Thread by @JewhadiTM

DHS: @Twitter Censorship 'Threat to Security' clarionproject.org/election-2020-…

Shutting down law enforcement’s ability to communicate leaves the public more vulnerable to ‘threat actors’

On the eve of U.S. elections, where candidates have significant differences on U.S. immigration policy, Twitter censorship shut down the account of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Commissioner Mark Morgan.

Acting Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Chad Wolf called the censorship a “threat to security” in a letter to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, saying it served to “cut off an essential mode of communication between U.S. government officials and the public.”

“In doing so, Twitter is sabotaging public discourse regarding important national and homeland security issues.”

Further, Wolf said, suppressing the tweet constituted “obstructing Americans’ inalienable right to communicate with each other and with their government and its officials.”

The Twitter censorship of the CBP tweet took place just hours after Dorsey concluded his testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee after he was summoned to explain why his company had shut down the Twitter account of the New York Post to suppress a story unfavorable to Biden.

Chad Wolf to @dorsey:

“Whether you know it or not, CBP guards the front line of the American homeland. CBP repels and arrests thousands of violent criminal gang members each year. CBP rescues young girls who are forced into cross-border sex trafficking.

CBP intercepts dangerous drugs and contraband, including enough of the opioid fentanyl to kill every man, woman, and child in the United States several times over.”

“CBP fulfills the United States’ most obvious and essential law enforcement and national security responsibility to the people of our country. Your company may choose to be ignorant of these facts, but it is no less censorship when you choose to suppress them.

“There was no reason to remove Mr. Morgan’s tweet from your platform, other than ideological disagreement with the speaker. Such censorship is disturbing. Twitter’s conduct censoring U.S. government officials also endangers the national security.

“It is dangerous and damaging when any publisher arbitrarily and unfoundedly decides, as it did here, that the facts and policies of a particular Presidential Administration constitute ‘violence’—in order to censor them.”

Wolf also noted that the “gross censorship” was not accidental. After the CBP’s tweet was censored and Morgan’s account shut down, the CBP appealed the decision to Twitter, but Twitter denied the appeal. Only after the CBP went public with the story did Twitter unlock the account