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Thursday, August 8, 2024

FBI Implemented Extensive Social Media Monitoring Ahead of the 2022 Election

By Tim Gamble

The following is an unedited press release from America First Legal (AFL), dated August 8, 2024. It makes one wonder if the FBI will conduct similar monitoring of social media for this election (the answer is almost certainly, yes). 

8-8-2024 WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, America First Legal (AFL) released newly obtained documents from its lawsuit against the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) for illegally concealing federal records related to Biden-Harris government-sponsored censorship of the American people in advance of the 2022 midterm elections. 

After the 2022 Midterm Election, Matt Taibbi revealed in “The Twitter Files, Part Six: Twitter, the FBI Subsidiary” that the FBI’s National Election Command Post (NECP) sent the FBI San Francisco field office a long list of accounts — including the account for Right Side Broadcasting Network — for “additional action.”

AFL’s investigation now reveals that NECP had received lists of “Multiple Twitter accounts posting misinformation” from as far away as the FBI New York field office.

The FBI’s social media misinformation dragnet apparently routed tips all the way from New York to San Francisco, and the collection was so wide that “Due to the volume of posts, the posts have been combined into [two] word documents.”

According to a recent Inspector General’s report, NECP operated from FBI HQ, staffed with “DOJ attorneys to vet information being shared to various FBI field offices for action … and liaisons from five non-DOJ partner agencies. In addition to sharing information about foreign malign influence, the NECP also shared information relevant to cyber intrusions and information related to criminal violations of election law.”

It would appear that, after receiving the tip from the field office, DOJ attorneys (and perhaps also “non-DOJ partner agencies”) vetted the information before tasking San Francisco for “additional action.”

Additionally, it appears that NECP flagged domestic accounts like “@RSBNetwork” for “information related to criminal violations of election law” because it seems unlikely they were related to “foreign malign influence” or “cyber intrusions.”

NECP had specifically requested the San Francisco field office to issue “preservation letters” to “preserve subscriber information and content information pending the issuance of legal process.”

According to the Inspector General’s report, “Legal process describes procedures that the FBI … can initiate to compel third parties to produce evidence. For example, the FBI may seek a grand jury subpoena of social media and technology companies to acquire present subscriber information” which includes “a user’s name; address; phone connection records or session time records; length of service; telephone number or other subscriber number or identity, including any temporarily assigned network address; and means and source of payment for such services, such as a credit card or bank account number. 18 U.S.C. § 2703(c)(2).” 

Or the FBI “may seek an order from a U.S. district court under 18 U.S.C. § 2703(d) for historical subscriber information as part of an ongoing criminal investigation under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act.” Or “to acquire more detailed information, such as the content of messages, or to access evidence for an ongoing investigation, such as data stored on a computer or server, it may seek a search warrant issued by a U.S. district court.”

AFL has long fought against the Biden-Harris Administration’s selective prosecution of rarely-used criminal statutes against American citizens like Douglass Mackey for posting memes on social media.

This appears to follow a disturbing trend of Federal AND State authorities treating “misinformation” as “law enforcement.” If this trend continues, the American people are not too far from seeing law enforcement making arrests for comments made on social media in America.

Statement from Gene Hamilton, America First Legal Executive Director:

“The left’s obsessive-compulsive tendencies towards hyperventilating about anything related to ‘misinformation,’ ‘disinformation,’ or ‘malinformation,’ are not just isolated to their leaders in the media or in leftist organizations. Rather, this absurd fixation has infected our law enforcement agencies who apparently believe that they have nothing better to do than monitor and censor speech online–all while actual crime goes unaddressed and unabated in our major cities. This is yet more evidence that there is systemic rot within the Department of Justice and it needs to be addressed,” said Gene Hamilton.

Read the production here.

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