STOP Big Tech Censorship!



[INSIDE JW]

Judicial Watch Lawsuit Forces Release of Records on Raid of Project
Veritas’s O’Keefe’s Home

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Journalist group, Project Veritas, investigates
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corruption and dishonesty in
public and private institutions. James O’Keefe is CEO and Chairman
of the Board.

He and the organization apparently stepped on some highly sensitive
toes in Washington, and Washington reacted with an abusive raid of his
home.

We received 11 pages
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of heavily redacted records from the U.S Department of Justice
concerning communications of _The New York Times_ to officials in the
U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York (SDNY),
showing the _Times_ was tipped off about the November 6, 2021
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FBI raids on the homes of Project Veritas founder/CEO James O’Keefe
and then-Project Veritas journalists.

Seven pages of records are redacted in large part and three pages are
withheld entirely, which the agency claims are “not part of the
responsive record.”

The records were produced in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)
lawsuit
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we filed in September 2022 in the U.S. District Court for the District
of Columbia after the agency failed to respond to a March 29, 2022,
FOIA request (_Judicial Watch, Inc. v. U.S. Department of Justice_
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(No.1:22-cv-02652)).

Our lawsuit seeks all records of government and non-government
communications between officials in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in
the Southern District of New York and representatives of the _New York
Times_ regarding Project Veritas, James O’Keefe, Ashley Biden and
others.

The records reveal that the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern
District of New York was in contact with _New York Times_
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reporters, including William K. Rashbaum (referred to in the email
chains as “Willy”) and Ben Protess, before, during, and after the
raids on the homes of O’Keefe and then-Project Veritas reporters.

The records include a November 4, 2021, email chain
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labeled “Search in Mamaroneck re [redacted] diary?”, from James
Margolin, former Chief Public Information Officer of SDNY to Nicholas
Biase, former senior public affairs officer for SDNY, and an
individual whose name is redacted. Margolin states that “Willy”
from the _Times_ has information about the search warrants and
investigation seemingly about Ashley Biden’s diary
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> Willy Rashbaum from the Times just called and says they know or
> believe that a search warrant is being conducted in Mamaroneck this
> morning at a location that is either the residence of Eric Cochrane
> (sp?) — who may or may not be a whistle-blower — or a Project
> Veritas office. He believes this is in connection with a Florida
> investigation into whether Project Veritas stole, or purchased a
> stolen, diary belonging to [redacted].
Margolin later includes redacted details about “two searches”
regarding the homes of James O’Keefe and then-Project Veritas
journalist Spencer Meads.

Margolin later states: “Times now believes it’s not ‘a Florida
investigation’ but an SDNY investigation, ‘and it involves more
than just the diary’ (no elaboration on that).”

In a November 6, 2021, email
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with the subject line ““Re: O’Keefe (arrest?)” from Margolin
to Biase and others, Margolin states, “The _Times_ hears O’Keefe
was arrested this morning.” The rest of the body of the email is
redacted as “not part of the responsive record.”

In response, Biase thanks Margolin and writes: “The Times has his
neighbor on record (who they suspect may not be entirely truthful)
saying that FBI were banging on O’Keefe’s door with guns (or at
least one agent with a gun) drawn.”

On November 24, 2021, Margolin emails
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a redacted individual and Biase with the subject line “Veritas,”
stating that “Willy” (William K. Rashbaum of _Times_) informed
Margolin the _Times_ was doing another story about Project Veritas,
and “they’re pretty certain subpoenas went to [redacted].”
Margolin explains that Willy asked him for “a wave-off if” the
information was wrong, adding “I [Margolin] made no promises.”

Biase writes on November 30, 2021, in the heavily redacted email chain
that Biase had spoken with _NYT_ reporters “Willy” and Ben
Protess, and “neither mentioned it. Maybe Jim?” The rest of the
body of the email is redacted as “not part of the responsive
record.”

The _New York Times _was obviously tipped off about the unprecedented
raid on the home of James O’Keefe and other Project Veritas
journalists. And these new Justice Department records raise more
questions than answers about how that happened.

JUDICIAL WATCH SUES FBI OVER CENSORSHIP OF HUNTER BIDEN LAPTOP STORY

The FBI has become a political enforcement arm of the Biden
Administration and the Biden family. We’re going to court to
interrupt the corruption.

We filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) suit against the Justice
Department for records of communications between the FBI and social
media sites regarding foreign influence in elections, as well as the
Hunter Biden laptop story (_Judicial Watch Inc. v U.S. Department of
Justice_
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_(No. 1:23-cv-00079)).

We sued in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after
the FBI failed to respond fully to an August 28, 2022, FOIA request
for:

* All alerts, notifications, advisories, foreign threat indicators,
or similar records provided by any official or employee of the FBI to
any officer or employee of Meta (formerly Facebook), Twitter, or any
other social media company regarding the threat of disinformation
disseminated by foreign actors related to any U.S. election.
* All records of communication between any official or employee of
the FBI and any officer or employee of Meta, Twitter, or any other
social media company regarding the laptop reportedly used by Hunter
Biden, any news media reporting regarding the laptop and/or its
contents, and/or the provenance of any information contained in any
such reporting.

In October 2020, in the run-up to the presidential election, the _New
York Post_ was able to confirm that Hunter Biden’s laptop
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which was abandoned at a Delaware computer shop, contained
embarrassing and possibly incriminating information about the Biden
family. The _Post_’s story was censored by Twitter and other social
media platforms despite its accuracy. Recent “Twitter files”
released by Elon Musk show that FBI pressure
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on
“Russian disinformation” led to the censorship:

> San Francisco FBI agent Elvis Chan “[sent] 10 documents to
> Twitter’s then-Head of Site Integrity, Yoel Roth, through
> Teleporter, a one-way communications channel from the FBI to
> Twitter,” the evening before the release of the _Post _story.
Other “Twitter files” show the FBI pushed Twitter to also censor
countless Twitter users who tweeted concerns (and jokes) about
election integrity just before the 2020 election.

The FBI was literally paying
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Twitter to censor Americans just before the 2020 election! The FBI
seems to have interfered in the 2020 election to help Joe Biden by
encouraging Big Tech to censor Americans about the Hunter Biden laptop
and other debates. And to add to the scandal, they are now covering up
their misconduct.

We have a comprehensive investigation and litigation project to expose
and stop Big Government-Big Tech censorship. We sued
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the U.S.
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for all records of
communications between the Cybersecurity and Information Security
Agency (CISA), a division of DHS, and the Election Integrity
Partnership (EIP), which was created to flag online election content
for censorship and suppression.

In September 2022, we sued
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the
Secretary of State of the State of California for having YouTube
censor a Judicial Watch election integrity video.

In May 2022, YouTube censored a Judicial Watch video about Biden
corruption and election integrity issues in the 2020 election. The
video
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titled “Impeach? Biden Corruption Threatens National Security,”
was falsely determined to be “election misinformation” and removed
by YouTube, and Judicial Watch’s YouTube account was suspended for a
week. The video featured an interview with me. Judicial Watch
continues to post it’s video [/it’s%20video] content on its Rumble
channel
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In April 2021, we published
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documents
revealing how California state officials pressured social media
companies (Twitter, Facebook, Google (YouTube)) to censor posts about
the 2020 election.

In May 2021, we revealed
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documents
showing that Iowa state officials pressured social media companies,
Twitter and Facebook, to censor posts about the 2020 election.

In July 2021, we uncovered
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records
from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which
revealed that Facebook coordinated closely with the CDC to control the
COVID narrative and “misinformation” and that over $3.5 million in
free advertising given to the CDC by social media companies.

And, as you can see below, we’re just ramping up!

JUDICIAL WATCH SUES FOR SURGEON GENERAL CONTACT WITH BIG TECH ABOUT
VACCINES

In the Biden administration’s zeal to push the COVID-19 vaccines, it
turned it’s Surgeon General into an anti-constitutional tyrant.

We filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for communications and
records of the Surgeon General’s Communications Director’s contact
with social media companies regarding COVID-19 vaccines (_Judicial
Watch, Inc. v. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services_
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_(No. 1:23-cv-00113)).

We sued in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after
HHS failed to respond adequately to a March 3, 2022, FOIA request for:


> All records, including, but not limited to, electronic mail, texts,
> memoranda, and handwritten notes, of, regarding, referring, or
> relating to any efforts of Alexandria Phillips, Communications
> Director, Office of the Surgeon General, to contact any employee of
> Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, Reddit, YouTube,
> LinkedIn, Tumblr, and Pinterest concerning COVID-19 vaccines.
In 2021, the U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued a report titled
“Confronting Health Misinformation
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to “slow the spread of health misinformation during the COVID-19
pandemic and beyond,” which called for censorship of speech about
the vaccines and other COVID controversies:

> Prioritize early detection of misinformation “super-spreaders”
> and repeat offenders. Impose clear consequences for accounts that
> repeatedly violate platform policies.
On March 3, 2022, Murthy demanded that the tech companies turn over
information
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about individuals who spread COVID-19 misinformation:

> In a formal notice, Murthy requested major tech platforms submit
> information about the prevalence and scale of COVID-19
> misinformation on their sites, from social networks, search engines,
> crowdsourced platforms, e-commerce platforms and instant messaging
> systems.
Biden’s Surgeon General is abusing his office to pressure Big Tech
companies to censor Americans. This lawsuit aims to uncover the
details of this government attack on the First Amendment.

DHS RECALLS AIR MARSHALS ON MIGRANT WELFARE MISSIONS ALONG MEXICAN
BORDER

The Biden administration dishonestly refers to its border crisis as
“a surge in irregular migration.” To cope with the mess it
created, it began to pull Federal Air Marshals away from their basic
duties. Our _Corruption Chronicles_ blog has the latest update
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on the
result of our pressure.

> Thanks to pressure from the Air Marshal National Council and
> Judicial Watch’s reporting, the Biden administration will stop
> sending Federal Air Marshals (FAM) to the Mexican border to provide
> illegal immigrants with welfare checks, transportation, and other
> basic services. The reckless practice left aircraft at risk by
> sending 150-200 FAM monthly to the southern border to help deal with
> “a surge in irregular migration.” Judicial Watch was the first
> to report
>
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on the
> deployments in late October when the Department of Homeland Security
> (DHS) sent an electronic memorandum to the highly skilled law
> enforcement officers informing them of the assignments, which
> consisted of 21-day rotations that could be extended for up to 120
> days.
>
> Judicial Watch obtained a copy of the directive from various
> recipients at the agency, which operates under the Transportation
> Security Administration (TSA), created after 9/11 to prevent another
> terrorist attack. FAM are charged with protecting commercial
> passenger flights by deterring and countering the risk of terrorist
> activity, yet they were plucked from their duties to babysit illegal
> aliens. “The nation is experiencing a surge in irregular migration
> along the Southwest Border (SWB),” the October notice to FAM
> officers read. “The unprecedented volume of Noncitizen Migrants
> (NCMs) currently apprehended mandates immediate further action to
> protect the life and safety of federal personnel and noncitizens in
> CBP [Customs and Border Protection] custody.”
>
> The first wave of air marshals was dispatched to El Paso, Texas and
> Yuma, Arizona on October 30 for an October 31 start. Thirty officers
> and a supervisor went to El Paso, 15 officers and a supervisor to
> Yuma. Here is the important work that the specially trained law
> enforcement officers were doing on the southern border rather than
> their critical duty of protecting commercial planes flagged for
> terrorist threats. “Hospital Watch, Transportation, Law
> Enforcement Searches, Entry Control, Security at CBP Facilities and
> Welfare Checks.” In a formal complaint
>
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to the
> DHS Inspector General, the Air Marshal National Council, which
> represents thousands of FAM nationwide, accused TSA Administrator
> David Pekoske and FAM Director Tirrell Stevenson of violating
> federal law and overstepping their authority by assigning air
> marshals to assist the U.S. Border Patrol with the illegal
> immigration crisis. The complaint also accused Homeland Security
> leaders of fraud, waste, and abuse of authority.
>
> Earlier this month when an intelligence alert disclosed that Al
> Qaeda is planning attacks in the U.S. involving planes, the Air
> Marshal National Council fired off a letter
>
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DHS
> Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas as well as Pekoske and Stevenson
> reminding them that deploying FAM to the southern border to perform
> humanitarian work is reckless and putting the nation at extreme
> risk. Judicial Watch published a story
>
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> about the threat after obtaining a copy from government sources of
> the intelligence alert, which was delivered on December 31, 2022, at
> 12:23:52 Greenwich Mean Time. The caption of the widely circulated
> warning reads: “Al-Qaeda says upcoming attacks on US, possibly
> involving planes, will use new techniques and tactics.”
>
> It appears that the combined efforts of Judicial Watch and the Air
> Marshal National Council have squeezed the Biden administration to
> end the controversial border missions. A memo dispersed to FAM just
> days ago says that all future deployments to the southwest border
> (SWB) have been suspended until further notice. “Wave #5 will
> continue their deployment until January 27th and then travel home as
> planned on January 28th,” according to the notice provided to
> Judicial Watch by various government sources. “Wave #6 will NOT
> DEPLOY as planned on January 25th.” The missive directs FAM to
> cancel travel and informs officers that hotel and car rental
> reservations will be cancelled by the agency. Air marshals
> nationwide are thrilled that they can return to their critical
> mission of securing the nation’s transportation system and David
> Londo, president of the Air Marshal National Council, said “it
> looks like we won.”
>
Until next week...



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