Judicial Watch Sues Biden Censorship Agency for Records Targeting Judicial Watch and Its President Tom Fitton
(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for failing to respond to an October 11, 2023, FOIA for all records regarding Judicial Watch and its President Tom Fitton held by DHS’ Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) (Judicial Watch Inc. v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security (No. 1:24-cv-00003).
The request specifically asked that the search for responsive records include email accounts of CISA officials publicly implicated in censorship operations.
On November 6, 2023, the House Judiciary Committee released a report detailing “how the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the Global Engagement Center (GEC, within the State Department) coordinated with Stanford University and other entities to create the Election Integrity Partnership to censor Americans’ speech in the lead-up to the 2020 election.” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton is listed as a target of this censorship operation.
“Judicial Watch and I have been censored again and again by government and Big Tech,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said. “That we had to file a federal lawsuit to get basic information about this targeting is another sure sign that CISA has been up to no good.”
Judicial Watch has been in the forefront of uncovering government efforts to censor free speech and suppress opposition.
On November 9, 2023, Judicial Watch reported that “CISA records show government involvement in the EIP [Election Integrity Partnership] pressure on Google, Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, Pinterest, Reddit and other platforms to censor ‘disinformation.’”
In October 2023, Judicial Watch sued the Department of Justice (DOJ) for records of any payments made by the FBI to Twitter (now known as X). The payments were disclosed in internal Twitter documents (the “Twitter Files”) made available by Elon Musk to journalists.
Also in October, Judicial Watch sued the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) for records concerning censorship of social media users.
In April 2023, Judicial Watch filed two lawsuits against the U.S. Department of Justice and other federal agencies for communications between the agencies and Facebook and Twitter regarding the government’s involvement in content moderation and censorship on the social media platforms.
In a separate lawsuit file in June 2023, Judicial Watch sued DHS for all records of communications tied to the Election Integrity Partnership. Based on representations from the EIP (see here and here), the federal government, social media companies, the EIP, the Center for Internet Security (a non-profit organization funded partly by DHS and the Defense Department) and numerous other leftist groups communicated privately via the Jira software platform developed by Atlassian.
In February 2023, Judicial Watch sued the U.S. Department Homeland Security (DHS) for records showing cooperation between the Cybersecurity and Information Security Agency (CISA) and social media platforms to censor and suppress free speech.
Judicial Watch in January 2023 sued the DOJ for records of communications between the FBI and social media sites regarding foreign influence in elections, as well as the Hunter Biden laptop story.
In September 2022, Judicial Watch sued 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, 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 of Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. Judicial Watch continues to post its video content on its Rumble channel (https://rumble.com/vz7aof-fitton-impeach-biden-corruption-threatens-national-security.html).
In July 2021, Judicial Watch uncovered 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.
In May 2021, Judicial Watch revealed documents showing that Iowa state officials pressured social media companies Twitter and Facebook to censor posts about the 2020 election.
In April 2021, Judicial Watch published documents revealing how California state officials pressured social media companies (Twitter, Facebook, Google (YouTube)) to censor posts about the 2020 election.
Judicial Watch has produced a four-part documentary, “Censored and Controlled,” that details the coordinated effort by the FBI and other government agencies and Big Tech to censor and suppress information on topics such as Hunter Biden’s laptop, Covid-19, and election debates.
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