Judicial Watch Sues DHS for Records on Election Censorship

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for records of communication related to the work of the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP) that could detail coordinated censorship activities (Judicial Watch, Inc. v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security (No. 1:23-cv-00384)).

The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after the Cybersecurity and Information Security Agency (a component of the Department of Homeland Security) failed to comply with an October 27, 2022, FOIA request for:

  1. All emails, direct messages, task management alerts, or other records of communication related to the work of the Election Integrity Partnership sent via the Atlassian Jira platform between any official or employee of the Cybersecurity and Information Security Agency and any member, officer, employee, or representative of any of the following:

·       The Election Integrity Partnership

·       The University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public

·       Stanford University’s Internet Observatory

·       The Center for Internet Security

·       The Elections Infrastructure Information Sharing & Analysis Center

·       The National Association of Secretaries of State

·       The National Association of State Election Directors

·       Graphika

·       The Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensics Research Laboratory

·       Any social media company

   2. All memoranda of understanding, guidelines, or similar records related to the Cybersecurity and Information Security Agency’s use of the Atlassian Jira platform for work related to the Election Integrity Partnership.

Based on representations from the Election Integrity Partnership (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 Atlassian software platform called Jira.

In a February 8, 2023, hearing by the House Oversight Committee, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) revealed information about federal agencies, social media companies, nonprofits and other organizations communicating “their version of misinformation using Jira.” Luna pointed out to Yoel Roth, then-Twitter’s head of trust and safety who helped suppress the Hunter Biden laptop story:

On this chart, I want to annotate that the Department of Homeland Security, which has a following branches, cybersecurity and infrastructure security agency, also known as CISA Countering Foreign Intelligence Task Force … [were] used against the American people. The Election Partnership Institute or Election Integrity Partnership, EIP, which includes the following, Stanford Internet Observatory, University of Washington Center for Informed Public, Graphika and Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab. And potentially according to what we found on the final report by EIP, the DNC, the Center for Internet Security, CISA- a nonprofit funded by DHS, the National Association of Secretaries of State, also known as NASS and the National Association of State Election Directors, NASED.

And in this case, because there are other social media companies involved, Twitter, what do all of these groups though, have in common? And I’m going to refresh your memory. They were all communicating on a private cloud server known as Jira. Now, the screenshot behind screenshot behind me, which is an example of one of thousands shows on November 3rd, 2020, that you, Mr. Roth, a Twitter employee, were exchanging communications on Jira, a private cloud server with CISA, NASS, NASED, and Alex Stamos, who now works at Stanford and is a former security of security officer at Facebook to remove a posting. Do you now remember communicating on a private cloud server to remove a posting? Yes or no?

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            Well, I’m going to tell you right now that you did and we have proof of it.

“The Elon Musk ‘Twitter Files’ are the tip of the iceberg, as the federal government ran a massive, secret censorship op against the American people,” stated Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “That the DHS is hiding these censorship records in violation of FOIA law shows the agency still has something to hide.”

In a separate lawsuit, Judicial Watch is suing the DHS for all records of communications between the Cybersecurity and Information Security Agency (CISA) and the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP), which was reportedly active during the 2022 midterm elections. Among the news outlets flagged by EIP were websites for Just the News, New York Post, Fox News, Washington Examiner, The Washington Times, The Epoch Times and Breitbart.

Judicial Watch recently sued the DOJ for records of communications between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (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 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.

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 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.

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