Judicial Watch Files Suit Against DHS

The watchdog group Judicial Watch wants its day in court in a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security. At issue is a FOIA request for information regarding misinformation or censorship and the agency’s involvement along with communications between the Cybersecurity and Information Security Agency (CISA), which is a part of DHS, the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP), the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public, and the Stanford University’s Internet Observatory.

According to an article in Just the News, The EIP was created in 2020 by the Stanford Internet Observatory, the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public, the social media analytics firm Graphika, and the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab. The EIP worked hand-in-hand with federal agencies to identify posts and stories on social media that the group deemed to be misinformation or disinformation. A “ticket” was then created as a request to various tech platforms to flag and remove the post or story.

The FOIA request and subsequent suit come on the heels of a report by investigative journalist Lee Fang that revealed that Facebook and Twitter had been meeting with DHS on a regular basis to discuss censoring content. Judicial Watch wanted more information. The CISA has not provided any.

The suit claims that on Oct. 5, 2022, Judicial Watch filed a FOIA request with the CISA, which is a part of DHS. Specifically, Judicial Watch wanted access to all of CISA’s records of communications between its people and anyone in the EIP. This includes communications about the tickets regarding election disinformation on social media platforms. Judicial Watch also wants any and all records and documents related to a July meeting between DHS and EIP. Finally, the suit seeks records of communication from anyone in CISA and the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public and its associated groups regarding EIP, the 2020 election, online misinformation and disinformation, and any social media platforms.

Judicial Watch claims that CISA has never acknowledged the request, despite the fact that online records show that it was received and even assigned a reference number. Further, the group says that it has not been informed whether or not CISA has decided to comply, that CISA has not updated Judicial Watch about the status of the request, or if the group has the right to appeal. In. the suit, Judicial Watch is demanding that CISA show that it has retrieved the information and provided it as requested and that the court prevented any further obstruction.

That Big Tech and Big Government colluded to control information during the 2020 election is something we already know. The fact that they feel the need to continue to conceal the parameters of that collusion indicates that they don’t care or just don’t want to admit it.