'We have government-supported censorship unparalleled in history'

Joe Biden talks on the phone with Katherine Tai in the Oval Office of the White House Thursday, March 18, 2021, to congratulate her on her confirmation as U.S. trade representative. (Official White House photo by Adam Schultz)
Joe Biden talks on the phone with Katherine Tai in the Oval Office of the White House Thursday, March 18, 2021, to congratulate her on her confirmation as U.S. trade representative. (Official White House photo by Adam Schultz)

Jonathan Turley, who holds the Shapiro Chair for Public Interest Law at George Washington University and has testified before Congress many times, even representing the U.S. House in court, says the Biden administration’s agenda to censor views it dislikes may surpass “anything achieved by direct state-run systems in countries like Russia or China.”

Turley posted online his prepared statement for a meeting scheduled Thursday of the Committee on Homeland Security’s Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations and Accountability.

He wrote that under Biden’s administration, “We now have undeniable evidence of a comprehensive system of censorship that stretches across the government, academia, and corporate realms. Through disinformation offices, grants, and other means, an array of federal agencies has been active ‘stakeholders’ in this system. This includes Homeland Security, State Department, the FBI and other federal agencies actively seeking the censorship of citizens and groups.

“The partners in this effort extend across social media platforms. The goal is not just to remove dissenting views, but also to isolate those citizens who voice them.”

He said the efforts already uncovered by the Biden administration create “a chilling effect on those who would challenge majoritarian or official views. … The success of this partnership may surpass anything achieved by direct state-run systems in countries like Russia or China.’

The evidence now shows that the censorship campaign was a key player in the scandal involving Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop and the stunning information it contained.

The FBI warned social and legacy media companies to suppress that accurate reporting just before the 2020 election, and they did. The result likely was a warped election result, since a Media Research Center poll after showed that had people more widely been told of Joe Biden’s involvement in those documented scandals, enough would have dropped their support Biden likely would have lost the election.

Further, the Twitter Files, having been released by owner Elon Musk after his purchase of the company, confirmed over and over government attempts to control speech and ideas.

Turley said, “The Twitter Files and other recent disclosures raise serious questions of whether the United States government is now a partner in what may be the largest censorship system in our history.”

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He warned Congress the Biden administration is involved, and has used Homeland Security, the State Department and the FBI in its campaign.

“Even based on our limited knowledge, the size of this censorship system is breathtaking, and we only know of a fraction of its operations through the Twitter Files, congressional hearings, and pending litigation.”

One of the major problems is that the Constitution says the government does not have permission to censor speech.

Yet, over and over evidence has appeared showing that’s exactly what the Biden administration has done, through its corporate and academic surrogates.

He cited specifically the government agenda to coerce all Americans to take the experimental COVID shots during the pandemic that likely escaped from a Chinese lab working on bat viruses.

A prominent doctor said, at the time, “Thinking that everyone must be vaccinated is as scientifically flawed as thinking that nobody should. COVID vaccines are important for older high-risk people and their care-takers. Those with prior natural infection do not need it. Nor children,” and was censored for that.

But Turley said, “Every aspect of that tweet was worth of scientific and public debate. However, with the support of political, academic, and media figures, such views were suppressed at the very moment in which they could have made the most difference.”

Had that debate happened, “we might have followed other countries in keeping schools open…”

“We are now experience an educational and mental health crisis associated with a lockdown that might have been avoided or reduced … Millions died as government agencies enlisted companies to silence dissenting viewpoints on best practices and approaches.”

He noted the Constitution’s ban on government censorship, but then explained, “the massive censorship system employed by social media companies presents the greatest loss of free speech in our history. These companies, not the government, now control access to the ‘marketplace of ideas.'”

He even suggested the government’s scheme to promote a “privately-run censorship system” could qualify for court intervention and “injunctive relief.”

He pointed a finger to at least a significant part of the fault, too.

“The pressure to censor COVID-related views was also coming from the White House, as they targeted Alex Berenson, a former New York Times reporter, who had contested agency positions on vaccines and underlying research. Rather than push information to counter Berenson’s views, the White House wanted him banned. Berenson was eventually suspended.”

He warned, “Once the government gets into the business of speech regulation, the appetite for censorship becomes insatiable as viewpoints are deemed harmful, even if true.”

He said the government is using “ambiguous” terminology like “disinformation” and “misinformation” to attack speech.

And he pointed at Congress, too.

There are “many members” who are “supporting the efforts to blacklist and remove certain citizens or groups from social media platforms,” he said. He said such a debate should be welcomed.

But he was critical of congressional attacks on private individuals.

“Calling reporters ‘so-called journalists’ or others ‘Putin lovers” represent a return to the rhetoric used against free speech advocates during the Red Scare. We are better than that as a country…”

IMPORTANT NOTE: Although millions of American parents send their precious children off to public school every day, imagining their kids’ days will be filled with reading, writing, arithmetic, science, history, sports and music, they’re not only in for a shock – but for total BETRAYAL. Today’s “public” (government) schools have become far-left ideological, political and religious indoctrination centers aimed at reprogramming and transforming America’s children.

Kids are being taught to HATE their own country and to see themselves and their parents as racists – or victims of racists. They are sexualized and corrupted, and many are groomed into the dark LGBT world, with almost 6,000 schools prohibiting parents from even hearing about their child’s transgender “transition.” In between all the far-left indoctrination and sexual corruption, teachers take time to scare children to death about the near-term end of life on earth due to “catastrophic climate change.” Another lie. But it’s all classic Marxism/communism, with even the “3 R’s” – reading, writing and arithmetic – now being corrupted with “woke,” “1984”-style madness.

Perhaps never has the true threat of today’s U.S. public school system been exposed as in the sensational April issue of WND’s critically acclaimed monthly Whistleblower magazine, titled “THE GREATEST BETRAYAL: How Marxism and madness have taken over America’s public school system.” Whistleblower is available in both the popular print edition and a state-of-the-art digital version, either single issues or discounted annual subscriptions.

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This article was originally published by the WND News Center.

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