Four years ago this month, FBI Worked with Facebook and Twitter suppress A. New York Post story detailing the content Hunter Biden‘s laptop, just weeks before the 2020 US presidential election.

Today, on the eve of another contentious election, America may see a repeat of federal District Court Judge Terry Doughty. in the name “The greatest attack on free speech in the history of the United States.”

FBI I knew Hunter Biden’s laptop was original in November 2019. warned many times There is an upcoming “hack and leak operation” on social media platforms ahead of the 2020 elections.

The FBI’s fake flag was an excuse for this Facebook And excitement Possibly disguising the New York Post’s report in October 2020 as “Russian disinformation.” At the same time, the FBI’s Foreign Influence Working Group marked and other “domestic disinformation” without distinguishing between content created by foreign and American users.

After a short explanation pause FBI due to court order restarted coordination with the platforms this July, after the U.S. Supreme Court gambled on a case challenging that claim. Biden administrationThe plaintiff made a secret agreement with Big Tech due to his inability to stand.

In other words, not much has changed.

as a response two year investigation The FBI, by the Justice Department’s inspector general, declassified a summary of its standard operating procedures for interacting with social media platforms to counter foreign malicious influences.

Before engaging with platforms regarding specific content, FBI personnel are required to identify “specific, credible, and articulable facts” showing that the flagged social media activity is “attributed” to foreign actors and not Americans.

FBI staff also need to make clear that platforms are not expected to take action or change their policies in response to information shared with them.

This all sounds good, but there is no real oversight or transparency in these processes. Moreover, FBI officials claim that the bureau already follows these practices and vehemently deny that protected First Amendment speech was targeted by Foreign Influence Working Group activities.

Accordingly court documentsSpecial Agent in Charge Elvis Chan denied that “the FBI has called on social media platforms to change their policies regarding hacked materials…” However, Chan admitted that the bureau has repeatedly asked whether platforms have made changes to “hacked” material.

FBI officials also said The inspector general said it “does not monitor social media content” and “does not investigate specific narratives of foreign malicious influence spread online.” A Foreign Influence Task Force unit chief even claimed that the FBI was acting “based on intelligence regarding the activities of specific foreign actors,” not the speech of Americans.

But the FBI frequently violated these assurances. In fact, two years after the Biden laptop banning scandal, the FBI has once again censored Americans under the guise of combating foreign malign influence.

US House Judiciary Committee to create He said that after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the Ukrainian Security Service sent the FBI lists of social media accounts that allegedly spread Russian disinformation. The FBI forwarded these lists to Facebook, Instagram, Google and YouTube, which resulted in some of the content being removed.

While the FBI claimed it was targeting only foreign actors, the lists included posts from verified American users expressing their views on the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Surprisingly, some lists included posts by journalists criticizing Russia’s invasion and even included @usaporusski, the official Russian Instagram account of the US State Department.

Appropriate safeguards were not in place to prevent First Amendment-protected speech from being caught up in this screening, such as when the bureau flagged so-called “domestic disinformation” in 2020.

It looks like the FBI learned nothing from its past mistakes in 2020.

And to add insult to injury, the FBI continues to retain some of the core personnel responsible for facilitating censorship of Americans in 2020 and 2022.

For exampleChan, who served as the “primary liaison” between the Foreign Influence Working Group and social media companies and helped orchestrate the agency’s collusion with Big Tech, appears to still be employed by the agency. Chan lied under oathThe New York Post reported the following regarding its knowledge of the Hunter Biden laptop investigation: belittled a congressional subpoena to testify last year.

Given the FBI’s blatant misrepresentation of its own actions and evasion of responsibility, declassified standard operating procedures ring hollow.

This merely reiterates the processes FBI officials claim to follow when colluding with Big Tech platforms to censor Americans.

With the 2024 presidential election just over a week away, collusion between the FBI and Big Tech remains a clear and present danger.