Mike Benz Profile picture
Mar 7, 2023 • 14 tweets • 6 min read • Read on X
THREAD🧵: DHS's cyber agency CISA scrubbed its website last week to purge all reference to domestic censorship work, per @FFO_Freedom.

CISA deleted 2 years worth of confessions to getting platforms to stop "domestic disinfo" by US citizens.

Full Report: foundationforfreedomonline.com/wp-content/upl… Image
Since May 1, 2021, CISA.gov/mdm had an open public declaration that it classified US citizens who espouse “misinformation” on social media as "domestic threat actors” and therefore as a cyber threat to be neutralized by DHS’s cyber division, CISA: Image
DHS had been using this language of "domestic threat actor" to describe accused US citizen "misinformation" posts since its Oct. 2019 Whole-Of-Society Disinfo report.

See, after Mueller Russia probe fizzled July 2019, DHS pulled a foreign-to-domestic switcheroo right after: Image
For those new here, this is DHS's Foreign To Domestic Disinfo Switcheroo in action:
In its Oct 2019 domestic censorship blueprint document, DHS labeled right-wingers on social media who ostensibly made satirical memes about Colin Kaepernick and Nike as being "disinformation threat actors":

ciacco.org/files/D2DF/Com… Image
DHS worked hard to graft the linguistic jargon of the cybersecurity & counter-hacking world onto a new world of cybercensorship & counter-disinfo.

"Threat actors" were suddenly part of a "Disinformation Kill Chain" for backing Brexit or opposing war:

ciacco.org/files/D2DF/Com… Image
Back then, DHS didn't loudly and proudly claim open power to coordinate the censorship of domestic political speech.

That changed in Jan 2021, when CISA's "Countering Foreign Influence Task Force" rebranded with a foreign AND domestic focus: Mis, Dis and Malinformation (MDM). Image
So from May 1, 2021 until Friday, Feb. 24, 2023 at 4:37 pm, CISA targeted "domestic threat actors" who posted "misinformation" opinions (mostly about elections or Covid).

CISA's new focus on both foreign AND domestic censorship to "reflect the changing information environment": ImageImage
But sometime between Fri, Feb. 24 at 4:37 pm & Sun, Feb. 26 at 5:55 am, CISA’s once public declaration of long-arm jurisdiction over domestic opinions online seems to have been walked back.

Cisa.gov/mdm now redirects to a foreign-only focused disinfo page: Image
Every reference to CISA's extensive, years-long domestic censorship operations has been scrubbed.

The word "domestic" has been purged from the page altogether. It now reads like they've only been after "foreign actors" -- not "domestic threat actors" -- all along: Image
CISA even purged the references to its domestic "disinformation switchboard", which CISA officials & advisors used to openly brag was sicced on domestic social media account targets using DHS's cyber control center, EI-ISAC.

For example, the below, public for 2 years, is gone: Image
So why is CISA - once the Great Government Hope of the censorship industry - walking it all back now?

Did CISA get too cocky, with director Jen Easterly claiming its jurisdiction extended into the "cognitive infrastructure" inside US citizens heads?

wired.com/story/rewired-…
CISA played an instrumental role in the effective killing of free speech online after the 2016 election.

Now they appear to be trying to quietly return the murder weapon to the crime scene after holding onto it for 3+ years, right as investigators are looking at them for it.
Is it the Jim Jordan subpoena to the tech platforms on government collusion?

Is it upcoming House hearings?

Is it the political momentum of the Twitter Files?

Given the Enron-sized scandal already at play here, here's an Enron-sized question to CISA:

Why?

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More from @MikeBenzCyber

Aug 28
2 weeks after Tucker interviewed Pavel, the CIA-founded Radio Free Europe (run directly by the CIA for its first 20 years), ran a long piece insinuating Russia was secretly controlling Telegram & Ukraine must seize control of it instead as a military intelligence imperative. Image
Straight out of a Benzpill lecture, the piece begins by lauding how wonderful Telegram is for (CIA-backed) rent-a-riots in Belarus, Iran, & in Russia itself. It applauded Telegram’s 2014-2020 era bc Pavel never gave in to the foreign gov’ts the CIA was using Telegram to topple.


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72% of Ukraine uses Telegram. It was only 20% 2 years ago. So now everyone, including Ukraine’s military & high-level politicians, are all there using it for war & business. If Russia has a Telegram backdoor, the CIA-founded media org argued, Ukraine is totally, totally screwed. Image
Read 6 tweets
Aug 23
pop star mega-hottie Dua Lipa was given a formal award by the Atlantic Council (Pentagon-funded, State Dept-funded, CIA cut-out funded) for using her activist voice & reach to promote NATO’s political objectives in the Balkans
I do feel, for science, I need to drop this in the thread for fellas to appreciate how effective this… NATO soft power technique… can be
The Atlantic Council has 7 CIA directors on its board, is funded by the Pentagon, the State Dept & cut-outs like the National Endowment for Democracy, and had a formal partnership to kick deal flow to Burisma


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Read 5 tweets
Aug 7
This is outrageous. Sander van der Linden has been working directly with both DHS & the US State Department thru his Cambridge U censorship center, which also gets Google Jigsaw funds, & here he is advocating the UK gov’t ban US company X from the UK. See thread below for more 👇
Read 9 tweets
Jul 8
The DMV is run by the Department of Transportation. That means the DMV’s registering of illegals to vote is being run by Pete Buttigieg, the former military intelligence officer beloved by our CIA Blob class.
“Media darling Pete Buttigieg was in unit that worked with CIA in Afghanistan” from @TheGrayzoneNews
thegrayzone.com/2020/02/07/pet…
@TheGrayzoneNews And from the Department Of You Can’t Make This Shit Up, the centerpiece of Pete Buttigieg’s living room is a huge resource-and-mineral map of Afghanistan Image
Read 4 tweets
May 21
Hard to describe how regal & gold & classy everything is here


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This picture is not a 4chan meme. It’s a real picture, of a real picture, I just took with my phone Image
Read 15 tweets
May 3
Thank you @EricRWeinstein for the shout-out! Below in this thread, I’ll post the USAID Blob Guide to censoring the Internet. Also, it’s this exact network everyone will learn a whoooole lot more about on Sunday-Monday when the thing I’ve been working on all month finally drops…
Below is USAID, which was set up to be a State Dept foreign policy funnel for overt US gov’t initiatives & CIA funding conduit to rush cash to US gov’t covert initiatives, proposing 31 times to financially bankrupt anyone who speaks or hosts online speech that challenges them
Here is USAID plotting to get the 1000s (yes, 1000s) of media organizations it works with to "Agree policies on strategic silence" to collectively censor media coverage of social media narratives.
Read 5 tweets

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