an agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security. Nominally created in 2018 to defend the US against cybersecurity threats from hostile foreign actors (e.g., Russian hackers), it almost at once became an an explicitly inward-facing domestic censorship bureau.[1] CISA’s Internet censorship power grew out of interpreting “critical infrastructure” beyond its hard physical meaning to apply to ideas and opinions. By 2019, when the narrative of “Russian interference in elections collapsed, the apparatus quietly, but entirely, pivoted to focus inward on “domestic disinformation.” This meant that, henceforth, any US citizen posting what DHS considered “misinformation” online was suddenly conducting a cyber attack against US critical infrastructure.[2]
The Twitter Files revealed that in 2017, Pentagon officials asked Twitter to “whitelist” several accounts that the Pentagon was using to spread messages in the Middle East. In response, Twitter granted the account permissions similar to those reserved for verified accounts. The FBI was reported to be communicate messages from other clandestine US intelligence spooks, including those of the U.S. intelligence community and the DHS’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, even receiving criticism from Twitter why they have FBI officials solely tasked with searching for Tweets. The DHS was announced to investigate elections in 2017 as a new priority battling “disinformation”.
In 2020, the CISA created a operational faction called the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP) and included the Stanford Internet Observatory, the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public, the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, and Graphika, a social media analytics firm. The EIP was superficially meant to “bypass the First Amendment for government-aligned agencies” to interfere with the government limits on combating free speech].[4][5]
At a certain point, automated programs set up with the EIP even (temporarily) banned the Twitter accounts of the New York Post and then-White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany for posting the blacklisted link to the Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story.[6]
The Gateway Pundit released information on a secretive phone call in the afternoon on Election Day, November 3, 2020. The information was from a FOIA document obtained by Yehuda Miller. The call included 250 invited members of the CISA and Department of Homeland Security Election Infrastructure Subsector Coordinating Council (EISCC).
The list includes over 200 names of individuals, government entities, private businesses, media outlets, and at least one tech giant. The list includes a curious mix of members from Dominion, ES&S, ERIC Systems, Amazon, Runbeck, Microsoft, Scytl, several Secretary of State offices, the Associated Press, Amazon, and leftist groups. 43 Groups make up the CISA EI-SCC – Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency – no conservative groups are represented. Several members are leftist organizations. Several high-profile individuals were invited to the call, including Jennifer Morrell with The Elections Group, Ryan Macias with The Lafayette Group, Eric Coomer with Dominion, and Joselyn Benson, the controversial Michigan Secretary of State.
When Jeh Johnson declared elections part of the nations “critical infrastructure” in 2017, It basically put everyone involved in elections, including select vendors, under the protection of our national security apparatus. CISA has “Coordinating Councils” that represent our infrastructure for various industries including Energy, Chemicals, Financial Services, Food, Manufacturing etc. Each of these industries has two oversight groups. One group represents the government members and is called the (GCC). The group representing the private sector (vendors) for that industry is called the SCC.
As soon as elections became critical infrastructure, DHS created the two groups, and selected the members who would represent the election industry. This is like the mafia Don picking which families get power, and their protection.
The group that represents the interests of the private sector election vendors is called the (EI-SCC) Election Infrastructure Subsector Coordinating Council. Their first meeting in February 2018 also created the charter. Their 43 members include Democracy Works, Runbeck, ERIC, Voting Works, even small vendors. The EISCC picks 5 people to be their leadership “Executive Council”. At one time Erica Haas from tiny ERIC was part of leadership (see image). This group is often referred to as “SCC”, the Subsector Coordinating Council for elections.
The SCC is a hot mess of entirely left leaning vendors. This council doesn’t provide press releases or information about their activities. The RNC hasn’t done a thing about the lopsided lefty representation, or how activist vendors got included into EISCC. A past Chairperson for the EISCC is Ed Smith from Smartmatic, appointed 2/2022.
The government group representing elections is called (EI-GCC) Election Infrastructure Government Coordinating Council. It has about 30 members also with an Exec Committee of 5. Members include DHS, CISA, USPS, EAC, DOJ, Dept of Defense, a few SOS officers, some cities, and some counties. Their first meeting was in Atlanta in 2017. They are fairly open about meetings and provide press updates.
The member list for election GCC and SCC groups can be seen here. Sometimes the members of EIGCC will meet with the vendor election group EISCC. This is probably what that phone call was about on election day with 250 people.
One past Chairperson for the EISCC is Ed Smith from Smartmatic, appointed 2/2022.
We now know that the make-up of this entire organization includes several leftist groups BUT NOT ONE conservative group.
Sources:
- https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Cybersecurity_and_Infrastructure_Security_Agency
- https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/02/where-was-gop-when-government-loaded-cisa-election/