Michael Shellenberger Profile picture
Nov 7, 2023 3 tweets 5 min read Read on X
The idea that US officials worked to censor ordinary Americans is a debunked conspiracy theory, say the mainstream media. But it's not. And now, newly released documents reveal a conspiracy not just to violate the First Amendment but also to interfere with the 2020 elections. Image
New Documents Reveal US Department Of Homeland Security Conspiracy To Violate First Amendment And Interfere In Elections

Emails released by the U.S. House of Representatives, when combined with the Twitter Files, reveal a sweeping and secretive effort by Stanford and DHS officials, two of whom are now business partners

by @galexybrane & @shellenberger
Stanford Internet Observatory’s Alex Stamos (Left) and former DHS-CISA Director Chris Krebs (Right) are now business partners. The current CISA Director is Jen Easterly (Center). [All photos from Getty Images]

The idea that the officials within the U.S. Department of Homeland Security worked with a Stanford think tank to censor ordinary Americans and thus interfere in the 2020 elections is a debunked conspiracy theory, say journalists in the mainstream news media. The Republicans spreading that conspiracy theory, say journalists with the New York Times, Washington Post, and New Yorker, are also waging a witch hunt against university researchers who study misinformation. It is for that reason that the Stanford Internet Observatory (SIO), which is home to those researchers, had long refused Republican requests for their emails and data.

But newly released documents suggest that SIO may have had a very different motivation for not sharing their files with Congressional investigators: they show that the idea for sweeping government censorship, in which the Stanford think tank played a central role, came from the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Internet Security Agency (CISA). According to one of CISA’s censorship partners, the so-called “Election Integrity Partnership” (EIP), which was ostensibly separate from CISA, was created at its behest.

In an internal Atlantic Council email sent on July 21 2020, Graham Brookie, the senior director of the Council’s “Disinformation Forensic Research Lab,” (DRFLab), wrote to a colleague to say the following: “I know the Council has a number of efforts on broad policy around the elections, but we just set up an election integrity partnership at the request of DHS/CISA and are in weekly comms to debrief about disinfo, IO, etc.” (Emphasis added.)

Brookie’s acknowledgment contradicts the claim made by the EIP that the idea for the project “came from four students that the Stanford Internet Observatory (SIO) funded to complete volunteer internships at [CISA].” Brookie’s email also contradicts the testimony of the SIO’s Director, Alex Stamos, earlier this year, who told Congressional investigators that the idea for EIP was his.
There is evidence that DHS-CISA had started interfering in elections several months earlier. On April 15, 2020, the DHS-CISA chief of “Countering Foreign Influence Task Force,” Brian Scully, emailed Twitter executives about a “Government-Industry Meeting,” that was held the next day. The issues discussed included election information.
By November, Twitter executives, Scully, and at least one of the Stanford interns were on a Signal text messaging app group together.

According to the U.S. Supreme Court, it is “axiomatic” that the US government “may not induce, encourage or promote private persons to accomplish what it is constitutionally forbidden to accomplish.” Whether it was Stamos or the Director of CISA at the time, Chris Krebs, it’s clear that the U.S. government was directly involved in the Stanford-linked effort to censor Americans.

The documents are revelatory in showing that CISA officials, Stanford officials, and social media executives worked together in secret in ways that not only violated the First Amendment but also interfered in the 2020 elections by attempting to censor protected political speech, particularly that of conservatives and Republicans.

Although we do not know the effects of EIP’s activities on the 2020 election results, and although some of these activities occurred after election day, it’s clear that SIO, EIP, and CISA engaged in viewpoint-based censorship that amounts to attempted interference leading up to the election.

There was virtually no separation between CISA and Stanford employees in 2020. On September 30, 2020, an EIP staffer said that Stamos and Krebs were texting each other “with some regularity.”

Since 2021, former CISA Director Krebs, and Stanford Internet Observatory Director Stamos have owned a consulting firm that works for private equity, aerospace, and satellite companies, among many others.

In 2020, CISA officials and personnel from EIP were often on emails together, and CISA’s personnel had access to EIP’s tickets through an internal messaging system, Jira, which EIP used to flag and report social media posts to Twitter, Facebook, and other platforms.

The Biden administration and journalists have insisted that CISA did not violate the constitution because it was not coercive and merely engaged in “switchboarding” activities, acting as a middleman. But, the new documents reveal that CISA included a threatening disclaimer in its switchboarding communications, which stated that “information may also be shared with law enforcement or intelligence agencies.”



Image
Image
Image
Image
Please subscribe now to support our award-winning reporting and to read the rest of the article!




Image
Image

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Michael Shellenberger

Michael Shellenberger Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @shellenberger

Sep 10
The media said the case against Brazil's former President Bolsonaro for supposedly plotting a coup was a slam dunk. It wasn't. A Supreme Court Justice appointed by the ruling Left-wing Workers Party just annihilated the prosecution as fraudulent. Incredible to watch. Image
It was a kangaroo court. Bolsonaro wasn't allowed to properly defend himself. Here's Justice Fux (translated)

"And I say, Mr. President, because it is important, and only for this historical reason, that the guarantee of adversarial proceedings and a full defense, incorporated into Western law long ago, was already emphasized in the work of the Stoic philosopher Seneca, who stated that, 'Whoever decides anything... without hearing the other side, even if they decide fairly, is not truly just.'

"This has been reiterated over the years in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in 1948 by the UN General Assembly. Article 11: Everyone charged with a criminal offense has the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty according to law in a public trial at which they have had all the guarantees necessary for their defense."Image
This is Pravda-style propaganda not journalism:

"How to Try, and Fail, to Carry Out a Coup... Evidence suggests this is how he tried to do it."

Pathetic and shameful.

nytimes.com/2025/09/02/wor…Image
Read 6 tweets
Sep 9
For decades, Democrats & @ACLU have opposed mandatory psychiatric care for the violently mentally ill. Charlotte shows it’s cruel *not* to mandate care. President Trump & Congress should require states to mandate care for the dangerously psychotic. Me @NewsNation w/ @EVargasTV
ACLU is to blame for preventing mandatory care of the violently insane. Image
Hollywood and Foucault deserve blame Image
Read 8 tweets
Sep 5
The European Parliament has blocked access to Public.News, apparently in response to TWITTER FILES-FRANCE. @vonderleyen @DelphineColard are ignoring Members of Parliament. This is the censorship that @EmmanuelMacron & @vonderleyen seek to impose on the world. x.com/v_joron/status…
.@DelphineColard and @vonderleyen are obligated by the European Parliament’s Rules of Procedure to provide prompt and reasoned replies to requests for information from Members of the European Parliament (MEPs). Here is the right-of-reply email I sent. Image
@DelphineColard @vonderleyen Please read and share TWITTER FILES - FRANCE and see for yourself the censorship scheme pursued by @EmmanuelMacron:

Read 5 tweets
Sep 3
🚨TWITTER FILES – FRANCE

L'administration Trump et l'UE conduisent d’âpres négociations commerciales. Leur principal point d’achoppement?  La censure européenne des plateformes numériques. L'année dernière, Thierry Breton,  alors commissaire européen au marché intérieur, avait menacé Elon Musk de sanctions après l'annonce d'une interview avec Donald Trump sur X. Nombreux sont ceux qui tablent sur “l’effet Bruxelles”, la taille importante du marché de l'UE qui lui permet d’imposer sa réglementation au monde entier, y compris aux entreprises américaines, afin de procéder à la censure du contenu publié sur les plateformes, y compris par des citoyens américains résidant aux USA et protégés par le premier amendement de leur Constitution.

Des nouvelles informations extraites des TWITTER FILES laissent penser à une alliance objective du pouvoir politique français, de gouvernements successifs, de parlementaires, d’ONG affiliées à l'État, de médias mainstream subventionnés par l’Etat et d'institutions universitaires, travaillant à inciter le plus influent des réseaux sociaux à censurer des discours pourtant licites et à influencer sa « modération de contenu » bien au delà des frontières françaises et européennes.

Les TWITTER FILES et le rapport “La France a inventé le complexe industriel de censure” révèlent les origines de cette stratégie de censure holistique, pour ne pas dire totale, dont les pièces maîtresses sont les ONG  :

— Le président Macron a tenté avec insistance de contacter le PDG de Twitter de l’époque, Jack Dorsey ;
— Le timing de l’action de Macron suggère fortement une coordination avec des ONG afin d’obtenir davantage de censure et exiger la communication de données personnelles et sensibles des utilisateurs de Twitter ;
— L’enchaînement des événements indique des tentatives de contournement de la loi de la part de divers acteurs non étatiques.

L' enquête TWITTER FILES - FRANCE a été réalisée par @McmahonPascal et @battleforeurope, et éditée par @galexybrane et @shellenberger.
2. « Le président Macron veut envoyer un SMS à Jack »

Le 14 octobre 2020, la directrice des affaires publiques de Twitter pour la France et la Russie a écrit : « L'équipe du président Macron m'a demandé (encore !) le numéro de Jack parce que le président veut lui envoyer par SMS quelques mots de soutien concernant nos nouvelles politiques et fonctionnalités sur l'intégrité des élections. »

Problème : Dorsey ne communique pas ses coordonnées, même aux chefs d'État. « Je lui ai déjà indiqué qu'il pouvait lui envoyer un message privé. Je vais encore le réitérer, mais je voulais d'abord vérifier auprès de vous que Jack ne communique jamais son numéro », a poursuivi la cadre de Twitter.

Public News a demandé une réaction au président Macron. Cette demande est restée lettre morte.Image
3. « Macron n’envoie de SMS qu’à ses proches et à ses collègues… »

La première réponse au courriel de la directrice des affaires publiques France et Russie  est venue de vice-présidente monde des affaires publiques, qui a mis en copie Vijaya Gadde,à l’époque directrice juridique de Twitter et l’un des principaux censeurs de la plateforme.

Cette cadre écrit : « Je sais que Macron n'envoie des SMS qu'à ses proches et qu'il collabore fréquemment avec ses collègues et ses homologues (comme Angela Merkel) par SMS. Pourriez-vous demander à Jack s'il accepterait un SMS de Macron ? Nous demanderons à son équipe de ne communiquer le numéro de Jack qu'à Macron. Merci. »

Le bureau de Dorsey a répondu : « Je vais contacter Jack. Y a-t-il une alternative ? Pour info : Jack n'a pas de numéro de téléphone (je le jure) et seule son équipe rapprochée sait où le joindre. »

« J'ai insisté pour un message privé, mais apparemment, Macron n'utilise pas Twitter lui-même et souhaite écrire un message personnel. Peut-être sur Telegram ou Signal? »

Suit un examen de divers canaux de communication possibles: courrier électronique, Signal, Telegram et iMessage.

Pourquoi donc Macron était-il si empressé d’entrer en contact avec Dorsey ?Image
Image
Image
Image
Read 19 tweets
Sep 3
🚨TWITTER FILES – FRANCE

At this moment, the Trump administration is negotiating with the EU over final obstacles to a trade deal, one of which is European censorship of US social media platforms.

Many analysts believe the massive size of the EU will lead US social media firms to impose European censorship, including on Americans. Last year, the EU’s then-top digital censor, Thierry Breton, threatened action against Elon Musk after he announced a conversation on X with Donald Trump.

Now, new TWITTER FILES show a coordinated effort by France’s President Emmanuel Macron, legislators, and state-affiliated NGOs working together to force the world’s most influential social media platform to censor users for legal speech and influence Twitter’s worldwide “content moderation” for narrative control.

What’s more, TWITTER FILES - FRANCE reveals the birth of the censorship-by-NGO proxy strategy at the heart of the Censorship Industrial Complex:

— President Macron personally reached out to then-CEO of Twitter, Jack Dorsey;
— The timing of Macron’s action strongly suggests coordination with NGOs on a pressure campaign to win more censorship and demand sensitive user data from Twitter;
— The pattern of events indicates potentially illegal activity by various actors.

The TWITTER FILES FRANCE investigation was led by @McmahonPascal and @battleforeurope, and edited by @galexybrane and @shellenberger.

We are releasing the Files here on X and simultaneously publishing a comprehensive report by Clerótte and Fazi on France’s invention of the Censorship Industrial Complex.
2. “President Macron wants to text Jack”

On October 14, 2020, Twitter’s Public Policy Director for France and Russia wrote, “President Macron's team has been asking me (again!) Jack's number because the President wants to text him some supporting words re our new policies and functionalities on Election integrity.”

There was one issue, though – Dorsey did not give out his contact information, even to heads of state. “I have already advised that he could send him a DM. I'll push back again, but wanted to double check with you first that indeed Jack never shares his number,” the policy director wrote.

Public requested a response from President Macron and did not hear back.Image
3. “Macron only sends texts to people he is close to and works frequently with…”

The first reply came from Twitter's Global Vice President of Public Affairs, who copied Vijaya Gadde, one of the platform's chief censors.

This Global Vice President of Public Affairs noted, “I know that Macron only sends texts to people he is close to and works frequently with colleagues and senior govt. leaders (like Angela Merkel) over text. [redacted] - could you pls. ask Jack if he would be willing to accept a text from Macron, and we will ask Macron's team only to share Jack's number with Macron? Thanks.”

Dorsey’s office replied, “Will circle w Jack. Is there an alternative? FYI: Jack doesn’t have a phone number (I swear) and only immediate team has his contact info to get a hold of him.”

“I am really pushing for DM but apparently Macron doesn’t use Twitter by himself and wants to do a personal note. Maybe a telegram or signal.”

This was followed by a review of various potential communication channels, including email, Signal, Telegram, and iMessage.

But why was Macron so desperate to get in contact with Dorsey?Image
Image
Image
Image
Read 19 tweets
Aug 31
Conservative populists lead the polls in Europe and so governments are censoring, banning, and prosecuting them. Chancellor @_FriedrichMerz & President @EmmanuelMacron are violating NATO’s charter. Americans should ask why we’re spending billions to defend such totalitarianism. Image
France is on the verge of preventing its presidential frontrunner @MLP_officiel from running for office
@MLP_officiel "In order to save democracy, we must censor, ban, and prosecute the opposition" Image
Read 5 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us!

:(