In a span of several minutes, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas insisted to CNN’s Dana Bash that the newly-formed Disinformation Governance Board will not monitor American citizens, that the DGB will lack “operational authority,” that the board’s executive director Nina Jankowicz is politically neutral, and dodged a question on whether he would be comfortable with a Trump administration running a similar board.
BASH: Let’s talk about a different topic, which is what you are calling, your department is calling the Disinformation Governance Board. You unveiled that this week.
Republicans are calling it Orwellian and comparing it to the Ministry of Truth in the novel “1984.” Can you clarify what exactly is this? What exactly will this Disinformation Governance Board do? Will it monitor American citizens?
MAYORKAS: Dana, I’m very pleased to do so.
It’s clear. I mean, those criticisms are precisely the opposite of what this small working group within the Department of Homeland Security will do. And I think we probably could have done a better job of communicating what it does and does not do. The fact is that disinformation that creates a threat to the security of the homeland is our responsibility to address. And this department has been addressing it for years, throughout the years of the prior administration, on an ongoing basis, disinformation from Russia, China, Iran.
BASH: Right. We know the problems, but it’s still not clear to me how this Governance Board will act. What will it do?
MAYORKAS: So, what it does is, it works to ensure that the way in which we address threats, the connectivity between threats and acts of violence are addressed without infringing on free speech, protecting civil rights and civil liberties, the right of privacy. And the board, this working group, internal working group, will draw from best practices and communicate those best practices to the operators, because the board does not have operational authority.
BASH: Will American citizens be monitored?
MAYORKAS: No.
BASH: Guarantee that?
MAYORKAS: So, what we do — we in the Department of Homeland Security don’t monitor American citizens.
BASH: You don’t, but will this board change that?
MAYORKAS: No, no, no, the board does not have any operational authority or capability. What it will do is gather together best practices in addressing the threat of disinformation from foreign state adversaries, from the cartels, and disseminate those best practices to the operators that have been executing in addressing this threat for years.
Notice Mayorkas repeatedly refuses to specify “the operators” and what the Disinformation Governance Board will want “the operators” to do. Presumably “the operators” means the social media companies who run the networks where people are posting disinformation. The Disinformation Governance Board will contact Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, or Instagram, and say that a particular post or video is disinformation… and then those companies will be expected to take it down? Suspend or terminate the accounts posting that disinformation?
When the administration will only discuss what the board will do in vague generalities, it is hard to begrudge anyone for not trusting it.
As for Mayorkas’ assurance that the Department of Homeland Security does not and will monitor American citizens… how exactly will DHS know that disinformation is reaching and harming Americans without monitoring what Americans are seeing, reading and hearing?
Mayorkas’ assurance about domestic surveillance is about as reliable as then-National Intelligence Director James Clapper’s assurance under oath that intelligence officials never collect data on Americans. “No, sir… Not wittingly. There are cases where they could inadvertently, perhaps, collect, but not wittingly.” The Edward Snowden leaks revealed that Clapper’s statement, delivered while under oath, was false. Clapper later wrote to Congress, “my response was clearly erroneous.”
Back to Mayorkas:
BASH: Republicans are criticizing your decision, the administration’s decision to choose Nina Jankowicz to lead this disinformation board. They say she is not somebody who is neutral. Your response?
MAYORKAS: Eminently qualified, a renowned expert in the field of disinformation.
BASH: And neutral?
MAYORKAS: Absolutely so.
BASH: Would you be OK, if Donald Trump were president, if he created this Disinformation Governance Board, or, if it is in place, and he wins again in 2024, that he’s in charge of such a thing?
MAYORKAS: I believe that this working group that gathers together — gathers together best practices, makes sure that our work is coordinated consistent with those best practices, that we’re safeguarding the right of free speech, that we’re safeguarding civil liberties, I think is an extraordinarily important endeavor.
Former NSA analyst John Schindler – about as far from a knee-jerk defender of Republicans or critic of Democrats as you can get – tears apart the DHS decision over at the Washington Examiner, pointing out that if this new board was not going to monitor Americans and was only focused on foreign disinformation, it wouldn’t be at DHS.
Placing this new board inside the DHS is the tell. This new shop clearly has a domestic mission since the [Global Engagement Center at the Department of State] is already handling foreign disinformation, while “Homeland” in the middle of the DHS title rather gives the game away. That unnecessary department was the worst accomplishment of former President George W. Bush that wasn’t called “Operation Iraqi Freedom.” Now, the Biden administration is injecting the DHS, a powerful law enforcement arm, nakedly into domestic politics.
The politics are rabidly partisan. For proof of this, we need not look any further than the head of this new board, Nina Jankowicz. A product of the NGO-Democratic complex, Jankowicz’s prolific Twitter feed offers a panoply of stridently woke takes on everything from proper pronouns to gender issues. More importantly, Jankowicz is herself a purveyor of disinformation. She pushed the now-infamous Steele dossier, which bona fide disinformation experts called out as fake not long after it appeared, while repeatedly presenting Hunter Biden’s controversial laptop as a Kremlin disinformation scheme rather than a legitimate news story.
Schindler concludes, “the Disinformation Governance Board clearly should not exist, particularly not inside the DHS. Congress must, without delay, remedy this threat to civil liberties raised by the Biden administration.”
Alas, with Nancy Pelosi running the House and Chuck Schumer running the Senate, that is unlikely to happen. But if (when?) Republicans take control of Congress in November, they can wipe out the funding for the Disinformation Governance Board, as well as grill Jankowicz in oversight hearings about what her board is doing.
However, this may be the one time in the history of oversight hearings that the majority party does not want to make the witness sing.