via https://www.legitgov.org

Homeland agency expanded authority to wage ‘domestic surveillance and censorship,’ House report says –No “cyber component” needed for proposed “rapid response team” to parachute into local jurisdictions to help election officials with “informational threats,” agency subcommittee said. | 26 June 2023 | Secret documents obtained by the House Judiciary Committee show that a Department of Homeland Security agency “expanded its mission to surveil Americans’ speech on social media, colluded with Big Tech and government-funded third parties to censor by proxy, and tried to hide its plainly unconstitutional activities from the public,” according to an interim staff report released Monday night. The findings add details to reporting by Just the News about the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and its work with private entities to remove, throttle and label purported misinformation on elections, Hunter Biden and COVID-19 — efforts that might even constitute election meddling and sometimes target true content. The “severe public outcry” in spring 2022 against DHS’s Disinformation Governance Board, shuttered a few months later, so alarmed CISA and its advisors that they “tried to cover their tracks” on censorship and surveillance, which “included scrubbing CISA’s website of references to domestic ‘misinformation’ and ‘disinformation,'” the report says. By outsourcing its “censorship operation” to a CISA-funded nonprofit in the wake of First Amendment litigation by Missouri and Louisiana attorneys general, CISA was “implicitly admitting that its censorship activities are unconstitutional,” House Judiciary Republicans said.

DHS outsourced censorship to third parties, then tried to cover it up: House Judiciary GOP report –Federal government’s moves show it “implicitly admitting that its censorship activities are unconstitutional,” interim staff report says. | 26 June 2023 | The Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency outsourced its “censorship operation” to a nonprofit it funded following a First Amendment lawsuit by Louisiana and Missouri attorneys general, “implicitly admitting that its censorship activities are unconstitutional,” according to an interim staff report by House Judiciary Committee Republicans shared with Just the News. CISA also wanted to use the Center for Internet Security, which operates the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center (MS-ISAC) and Elections Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center (EI-ISAC), as its “mouthpiece” to obfuscate its own role in censorship, the report says. It cites spring 2022 meeting notes from the subcommittee on “Protecting Critical Infrastructure from Misinformation & Disinformation,” which was established by CISA’s Cybersecurity Advisory Committee.

Zuck’s Spy: Former CIA Agent Takes Over ‘Elections Policies’ at Facebook | 22 June 2023 | Aaron Berman, a 17-year veteran of the CIA who already held a senior position in Facebook’s “misinformation” team during the 2020 election, has been promoted to “Head of Elections Policies” at the company now known as Meta. Berman served at the CIA between March 2002 and July 2019. During that time, he wrote for and edited the President’s Daily Brief, an influential top-secret document prepared by the U.S. intelligence community given to the president each morning. According to Berman’s LinkedIn, he enjoyed positions of considerable influence at the agency, including “supervising teams of dozens of analysts and with multi-million-dollar budgets,” and leading briefings for members of congress and National Security Council members.

With new evidence, Congress unmasks a multi-year government plot to protect Biden, sully Trump –From search warrants to charges, federal agencies put thumb on scale of justice and elections, new evidence suggests | 26 June 2023 | When the Justice Department discovered from journalists a storage locker containing evidence against ex-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, a search was executed immediately. But when IRS agents found a similar storage area containing evidence in the Hunter Biden criminal tax probe, they were denied the right to search despite meeting the probable cause standard, then Biden’s lawyers were tipped off, according to new congressional testimony. Likewise, when federal prosecutors believed there was evidence of crimes at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, they launched an unprecedented and full scale-raid on the former president. But when agents wanted to execute a search warrant at Joe Biden’s Delaware home because they had probable cause to believe evidence of Hunter Biden tax crimes, they were turned down for a warrant to raid the guest house in which the first son was living… The pattern and evidence about the behavior of federal bodies — ranging from the IRS, FBI and spy agencies to the Justice Department, U.S. attorney’s office and National Archives — is enough to even convince one unabashed Joe Biden supporter there has been a scheme to administer unequal justice. [See: Whistleblower 1 transcript.]

Billionaire Biden Donor Bankrolled 2020 Election Social Media Censorship Effort | 8 June 2023 | The Department of Homeland Security’s controversial social media censorship effort during the 2020 election was propped up by a partisan billionaire. Newly obtained documents, acquired through a public records request, confirm that Pierre Omidyar, the billionaire, financed a specialized portal maintained by the Center for Internet Security (CIS). This portal was used to facilitate the swift removal of predominantly conservative messages on Twitter and Facebook during the previous presidential election. Omidyar, previously identified as one of the largest donors to campaign groups supporting Joe Biden’s presidential bid, donated 45 million to the “Sixteen Thirty Fund” in 2020. This dark m-ney group mobilized Democratic voters and financed pro-Biden Super PACs. However, Omidyar’s direct involvement in the DHS partnership, which is now facing increased scrutiny, remained undisclosed until now.The funding provided by Omidyar to CIS was used to establish a Misinformation Reporting Portal (MiRP).

Judge Cannon Smacks Down Jack Smith, Denies Government’s Motion to Keep List of 84 Witnesses Under Wraps in Classified Docs Case | 26 June 2023 | Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, issued her first smackdown of Special Counsel Jack Smith. Judge Cannon on Monday denied Jack Smith’s motion to keep a list of 84 potential witnesses under seal in the classified documents case. The judge said Jack Smith failed to explain why it was necessary to keep the names of the witnesses a secret. Jack Smith was also trying to block Trump and his alleged co-conspirator, Walt Nauta, from communicating with the 84 witnesses.

Germany to permanently deploy troops near Russia’s border –The move comes amid a NATO drive to increase their military strength on the bloc’s ‘eastern flank’ | 26 June 2023 | Germany’s defense minister Boris Pistorius said on Monday that Berlin is to station 4,000 troops to Lithuania, a fellow NATO member, as the bloc seeks to fortify its ranks around Russia’s exclave, Kaliningrad. “Germany is ready to permanently station a robust brigade in Lithuania,” Pistorius said on Monday during a visit to the country’s capital, Vilnius. He noted that facilities and infrastructure will need to be developed to accommodate the influx of German troops. “Germany stands by its commitment as a NATO member, as Europe’s biggest economy, to stand up for the protections of the eastern flank,” Pistorius continued. He also noted that a deployment of this magnitude could take more than “a few months.”

‘Neutral’ Switzerland joins EU’s anti-Russia sanctions –The new restrictive measures target individuals, companies and organizations | 28 June 2023 | The Swiss government has announced the expansion of its sanctions on Russia, in line with the latest measures passed by the European Union. According to a statement released by the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) on Wednesday, the fin-ncial and travel restrictions will target individuals, companies and organizations that “support the illegal deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia.” Earlier this year, the West accused Russia of “unlawful deportation and transfer” of children from Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin has defended the policy of moving minors from combat zones and rejected accusations that the practice was illegal. According to Russia’s Children’s Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova, the children were placed in Russian summer camps at the request of their families. [An ironic accusation, as Ukraine has been engaging in child trafficking, with the backing of the Biden regime and the West, for years.]

U.S. backs coup attempts whenever it can benefit – Lavrov –Washington’s reaction to regime change movements differs based on where they take place, the Russian foreign minister has claimed | 26 June 2023 | The U.S. enthusiastically supports regime change whenever it can benefit from the process, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has told RT. If a protest movement targets a government more pliant to American interests, Washington will inevitably reject it, the diplomat added. There have been numerous attempts at regime change around the world in recent years and they were “met with a different response on the part of the US, depending on who was in power and who was trying to carry out the coup,” Lavrov said in an interview on Monday. “Where the West is happy with the current government, in such situations no protest can be legitimate. But where the government doesn’t reflect the interests of the hegemon and is pursuing the national interests, in those cases we see various unlawful forces are being stimulated [to attack the authorities],” the diplomat added. An example of such a differentiated approach by the US and its allies was the regime change in Ukraine in 2014 and the conflict in Yemen the next year, Lavrov pointed out.

New York City to start charging drivers to enter Midtown Manhattan as soon as 2024 – MTA | 28 June 2023 | New York City could start the first congestion pricing program in the United States as soon as spring 2024 with the goal of reducing traffic in one of the world’s busiest commercial districts, the city’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority said. The Federal Highway Administration granted final approval for the program, a spokesperson said Monday, according to The New York Times. Under the program, drivers would be charged a fee to enter the borough of Manhattan south of 60th Street… One proposal in a report from the MTA last year would charge $23 for rush-hour trips into Midtown Manhattan and $17 during off-peak times [Ed. that on top of the $15 bridge or tunnels toll]. The fees, which are expected to generate 1 billion annually, would go to the MTA to improve the city’s public transit.