook), they should at the very least provide grants to reporters who cover the local issues that most immediately affect people’s lives and donate advertising to small outlets that cannot compete with national media giants.
And — evidencing the fact that in 2017, Jankowicz could have no idea that in 2022 she would be leading a “disinformation governance board” under the authority of the Department of Homeland Security — she wrote:
All is not lost. Disinformation can be defeated without the establishment of a shiny new initiative cased in the language of Cold War 2.0. Instead of “rapid information operations,” the United States should work to systematically rebuild analytical skills across the American population and invest in the media to ensure that it is driven by truth, not clicks.
So, in 2017, with Trump in the White House, she eschewed “regulation for social media” and other heavy-handed government measures. But that was then, this is now.
Let’s see how long it takes for her to forget her words from 2017 and begin “a shiny new initiative cased in the language of Cold War 2.0” that features “rapid information operations” to quash what she and her fellow arbiters of truth deem false. And remember, that designation will not be based on truth, but on partisan political expediency.
Aside from the fact that this “disinformation governance board” sounds eerily like it could be the backstory for the “Ministry of Truth” from Orwell’s 1984, the immediate concern is such a heavy-handed government board — with the weight of DHS behind it — deciding for us what differentiates information from disinformation. After all the Deep State is unconcerned with what is true; the only concern is finding what can used to manipulate people and elections.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas praised his new disinformation czar as ‘qualified and neutral’ despite evidence to the contrary and criticism from Republicans.
To put DHS — a department so deeply Deep State that it nearly defines the term — in charge of ensuring election integrity and preventing misinformation from being used to sway elections is a farce of epic proportions. To compare it to putting the fox in charge of the henhouse is an affront to foxes everywhere.
After all, these are the same types of folks (and, in some cases the very folks) who called Hunter Biden’s laptop “Russian disinformation” and who rapidly changed the meaning of “disinformation” as soon as the facts of their Covid mandates came under such scrutiny that they could no longer stand.
Make no mistake, the American Ministry of Truth is being operated by the very people who skewed the 2020 election by blocking — as “disinformation” — real news stories that would have likely cost Biden the election.
Townhall reports:
Biden’s Disinformation Board Co-Leader Has Been In Bed With Soros
Members of Joe Biden’s disinformation governance board all have one thing in common: they are backed by radical leftists.
Disinformation board leader, Jennifer Daskal, has at least three close ties to liberal billionaire, George Soros, as NewsBusters highlighted.
With both of their agendas involving censorship, it’s no surprise the two have previously worked together.
Daskal worked as a senior counter-terrorism counsel for the anti-Semitic Human Rights Watch group, which received over $32,000,000 from Soros between 2000 and 2014. Soro’s also gave over $600,000 to the Just Security blog where she worked as a founding editor.
To put it in to prospective, Just Security claimed the Biden administration is the answer to peace and freedom. Daskal, though, will be a part of the very group responsible for stripping people of their Freedom of Speech.
The disinformation board has been dubbed the “Ministry of Truth.” Daskal’s past positions, however, suggest she will play a key role in keeping up with Democrat’s agenda of keeping Americans blind sighted by what it really happening.
After just 3 weeks, the Biden Regime said they were ‘pausing’ the Department of Homeland Security’s ‘Ministry of Truth’ after conservative media hammered the lunatic Marxist chosen to run the Orwellian agency.
Shoutout to @JackPosobiec for causing the collapse of Biden’s Ministry of Truth after he “posted a Tweets”, according to Taylor Lorenz at the Washington Post. pic.twitter.com/CKVQ8CXlC1
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) May 18, 2022
In the June 7 letter, addressed to Biden junta DHS director Alejandro N. Mayorkas, Senators Charles Grassley and Josh Hawley asked for a closer explanation of the department’s plans to execute the directives and mission of the DGB. The senators exposed documents and information provided by whistleblowers tied to the board’s existence. The Senators called out Mayorkas and the DHS, saying, “Documents show that contrary to your May 4, 2022, testimony before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, the DGB was established to serve as much more than a simple “working group” to “develop guidelines, standards, [and] guardrails” for protecting civil rights and civil liberties.”
The letter goes on to explain that documents revealed that the DGB was designed to “serve as the departmental forum for governance of DHS policies, plans, procedures, standards, and activities” pertaining to what the government refers to as “mis-, dis-, and mal- information,” or what it calls ‘MDM’”.
The pair of Senators point out the failed attempt to install Nina Jankowicz, who they called “a known trafficker of foreign disinformation and liberal conspiracy theories.” They outlined her choice to support and share information about the now-debunked Steele Dossier, which she called “some great historical context about the evolution of disinfo.” They also pointed out her refusal to acknowledge the Hunter Biden laptop scandal as truth, calling it disinformation at the time, something that has since been proven as wholly verified.
Most disturbing in the letter is the revelation that the DGB had made plans to meet with social media giant Twitter to discuss censorship and the controlled speech of opposing points of view.
The letter says that documents suggest “the Department has been working on plans to ‘operationalize’ its relationships with private social media companies to implement its public policy goals. 14 For example, we obtained draft briefing notes prepared for a scheduled April 28, 2022, meeting between Robert Silvers and Twitter executives Nick Pickles, Head of Policy, and Yoel Roth, Head of Site Integrity.”
According to the related documents, there was a briefing for the planned meeting stating that “the planned meeting between Silvers and the Twitter executives as an opportunity to discuss operationalizing public-private partnerships between DHS and Twitter, as well as [to] inform Twitter executives about DHS work on MDM, including the creation of the Disinformation Governance Board and its analytic exchange.”
According to the whistleblower, Jankowicz was hired simply because of her long-standing relationship with Twitter’s executives.
The letter states that the relationship between such “nongovernmental” partners would “empower” them to mitigate what they deemed as misinformation.
Grassley and Hawley express their concern that the DHS would be “enlisting the help of social media companies and big tech” to oversee the “censorship of viewpoints” it deems misinformation.
“The First Amendment of the Constitution was designed precisely so that the government could not censor opposing viewpoints – even if those viewpoints were false,” the senators wrote.
Sources:
- https://thenewamerican.com/dhs-creates-disinformation-governance-board-resembling-orwells-ministry-of-truth/
- https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/04/27/gop-rips-dystopian-dhs-plans-disinformation-governance-board-orwellian-abuse-power-biden-admin/
- https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/06/bidens-failed-disinformation-governance-board-making-plans-censor-americans-hold-opposing-views/
