Free Republic

Author and journalist Michael Shellenberger has said that “U.S. and U.K. military contractors” have used “sophisticated psychological operations and disinformation tactics… against the American people” in sworn testimony in the U.S. House of Representatives. In a hearing of the Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government chaired by Jim Jordan (R-OH) on suppression of free speech by the government, Shellenberger presented the information he received from a whistleblower about the origins of the so-called “Censorship Industrial complex.” Shellenberger, one of the “Twitter Files” authors, coined the phrase “Censorship Industrial Complex” to describe the network of government and private entities...

As the Biden administration pressured Big Tech companies to censor Americans’ speech during the COVID vaccine rollout, Google’s YouTube went along with the White House’s requests before Facebook was pressured to follow suit, according to documents shared with House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan and obtained by The Daily Wire. In an April 18, 2021, email, Facebook President for Global Affairs Nick Clegg expressed concern after Andy Slavitt, a senior White House advisor, told him that Facebook was “lagging behind” as YouTube “made significant advances to remove content leading to vaccine hesitancy.” “Just got off hour long call with Andy Slavitt,”...

@KenPaxtonTX I am suing Pfizer for misrepresenting Covid-19 vaccine efficacy and conspiring to censor public discourse.

Trump on Wednesday attacked Dawn Engoron, the wife of the judge, Arthur Engoron, and the judge’s clerk, on his social media platform Truth Social. He called Dawn Engoron a “Trump hating wife” and said that she and Arthur Engoron’s law clerk had “taken over control of the New York State Witch Hunt Trial aimed at me, my family, and the Republican Party”. On Thursday, the gag order against him, which had been paused two weeks ago, was reinstated, but it did not stop Trump lashing out further. The order only specifies comments about members of Judge Engoron’s staff, not his...

Author and environmentalist Michael Shellenberger has recently accused military contractors from the US and UK of employing advanced psychological operations and disinformation tactics aimed at manipulating public perception. As citizens become increasingly aware of these allegations, questions arise about the ethical implications of such actions and the impact on democratic principles. The need for a thorough investigation and public discourse on the matter becomes apparent to ensure the responsible use of government funds and to safeguard the integrity of information available to the public.

“We are rapidly entering the age of no privacy, where everyone is open to surveillance at all times; where there are no secrets from government.” — William O. Douglas, dissenting in Osborn v. United States (1966)The government wants us to believe that we have nothing to fear from its mass spying programs as long as we’ve done nothing wrong.Don’t believe it.It doesn’t matter whether you obey every law. The government’s definition of a “bad” guy is extraordinarily broad, and it results in the warrantless surveillance of innocent, law-abiding Americans on a staggering scale.For instance, it was recently revealed that the...

FIRST ON FOX: The Biden administration worked together with employees of Google-owned YouTube in 2021 to target alleged "misinformation" relating to the COVID-19 virus and its vaccinations, according to documents obtained by FOX Business. The documents, acquired through a source close to the House Judiciary Committee, reveal a level of correspondence previously unknown to the American public, as President Biden and his aides sought to promote coronavirus vaccinations in efforts to quell the raging pandemic. The campaign was led by former White House Director of Digital Strategy Rob Flaherty, who has since left the administration to help run Biden’s 2024...

The gag order barring former President Donald Trump from speaking publicly about court staff in his New York civil fraud trial was reinstated by a state appeals court Thursday. Appellate Judge David Friedman earlier this month had temporarily lifted the limited gag order against Trump, 77, over concerns it was a violation of his constitutional right to free speech. But a four-judge panel with New York’s Appellate Division, First Department overturned Friedman’s ruling in a brief decision Thursday that didn’t provide any explanation. Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron — who is overseeing the $250 million case against Trump —...

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS)’s cybersecurity agency is burying evidence of its prior efforts to encourage the domestic censorship of US citizens online, silently deleting a dystopian video it published in 2021 instructing children to report their own family members to Facebook for “Covid disinformation.” In August 2022, Foundation for Freedom Online (FFO) published a report that highlighted a particularly troubling cartoon video released by the DHS’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). In the cartoon, CISA encourages a young woman to report a family member — her “Uncle Steve” — to Facebook, after he makes a post claiming...

If there's any doubt that the creatures currently persecuting President Trump through the courts are less after him than they are us, prosecutor Jack Smith provides the assurances. Here's his latest stunt: The Department of 'Justice' demanded that Twitter (X) hand over a list of users who engaged with Donald Trump's posts in relation to Jack Smith's J6 investigation.It's as outrageous a demand as any ever seen in an outrageous case, with horrible implications for Constitutional protections and freedom itself in the U.S. If this creep gets what he wants, that means everyone who ever clicked "like" on a tweet...

Special Counsel Jack Smith hunted information on X users who liked or retweeted posts published by former President Donald Trump, according to redacted search warrants and other documents released Monday.According to the heavily redacted document issued to then-Twitter in January, the court ordered the social media giant to forfeit a bevy of information regarding Trump’s account, including “advertising information, including advertising IDs, ad activity, and ad topic preferences,” as well as IP addresses “used to create, login, and use the account” and privacy and account settings. The warrant also demanded information such as Trump’s search history, direct messages, and “content...

There are currently a couple of kinetic wars ongoing- one in Ukraine and another in the Middle East but there is a third one that threatens the freedom of pretty much everyone on Earth. It is the war on free speech. And it’s global. During the 2020 election the FBI and former CIA officers suppressed information harmful to Joe Biden. In 2022 Biden pressured social media to again suppress information harmful to democrats. Without a doubt this affected the elections. With the taste of success in his mouth Biden is once again looking to suppress free speech, especially as Americans...

Indianapolis high school senior Caston Peters had used they and them or he and him pronouns at school for three years without a problem, but they came home a few days into this school year and told their mother that the situation had changed. Peters, 18 and nonbinary, heard from a teacher that a new state law meant they wouldn’t be able to use those pronouns, or the first name they've used for years, without explicit permission from a parent because the pronouns and name don't correspond with their sex assigned at birth. This was news to Caston’s mother, Kim...

Following unprecedented rioting in Dublin on Thursday, November 23rd 2023, Conor McGregor took to social media addressing over 10 million followers. In a series of posts calling for anti-immigrant action from the public, he made a number of statements which include the following: “We are not losing any more of our women and children to sick and twisted people who should not even be in Ireland in the first place. Call it what you want. We do not care. May God help us all. Ireland for victory.” He also shared a photograph of the iconic O’Connell monument in Dublin city...

A pair of professors from Arizona State University wrote an essay which was published last week by the Chronicle of Higher Education. The gist of the article is that academics are overestimating the value of free speech. In fact, they come to the conclusion that free speech is a right-wing framing which ought to be rejected by colleges who, after all, have lots of experts on hand to determine what is and is not acceptable speech on a given topic. Here’s how they set up the argument:Whether and by whom free speech is under threat on campuses are hotly debated...

'What I don’t like is anonymous Russians and Chinese and Iranians having' it, Haley told CNBC ... Nikki Haley was asked to explain her earlier remarks about social media companies on Wednesday and said that while she didn't mind "anonymous American" free speech, she didn't support anonymous free speech for actors in Russia, Iran and China. During an appearance on Fox News on Tuesday, Haley said every person on social media should be "verified by their name." Haley, who was fiercely criticized by fellow Republican candidates for the idea, joined the hosts of CNBC's "Squawk Box" on Wednesday and was...

Leftist internet traffic cop NewsGuard is the farthest thing from being the unbiased media referee it purports to be. It is a government-funded operation designed to attack right-leaning media by going after their advertiser funding. There are at least five core reasons why Congress should strip funding from NewsGuard in the latest National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) since it received a $750,000 taxpayer-funded grant from the Department of Defense. The state funding of a leftist, so-called journalism gatekeeper that deceptively bills itself as “apolitical” is case in point. Such efforts by the government to censor media it does not approve...

From the 45th President of the United States of America, Donald J. Trump:An appellate judge LIFTED the unconstitutional gag order that was disgracefully imposed upon me by the Trump-hating judge in New York City.Since I am now 100% free to speak without being censored for the time being, I’m going to tell you exactly what’s on my mind.This sham New York Trial is nothing but a political witch hunt incited by rabid anti-Trump Democrats – both the Judge AND the Attorney General – who want to impose the “corporate death penalty” upon me and even my family.

NEW YORK (AP) — A New York appeals court judge on Thursday paused a gag order that barred Donald Trump from commenting on court staffers in his civil fraud trial. The trial judge had imposed the gag order last month and later fined Trump $15,000 for violations after the former president made a disparaging social media post about a court clerk.In his decision, Judge David Friedman of the state’s intermediate appeals court cited constitutional concerns about restricting Trump’s free speech. He issued a stay of the gag order, allowing Trump to comment freely about court staff while a longer appeals...

A New York Appeals judge on Thursday temporarily lifted NY Judge Arthur Engoron’s gag order on Trump. Appellate judge David Friedman stayed Engoron’s gag order citing Trump’s First Amendment rights. In late October Judge Engoron put Trump on the witness stand after he blasted the former president and accused him of violating the gag order with his remarks to the press. He also fined Trump $10,000. Radical Marxist New York Attorney General Letitia James is seeking $250 million in ‘damages’ when there is no victim in this fraud case and she is also seeking to ban Trump and his sons...