Be sure to Click LIKE at the bottom of this article, and share it everywhere!! By Craig Andresen – The National Patriot and Right Side Patriots – Commentary

Suddenly, our government has come to the conclusion that China is using TikTok to spy on Americans and they are also using the platform to corrupt our elections and indoctrinate our youth. They want to ban TikTok from all government devises.

Bear in mind that at the federal level, this is the same government that has been using social media to spy on, indoctrinate, propagandize and censor Americans for years.

At best, their concern regarding TikTok is disingenuous.

Thanks to Elon Musk, we now know that transparency and the disinfectant known as sunshine comes at the cost of $44.5 billion dollars. Musk has been dumping truth bombs for the past several weeks with the “Twitter Files” and while we haven’t learned much that we didn’t already suspect, we now have confirmation that those of us who had been for years labeled as “conspiracy theorists” have been 100% correct all along.

We know now that the banning and shadow banning of Conservatives has been happening. We now know that the censorship of Conservatives in the cyber public square has been taking place. We now know that black-lists really do exist and we now know that the “rules” set up by social media have indeed been arbitrary.

None of that is the real story.

We also now know that it wasn’t just Twitter doing it. We know that Facebook was doing it too, and if they were doing it, so too were all the other big tech platforms. And we know if social media was all in on it, so too was the mainstream media.

But that’s not the real story either.

The REAL story is that according to the Twitter Files, it was our government that was pushing it. It was the DNC, the Biden campaign, the Biden administration, the liberal elite at the FBI and other intel agencies, the DHS and the DOT as well as various blue state STATE governments that were actively engaged in CENSORSHIP of OUR freedom of speech, and active and willful VIOLATION of our 1^st Amendment right to free speech being perpetrated by our GOVERNMENT.

Private companies or individuals can limit free speech, or censor speech. That is allowed under the Constitution but it is ILLEGAL for the GOVERNMENT or government entities or agencies to censor or restrict free speech OR for the same to pressure private entities to censor free speech. It is also illegal for any government entity or agency to engage in such censorship by using a private company or entity as a tool for censorship and that is EXACTLY what liberal elites and agencies under the control of liberal elites has been doing through social and mainstream media.

According to the Chandra Law Firm LLC, “The First Amendment applies only to governmental action—not behavior by private employers, private companies, or private, non-government individuals—unless they acted in concert with government actors.”

The Chandra Law Firm LLC goes on to state, “People call us all the time complaining about their private employers or private businesses (like Facebook or Twitter) violating their supposed “free-speech” or “First Amendment rights.” That’s not really a thing and there’s nothing we can do about that. The only exception would be if you can show evidence that private, non-governmental actors are acting in concert or conspiracy with government. (And you can’t speculate about that or assume that.)”

Until Elon Musk bought Twitter, and then exposed the “Twitter Files” it was all speculation, but the absolute PROOF that Twitter was conspiring and acting in concert WITH government entities is contained throughout the “Twitter Files.” We also know that Facebook was acting in concert and conspiring with government entities to violate our 1^st Amendment right to freedom of speech based on what Mark Zuckerburg told Joe Rogan a month or so ago regarding the FBI going to Facebook to have the Hunter Biden laptop story squashed.

While there are 9 basic limitations to free speech, times when speech is considered by law to be limited…they are categorized as follows, Obscenity, Fighting words, Defamation (including libel and slander), Child pornography, Perjury, Blackmail, Incitement to imminent lawless action, True threats, and Solicitations to commit crimes, none of what we have seen via the “Twitter Files” falls into those categories. What the government and government entities and agencies have been doing is limiting free speech, or censoring free speech primarily to shut down viewpoints, ideas, conversations and opinions that are in opposite contrast to the liberal narrative.

That is a direct, unequivocal violation of our 1^st Amendment right to freedom of expression perpetrated by the U.S. government and those employed by social media and mainstream media at the behest of our government.

Before Elon Musk purchased the crime scene known as Twitter, then CEO Jack Dorsey sat before a congressional hearing and answered questions related to various forms of censorship that was, at that time, highly suspected.

He flat-out lied.

Twitter was indeed censoring and shadow banning Conservatives but it was worse than just that. Twitter was making up their policies on the fly. It wasn’t the algorithms they created to autonomously censor Conservatives, they were actively, in real-time simply making rules up for the purpose of removing individuals from their platform because the liberal elite, including governmental entities were telling them to do it.

So, other than the FBI, what other government agencies were taking part in the illegal act of censorship?

On Christmas Eve, thanks to yet another Twitter Files dump, we learned that the CIA , the Pentagon and the Department of State were in on the scheme as well. Twitter execs, in a series of emails, referred to the many government entities directing the censorship of voices on the social media platform as OGAs, or “Other Government Agencies.”  In fact, Twitter execs completely lost tract of which governmental agency they were dealing with and when. One email asked, “Is today the DOD (Department of Defense), and tomorrow the FBI? Is it the weekly call, or the monthly meeting?”

To be sure, it seems as though the FBI was the ringleader and in one email to Twitter execs, FBI agent Elvis Chan asked if it was okay to “invite an “OGA” to an upcoming conference:” At least 8 different former FBI agents worked for Twitter’s “Trust and Security” division including product policy manager Greg Anderson, who worked on “psychological operations” at the National Security Council, and Matthew WilliamsTwitter’s co-lead of its Trust and Safety department who worked for more than 15 years in intelligence with the FBI.

Meta, that’s Facebook employed a top policy manager for “misinformation,” by the name of  Aaron Berman, who was a former CIA senior analytics manager. Facebook, by the way, had or have had at least 9 former CIA agents and six former intelligence employees at other federal agencies (plural) working for them. Scott Stern, Facebook’s senior manager for trust and safety risk intelligence, who spent more than seven years with the FBI leading “high-stakes operational determinations for complex and ambiguous overseas counterterrorism operations,” who joined that company in January 2020 to help develop algorithms to combat “misinformation.”

Corey Ponder, spent more than six years at the CIA — the majority of which was spent as a “senior targeting analyst,” before going to work at Facebook, and we find former CIA employees including Bryan Weisbard, Facebook’s director of privacy strategy and operations; Kris Rose, a member of its governance point-person on its oversight board project from March 2020 to October 2021; and Hagan Barnett, a former CIA contractor who leads “harmful content operations” at Facebook.

The list of former intell agents goes on and on, but to be clear, most were hired by social media platforms soon after Trump’s victory in 2016 while others were hired leading up to the 2020 election.

Was it just our governmental agencies working for Twitter and other social media platforms in the effort to suppress and censor the voices of the American people in the 21^st century public square? Clearly not, as the senior Twitter executive with editorial responsibility for the Middle East, Gordon McMillan is also an officer in the British Army’s 77^th Brigade psychological warfare unit. By the way, the 77th Brigade is the British military unit which has “the capability to compete in the war of narratives at the tactical level” and to shape perceptions of conflict.

We have also learned over the past couple of weeks that the FBI was actually PAYING Twitter, to the tune of $3.5 million dollars. According to the FBI, that was “reimbursement” for the “reasonable costs and expenses associated with their response to a legal process, but the FBI also disclosed that Twitter wasn’t the only social media platform they “reimbursed,” claiming they had done the same for “others.” When asked who the “others” were, the FBI declined to comment further.

The government agencies listed in this commentary were demanding that social media platforms “take action” regarding certain accounts and to be perfectly clear, the accounts flagged by government agencies for “action” by social media platforms were Conservative social media users who were in disagreement with the official and allowable propaganda supplied by the liberal elites.

It wasn’t just governmental agencies engaged in dirty and unconstitutional deeds at social media platforms, it went all the way to the White House in both the Biden AND Trump administrations.

Independent writer David Zweig says, “Internal files at Twitter that I viewed while on assignment for @thefp showed that both the Trump and Biden administrations directly pressed Twitter executives to moderate the platform’s pandemic content according to their wishes.”

To be completely clear, it doesn’t matter why either administration was using pressure to censor social media content…it was and is wrong, was and is unconstitutional, and was and is ILLEGAL. If you’re going to be irate when it’s done by liberals, you had better be irate when it’s done by Conservatives or you are nothing but a hypocrite. Let me put this another way, while Trump was complaining long and loud regarding his own Twitter account being removed, he had previously urged Twitter to censor information being shared by many of his own supporters.

That’s just plain wrong any way you look at it.

The Trump administration claims they were trying to stop COVID related panic by suppressing people’s social media accounts but it was, nonetheless UNCONSTITUTIONAL and ILLEGAL. The PROPER way of handling such a thing would have been a prime-time address to the nation from the Oval Office urging people not to engage in panic…but actively censoring people sharing their opinions on social media, in the 21^st century town square? WRONG…UNCONSTITUTIONAL and ILLEGAL.

Should Biden be impeached for pressuring social media to censor viewpoints in conflict with his stated policies? As it constitutes a direct violation of the 1^st Amendment…yes, but to be fair, Trump pressured social media to also crack down on those opposed to his early COVID policies, a direct violation of the 1^st Amendment as well…and both should be held accountable.

Trust me, I’m only scratching the surface here, but what can be done about it legally?

Sadly, virtually nothing.

There will be congressional hearings, more will be exposed, but virtually no one will be held legally accountable. For the next 2 years, it is up to Merrick Garland to decide whether or not to prosecute anyone, and he will decide not to because if he goes after Trump for the aforementioned unconstitutional acts, he would also have to go after Biden, and we all know THAT will never happen.

As for those within our intel communities who participated in unconstitutional censorship, the best we can hope for is a shuffling of the deck chairs on the Titanic. Perhaps some people might be fired, but that’s about it, and others will surely take their place, not only at the agencies involved, but across social media platforms as well.

It’s up to We the People to clean house at the ballot box next time around by NOT voting for ANYONE involved in any aspect of what has so far been exposed or in what has yet to be exposed, and trust me when I say that so far, we have only seen the tip of the iceberg.

What you have when the government, government agencies and presidential administrations violate the 1^st Amendment willfully while members of congress from both sides of the aisle shrug their collective shoulders is a constitutional crisis, and the “Twitter Files” is exposing just such a crisis right now.

The more we learn, the deeper the crisis becomes…and that is something I intend to deal with in future commentaries.

A Civil War?

A second revolution?

Only time will tell.

Copyright © 2022 Craig Andresen / thenationalpatriot.com all rights reserved

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For more political commentary please visit my RIGHT SIDE PATRIOTS partner Diane Sori’s blog The Patriot Factor to read her latest op-ed To Aid and Comfort the Enemy x Two

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Tomorrow, Tuesday, January 3rd, RIGHT SIDE PATRIOTS Craig Andresen and Diane Sori discuss ‘To Aid and Comfort the Enemy x Two’; ‘The Democrat Party’s Tyranny Exposed’; and important news of the day. Hope you can tune in to RIGHT SIDE PATRIOTS on https://rspradio1.com. Click ‘LISTEN LIVE’ starting at 6:50 pm EST with show beginning at 7pm EST.