Below is my column in the New York Post on the growing attacks on those who are challenging the alleged abuses by the FBI and the censorship system on social media.
Here is the column:
“The Democratic Party [is] the bedfellow of international communism.” Those words from Sen. Joe McCarthy captured the gist of the Red Scare and the use of blacklists and personal attacks to silence critics. The Democrats this week appear to have taken up the same cudgel in labeling opponents and critics Russian sympathizers and fellow travelers in opposing government involvement in a massive censorship system.
The Red Scare is back and it is going blue.
I testified this week in Congress on the Twitter Files and how they suggest what I have called “censorship by surrogate” or proxy.
The files show dozens of FBI and government employees actively seeking the censorship of citizens and others for their viewpoints. In my testimony, I warned that this was reminiscent of the McCarthy period where the FBI played a role in the establishment of blacklists for socialists, communists, and others. I encouraged Congress not to repeat its failures from the 1950s by turning a blind eye to such abuse.
This view was amplified by former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, who became persona non grata for her anti-war sentiments in Congress. She was later labeled a “Russian asset” by Hillary Clinton, who has refused to support that scurrilous claim against a former member.
For years, the Democrats pushed a Russian collusion theory that collapsed. It was later disclosed that the Clinton campaign hid and then lied about funding the infamous Steele Dossier. Nevertheless, people like Carter Page were falsely accused of being Russian agents and critics of the investigation labeled as Russian apologists. Ironically, the FBI was warned that the dossier appeared to be the result of Russian disinformation and relied on a presumed Russian agent.
If anything, my warning of McCarthy-like attacks and measures seemed to be taken more as a suggestion than an admonition by some. Soon after the end of the hearing, MSNBC contributor and former Sen. Claire McCaskill appeared on MSNBC to denounce the member witnesses (Sen. Chuck Grassley, Sen. Ron Johnson, and former Rep. Gabbard) as “Putin apologists” and Putin lovers.
She exclaimed, “I mean, look at this, I mean, all three of those politicians are Putin apologists. I mean, Tulsi Gabbard loves Putin.” (For the record, she also attacked me as not being “a real lawyer.”)
What was most striking is the level of attacks on those seeking an investigation into possible FBI abuses. The Democratic Party was once the greatest defender of free speech, the greatest critic of corporate power, and the greatest skeptic of the FBI. It is now opposing the investigation into the FBI’s involvement in a massive corporate-run censorship system.
In the 1950s, it was easy for politicians to avoid discussing underlying views by just labeling their opponents as fellow travelers. We are watching the same use of personal attacks today as a way to evade the troubling disclosures in the Twitter Files.
While some like McCaskill yell “Russians!” others use more modern labels, such as “conspiracy theorists.” That notably includes the FBI itself.
When criticized for the role FBI agents played in secretly targeting citizens for censorship, the FBI called critics “conspiracy theorists . . . feeding the American public misinformation.” It is something that you might expect from a pundit or politician. It is far more menacing when this attack comes from the country’s largest law enforcement agency.
Where the Hoover FBI would call dissenters “Communist sympathizers,” the Wray FBI labels them “conspiracy theorists.”
Alternatively, various Democrats portrayed anyone criticizing Twitter for censorship as supporting insurrections against the government. Member after member suggested that seeking to investigate the government’s role in censorship was to invite or even welcome another Jan. 6.
Thus, when Thomas Baker, a former FBI agent, testified on his extensive writings about changes in the FBI, he was attacked by freshman Congressman Dan Goldman (D-NY) who asked him if he had any experience investigating extremist groups. He didn’t get the answer he hoped for. When Baker responded, “Yes,” and tried to explain his prior experience, Goldman immediately cut him off and accused him of trying to sell a book.
For my part, I got off light. I was not accused of being a Russian mole or fellow traveler of insurrectionists. After responding to a question on the specific content of the files (released and confirmed by Twitter itself), Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), denounced me for offering “legal opinions” without actually working at Twitter. It is like saying that a witness should not discuss the content of Pentagon Papers unless one worked at the Pentagon. (By the way, the content of the Pentagon papers as well as the Twitter Files are facts. The implication of those facts are opinions. I was asked about both the factual content of the files and their constitutional implications).
It is all tragically familiar. The effort this week was to attack witnesses rather than address what appears to be the largest censorship system in the history of this country. It is, of course, ironic that those seeking to check such government-supported censorship are the ones being called Putin lovers. Putin loves censorship and likely stands in awe at the success of the left in using the FBI and corporations to regulate speech on social media.
Putin and other authoritarian countries have long feared the Internet and social media. They have struggled to gain the very level of censorship carried out by Twitter and other executives with the support of politicians and pundits.
We now know that members like Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) secretly sought censorship of critics, including a columnist. Their success would make Putin blush.
However, Democrats have insisted that freedom is tyranny. Columnist and former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich went full Orwellian when he previously dismissed calls for free speech in social media and warned that censorship is “necessary to protect American democracy.”
He then added bizarrely of uncensored social media: “That’s Musk’s dream. And Trump’s. And Putin’s. And the dream of every dictator, strongman, demagogue and modern-day robber baron on Earth. For the rest of us, it would be a brave new nightmare.”
Indeed, it is a nightmare, but a familiar one.
Jonathan Turley is an attorney and a professor at George Washington University Law School.
More and more it reading like a page out of the 1930s in two European countries. Find a group to scapegoat and then quash dissent by attacking that group. The Dems’ playbook was written 100 years ago.
“The Democratic Party was once the greatest defender of free speech, the greatest critic of corporate power, and the greatest skeptic of the FBI. It is now opposing the investigation into the FBI’s involvement in a massive corporate-run censorship system.”
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When discussing the cancer that destroys societies, Aristotle observed that republics devolve into democracies which, in turn, devolve into depostisms. And what causes that political rot? Well, a hint is that it goes by the eponymous initials, DIE. No society survives diversity of goals and values very long. Indeed, it is the crowning achievement of the Christian faith that its strictures formed a cohesive internal bond among the Western nations uniting disparate factions even as those same nations pursued outright mayhem against each other. Even Madison had no compelling defense to the cancer of factions in Federalist 10, relying on republican form of government to ward off the corrosive effects of “selfishism” which is the prime motivator of factions. Madison forgot about Aristotle but societal degradation didn’t.
We’re in a bad way and the fault lies ironically at the feet of the same people who had much of it right for decades. Liberal principles have been cheaply sold by the Dims for that fraudulent, tantalizing, pathological and ephemeral delusion of all tyrants – total power. They will receive their comeuppance to be sure — as every despot in history has — but the collateral damage to the rest of the body politic is the real concern.
Welcome to Stage 3.
The primary reasons the Left is able to run these Ops blatant fake, suppressed and ignored news campaigns is that they have bought and paid for the Justice Department and mainstream media. Without those two, unindicted coconspirators running cover, none of the destroy America projects could happen.
Speaking of fake news, protected assets (ie Ilhan Omar, et al) and government lies…
“Why would a CIA mouthpiece climb onto CNN to “blah blah blah” about UFOs?
Probably to distract you from: the Nord Stream pipeline story. Inflation. House investigations into Big Tech/Biden censorship. The NATO failures in Ukraine. Or China preparing for war.
You know: reality.
@emeraldrobinson”
Do the Democrats appear to be taken up the same cudgel in labeling opponents and critics of: [?]
Bernie Sanders, ‘Sanders Sympathizers’
Israeli Labor Party Sympathizers
Canada’s New Democratic Party Sympathizers
Mexican Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) Sympathizers
Sympathizers Etc. …
Here’s a List of Sympathizers for them to Chew on:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_International
One issue that not many people are considering is the fact that there are three nations that are the most powerful in the world: The United States, Russia, and China. Thinking about this geopolitical strategist, the best option is for two of these nations to work together to stop the advances of the third.
Russia and the US are more culturally alike than either is similar to China. Russia and China have the longest border between them in the world, at least among these three nations. And US has worked with China for the manufacture of many products that are used in the US. While these aren’t the limits of engagement between pairs of these nations, they are important considerations.
So which of those other two nations would be best for the US to team up with against the third? Or would the US become the lone third nation in this scenario? Because if you don’t form an alliance with one, you’ll probably end up the lone third country.
Kevin Beck,
That is an interesting observation.
We could say with the US supplying the Ukraine with so many weapons and aid, we are against Russia.
Then it could also be said, with the sanctions the Biden admin placed on China’s semi-conductor industry (which was larger than anything Trump did in 4 years) and various politicians calling for cutting off China supply chains, we are going against China.
Some of the US actions seemingly have push Russia and China closer together.
With the shift from a US/West lead uni-polar world to a multi-polar world, we may end up the lone third country, but not going against anyone. Just left behind.
“One issue that not many people are considering is the fact that there are three nations that are the most powerful in the world: The United States, Russia, and China. Thinking about this geopolitical strategist, the best option is for two of these nations to work together to stop the advances of the third.”
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You’d made a good Benjamin Disraeli student who pursued that very policy as PM at the zenith of the British Empire. A very smart man, surrounded by some very dumb critics then and some colossally dumber ones now. But that is the plight of every smart man.
So I disagree, because you are referring to FBI intelligence agency as “law enforcement,” and that is not accurate.This is big issue. A spy agency with law enforcement powers is NOT a law enforcement agency. I don’t care if that was FBI original charter, or who they SHOULD be, etc. But in 2017 when FBI stripped words “law enforcement” from public charter, there really was no more room for cognitive dissonance. The FBI is a SPY agency, not a “law enforcement” agency. And USA is totally OK with this deception. So until we deal with FBI’s law enforcement as a spy agency, we haven’t begun to START this conversation. No intent to offend you or FBI. But “just the facts, ma’am.”
And USA is totally OK with this deception. So until we deal with FBI’s law enforcement as a spy agency, we haven’t begun to START this conversation.
You are absolutely correct.
HEAR!! HEAR!!!
Did anyone imagine the party that was once the defender of free speech is now the party of censorship?
I feel like I woke up in an episode of The Twilight Zone. The only upside is I am not woke but awake to what is going on.
And this fearmongering of “free speech is a threat to democracy!” leftist Dems, call it what it really is, any speech that goes against your agenda/narrative is a threat to you and your power.
Not democracy.
To what level are they going to take the crazy?
Have you seen how teachers are reacting to the don’t day Gay law in Florida? Have you seen that Idaho wants to make it a felony to drive a person out of state for a legal abortion in another state? Yep, Repos are saints, Demos are goons.
S
The argument that “freedom is tyranny” is truly Orwellian. The Democrats and their left wing friends have lost their minds. They are the real threats to democracy. This is getting scary.
Hear! Hear!
I no longer doubt they will go to extraordinary lengths to censor anyone they consider a “threat.”
Dear Prof Turley,
For Rep. Wasserman Shultz it’s a ‘fact’ you provided testimony/legal ‘opinion’ about the ‘Twitter Files’, but she prefers ‘truth over facts’. .. I think it’s a ‘plank’ in the DNC playbook?
The ‘Red Scare’, however, is alive and well and fully bipartisan. Only a handful of residual Trump monkey apostles in congress have opposed funding the Red Scare war in Ukraine e.g. .. . but mostly due to economic concerns. Nothing ideological.
According to the NYT, early in the conflict the ‘Ghost of Kiev’ had to shoot down 6 Russian su25 migs with only Molotov cocktails and great balls of fire.
US/Nato had to act. To stop Russian battle tanks rolling into Paris and save the free world from Putin’s imperial aggression.
Joe Biden’s pants on backwards is the least of our worries. I could live with the POTUS peeing out the back .. . but It’s difficult to exercise any common sense or critical thinking skills when the president pees down your back and tells you it’s raining.
US/Nato cannot lose this war.
Maj. Scott Ritter, the GOAT of all Weapons Inspectors, et el may dismiss US/Nato efforts, so far, to stim the tide of Russian aggression and Putin’s attack on freedom, democracy, Europe and the American way . .. but I have little doubt president Zelenskiy, at least, would not hesitate to use low-yield tactical nuclear weapons if things get out of control? What do you think?
US/Nato cannot lose this war.
*common sense and critical thinking skills tell me it’s best if you don’t believe a word you read, and only 1/2 of what you see .. . unless it’s true./
Pressure Congress to Defund the FBI now!
Defund the FBI. Defund the FBI. Defund the FBI.
The @CDCgov approving the covid shots to the childhood vaccine schedule will result in:
❌ more covid
❌ more injured children
❌ more disabled children
❌ more dead kids.
It is nothing short of criminal and states need to act to protect their children.
#defundCDC
@molsjames
Re: James Okeefe cartoon.
https://api-assets.infowars.com/2023/02/97fc30a33d64bb41.jpeg
Twitter, the Washington Post, New York Times, and the rest of the fake news would label the above tweet thusly —>
“covid disinfo pushing a far-right, anti-science, covid denialist agenda”
Can someone explain what is a “covid denialist agenda”?
Covid denialists. Climate denialists. Science deniers. Conspiracy theorists. Putin lovers. Putin apologists. Tulsi loves Putin.
So many labels slapped on the truth tellers. Same as it ever was.
Don’t forget how they attack and label the vaxx injured. They took the shots, then got injured. Now they are smeared as anti-vaxxers.
Think about the left and Alger Hiss and how they fought and fought and fought to “prove” he was innocent and when it was actually proven that he was guilty they still never admitted it. The NY Times has Walter Duranty, Alger Hiss, Russian Collusion, Biden’s Laptop and even lies like “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” regarding Michael Brown to their resume’ of lies that continue to be promulgated.
How many times has a Democrat said that Michael Brown was murdered by a cop? How many times have we heard that Trump was working for Russia? How many times have we heard that Biden isn’t in bed with the CCP? How many times have we heard that DeSantis signed a bill making it illegal to say gay? How many times have we heard about Jim Crow 2.0. How many times have we heard that Twitter doesn’t censor Republicans? How many times have we heard about a fake Laptop? These are ALL LIES.
I go back to the Alger Hiss story because this is the first time that the media and the Democrats worked hand in glove to silence a story about someone working against our country and it is truly astonishing how effective they were in doing so. You can probably throw in Julius and Ethel Rosenberg as well because the screaming INNOCENT for these traitors was quite vociferous back in the days when the left loved the Soviets. Of course now that Russia isn’t so much of a threat the left hates them and ignores China, the true threat to our way of life.
According to AOC, the laptop is only “half-fake”.
Which means, I assume, the other half is real.
*the fake part was pointed out by over 50 top national security officials .. . and echoed repeatedly by Joe Biden.
I never thought this era of anti-speech and anti-freedom could occur again and definitely not in my lifetime. Elon Musk talked about how technology doesn’t update itself and that humanity has forgotten many of the things they knew how to do before like building the pyramids. This is the same thing because people are willfully ignoring the lessons of history.
One would think that after the dozens of books and hundreds of well sourced articles have chronicled the incompetence and abuses of the FBI dating back to when J. Edgar Hoover declared there was no mafia in the United States, that our elected officials would be an end to this national embarrassment . . . but apparently One would be wrong!
Listen closely at minute 3:20…”Did the U.S. government ever contact you or anyone at Twitter to pressure Twitter to censor or moderate certain Tweets?”
Nice Clip (Anon)
Ms. Mace’s Oral Argument could have been a bit more pervasive should She have said:
(Rep. Nancy Mace R-South Carolina 1st Dist.) Mr. Chairman, the Witness is ‘Hostile’, please compel Ms. Gadde to answer the Question YES or NO.
Just a daily reminder that if you’ve had ANY of the covid shots… you don’t have “long covid”. You have a vaccine injury.
It’s completely unhelpful to conflate the two, for any reason.
The sooner we are honest about our public health, the sooner we can fix ourselves. @erichhartmann
#defund the CDC
“The people determined to reduce the Twitter Files into a partisan pissing match are doing so precisely because the real targets of these stories aren’t parties, but the FBI, DHS, DOD, and other massive state entities who’ve been improperly meddling in domestic speech. @mtaibbi”
“Why, for instance, would an entire field office of FBI agents be scanning Twitter looking for TOS violations? Does that fit their crime-fighting mission? Their counter-intelligence mission? Are you such a pushover that you don’t mind your tax dollars used in this way? @mtaibbi”
Back in 2015, a democrat was asked about Bernie being a Socialist. His response about the left was, “were all socialist, we just lied about it for years!”
McCarthy was ultimately proven right about communist infiltrations. Read the Venona Files, and it’s all there. McCarthy really, didn’t go far enough, or was hobbled along the way.
These infiltrations have continued to this day, by, the traitorous democrats in lock step with almost every major institution in the US. It’s a cancer that’s reached stage 4 and very well may be terminal.
The right is cowered by the threat of being called a McCarthyite, yet the left is McCarthyite and proud of it. Americans need to carefully reread history and find that though McCarthy was not a nice man he was correct and some of the Democrats of the time sold America down the drain.
Take a look today and see who is selling America down the drain. For a start, take one name, Biden, and then look for the rest. Both parties are at fault, but the Democrats own most of this disease.
Well, the left seem to be apologists for and followers of Xi Jinping. Our Resident is owned by and influenced by China. His son saw to the compromised family for access to his father and millions of bucks flowing to the entire corrupt Biden family.
tstan: It’s sort of like unions. A lot of people swear by them and think they are great. Most people in-the-know realize their underlying corruption. The Democrats love unions. They love the Bidens. The Bidens just happen be a party to the ‘union contract’ for the White House currently. When the signers are leftist Democrats, the ‘see-no-evil’ crowd of the MSM, Deep State, et al are happy as larks. “Nothing to see here…move along”.
One small correction….no one loves the Bidens, not even most Democrats. Joe Biden is universally despised. That is what the fake news does not want people to know.
We can hear that despisement when they stand behind him and when they vote. We can hear yours as well. Now that one is forced to look at the real Joe Biden and his family of criminals with him at the leadership, they wish to step away. Next they will be blaming Trump for Biden’s awful policies.
Even Barack Obama feels this way.
“Never underestimate Joe’s ability to F things up.” ~BHO
Biden’s own VP called him a racist on the debate stage. (because he is)
Biden’s White House is a mess of dangerous incompetence, lying to everyone about everything, infighting and backstabbing. But of course the fake news does not want us to know all this.
The most popular president, in American history, with 81 million votes, was booed at a Laker’s game in Los Angeles 🤣😂
People ain’t stupid.
People are also fickle. What have you done for me lately.
Some things will always divide us Finding out the truth about corruption in the highest levels of government unite the American people, it should unite their reps!