Biden Admin Creates 'Disinformation Governance Board' Within Dept. of Homeland Security - Are You In Favor?

What’s the story?

• The Biden administration announced this week that it is creating a Disinformation Governance Board within the Dept. of Homeland Security (DHS) that will be tasked with combating online disinformation. Critics have derided the move as governmental overreach reminiscent of the “Ministry of Truth” in George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984.
• Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told lawmakers on Wednesday at a congressional budget hearing that his agency will be creating the board and explained that it will be primarily focused on disinformation from Russia and misinformation aimed at migrants at the Southern border. 
• The agency told the AP in a statement, “The spread of disinformation can affect border security, Americans’ safety during disasters, and public trust in our democratic institutions.”

Who will lead the disinformation board?

• The disinformation board will be led by Nina Jankowicz, who was a disinformation fellow at the Wilson Center, advised the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry through the Fulbright Public Policy Fellowship, and wrote two books about disinformation. 
• Some of Jankowicz’s past views have drawn scrutiny since her announcement, including comments she made to the AP suggesting that the story about Hunter Biden’s laptop should be viewed as “a Trump campaign product” and sent tweets suggesting that it was part of an influence campaign by Russia. That claim was rejected at the time by Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe. Hunter Biden’s laptop has since been authenticated by numerous media outlets, most recently by The New York Times and The Washington Post. Hunter Biden is under investigation by a federal prosecutor due to his overseas business dealings and tax affairs.
• Additionally, Jankowicz tweeted praise for a discussion about misinformation given by Christopher Steele, who produced the dossier that sparked the investigation into alleged collusion between then-candidate Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and Russia during the 2016 election. 
• Many of the claims in the dossier were later debunked by Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe and it has since led to a new special counsel investigation. The dossier’s use by FBI agents in justifying the Trump investigation prompted a rebuke by DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz over their inaccuracies and omissions in surveillance applications that relied upon the dossier. That eventually led to the appointment of Special Counsel John Durham who is leading an ongoing probe into the origins of the Russia collusion narrative.
• Information disseminated on social media platforms would likely fall under the purview of the newly created disinformation board. Jankowicz recently opined on Elon Musk’s potential takeover of Twitter in an interview with NPR and said the following about the debate between free speech and censorship of what is deemed to be abusive or inappropriate content on social media platforms: 

“I shudder to think about if free speech absolutists were taking over more platforms, what that would look like for the marginalized communities all around the world, which are already shouldering so much of this abuse, disproportionate amounts of this abuse, and retraumatizing themselves as they try to protect themselves from it, you know, reporting, blocking et cetera. We need the platforms to do more, and we frankly need law enforcement and our legislatures to do more as well.”

What they’re saying

• When asked about the creation of the disinformation board and Jankowicz’s appointment to lead it, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki had few specifics at a press briefing on Thursday but said at a briefing on Friday that DHS handles its own personnel decisions and added:

“Well, here’s what the board is going to do, which I think is of particular interest — again, a continuation of the work of the former President.  So for anyone who’s critical of it, I didn’t hear them being critical of the work under the former President, which is just interesting to note contextually. But in the fact sheet that they put out, what they noted yesterday — what they noted in there is that this is meant to — one, the first bullet was about protecting privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties, and the First Amendment.  They said the primary mission is to establish best practices to ensure that efforts to understand and respond to disinformation are done in ways that protect privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties.”

• Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Ranking Member Rob Portman (R-OH) expressed concern about the Biden administration’s Disinformation Governance Board in the following statement:

“I am deeply concerned by the administration’s decision to create a Disinformation Governance Board at the Department of Homeland Security. As the author of the bipartisan law that established the Global Engagement Center to combat the constantly evolving threat of foreign propaganda and disinformation abroad, I do not believe that the United States government should turn the tools that we have used to assist our allies counter foreign adversaries onto the American people. Our focus should be on bad actors like Russia and China, not our own citizens.”

• Former congresswoman and 2020 Democratic presidential nominee Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) weighed in on the disinformation board’s creation and tweeted:

“Every dictatorship has a propaganda arm ― a 'Ministry of Truth.' The Biden Administration has now formally joined the ranks of such dictatorships with their creation of the so-called 'Disinformation Governance Board.'”

— Eric Revell

(Photo Credit: Miller Center via Flickr / Creative Commons)