Episode 229: “You May Not Be Interested in CISA, But CISA is Certainly Interested in You” with Ben Weingarten and Frank Gaffney

“Overwhelming evidence suggests that federal agencies – led by among others, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), buoyed by senior executive branch officials and lawmakers, colluding with Big Tech, and a coterie of often government-coordinated and government-funded “counter-disinformation” organizations, have imposed nothing less than a mass public-private censorship regime on the American people.” Explains Ben Weingarten, one of America’s leading investigative journalists, at a recent Homeland Security Oversight hearing. 

As you’ll learn in this episode, the evidence is overwhelming. 

Ben Weingarten is editor-at-large for RealClearInvestigations, contributor to the Federalist, Newsweek, New York Post, Epoch Times and author of the alarming book American Ingrate: Ilhan Omar and the Progressive-Islamist Takeover of the Democratic Party.

Joining me as co-host is Frank Gaffney, host of “Securing America with Frank Gaffney” on Real America's Voice and the founder of the Center for Security Policy.

“CISA is a microcosm of a federal government censorship regime, and by proxy through social media platforms, that runs from merely shadow banning or flagging tweets and Facebook messages, all the way up to de-platforming and debunking people and even more alarming, actually throwing dissenters in jail for their views,” explains Ben.

“It’s rooted in an ideology which says that speech that the authorities don't like constitutes a "threat" to our democracy that is then used as a justification to engage in a slew of acts that I think most Americans would say violate their most essential civil liberties.”

Some of what we talk about in this episode: 

• The mission creep within our national security agencies which are increasingly turning from targeting foreign jihadists and instead to “domestic wrong thinkers” as America’s preeminent threat.

• How Obama’s DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson expanded its mandate to protect America’s infrastructure to include “election infrastructure” as critical infrastructure which then became part of CISA’s charge when it was established in 2018. 

• Current CISA director Jen Easterly has now declared that the American mind is a “cognitive infrastructure”which means they’re now targeting not only what we say but what we think. “CISA's tasks are to defend our most critical infrastructures and our most critical infrastructure is cognitive infrastructure … the American mind,” she asserts. 

• CISA’s convening and coordinating meetings between national security and law enforcement agencies, and technology companies including Facebook, Meta, Google, Twitter, Reddit, Microsoft, Verizon, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Wikimedia Foundation, etc  

• CISA’s “Switchboarding” reports of purported misinformation and disinformation from state and local authorities and then forwarding reports of offending content to social media platforms for censorship. 

• How the rosters of the censorship "trust and safety integrity” teams at Meta, Twitter and others are filled with former CIA officials, FBI officials, DOD officials, etc

• DHS targeted list of “inaccurate information” includes “the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines, racial justice, U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the nature of U.S. support to Ukraine.”

• CISA's previous Director Christopher Krebs claimed the 2020 election was the most above board cleanest election, most secure election in American history.  But at the same time worked to censor “wrong think” about mail-in balloting and changes to election rules and policies, sometimes while they were still being debated. 

The CISA agenda is aimed at not only what people say, but what they will refrain from saying in public, or in private.

“How much speech will never be out there for people to grapple with and consider because no one wants to go through the ordeal of potentially being broken by expressing wrong things,” worries Ben.  “The entire basis of our system rests on free inquiry, free speech, free thought, freedom to listen. Otherwise, you have tyranny.”

This is a heart-of-the-matter issue for America and there’s a lot packed into this episode about our alarming “security state.” Definitely worth your time to listen and learn.