Hey, Jim Jordan: Ask Fauci Who His Bosses Were!
To get to the bottom of Covid censorship, we must understand who was in charge of the global pandemic response.
llustration by Anthony Freda
By Debbie Lerman | June 13, 2024
As recently reported by Reclaim the Net, Anthony Fauci is being called to testify by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan for his “alleged role in the Biden White House’s censorship initiatives.”
Right away a glaring issue emerges: The censorship of dissenting COVID narratives started all the way back in late January-early February 2020, with Fauci implicated in the censorship as early as February 2, 2020. The Committee tacitly acknowledges this by requesting documents dating back to 2019, even as it frames the inquiry politically as a “Biden Administration censorship” problem.
In fact, the entire disastrous, unscientific lockdown-until-vaccine pandemic response was initiated and insidiously perpetrated by the Task Force, which was housed in the Trump White House, in the Office of the Vice President (OVP).
The group responsible for pandemic policy within the Task Force was not HHS or NIAID, where Fauci worked, or any other public health agency. It was the National Security Council (NSC).
All communications about Covid had to go through OVP/NSC.
We know from the Twitter files and subsequent investigations that the Intelligence Community (FBI, CIA, DHS, CISA) was heavily involved in censoring Americans on many issues, starting at least as far back as 2016. Foreign military/intelligence agencies of allied countries collaborated on censoring the U.S. population.
So if anyone is truly interested in who initiated and enforced censorship of dissenting Covid voices, they should ask the following questions of Fauci under oath:
We know from official government documents that Covid pandemic policy was set by the National Security Council (NSC), NOT the public health agencies. But who exactly on the NSC was in charge? Who wrote the policy?
- Dr. Fauci: Did you participate in crafting the pandemic response policy with the National Security Council, including censorship of dissenting views?
Why were Covid meetings classified?
On March 11, 2020 Reuters reported that “The White House has ordered federal health officials to treat top-level coronavirus meetings as classified.” Reuters sources said “the National Security Council (NSC), which advises the president on security issues, ordered the classification.”
Furthermore, government officials said “dozens of classified discussions about such topics as the scope of infections, quarantines and travel restrictions have been held since mid-January.”
- Dr. Fauci: Why were the Covid response meetings classified? Were you present in those meetings? Were censorship plans discussed in those meetings?
According to the US Government’s COVID-19 Response Plan, starting on February 28, 2020 “all federal communication and messaging” about the pandemic had to go through the Office of the Vice President, which housed the Task Force, which was led by the National Security Council.
- Dr. Fauci: In your role on the Task force, were you in charge of crafting the communications about the pandemic? If not, who on the Task Force was in charge of messaging?
- Were you in charge of efforts to censor messaging that questioned or contradicted Task Force/NSC policy?
- If not, who was in charge of designing and enforcing the censorship efforts on behalf of the Task Force/NSC?
Why was the CDC forbidden from communicating about the pandemic?
Although it was supposed to play a leadership role in pandemic communications, starting on February 28, 2020 the CDC was actually “not permitted to conduct public briefings,” according to a Senate report.
It sounds like the agency that was supposed to be in charge of communicating with the public about the pandemic was itself being CENSORED by the Task Force/NSC.
- Dr. Fauci, who forbade the CDC from conducting public briefings about the pandemic?
- Why were CDC communications with the public completely shut down?
- Was this part of the overall efforts by the Task Force/NSC to censor any messaging that contradicted their policy?
Why was the intelligence community so heavily involved in Covid censorship?
Many deeply and carefully investigated reports show extensive involvement of military/intelligence agencies and personnel in Covid censorship efforts.
Here are just a few examples:
How Twitter Rigged the Covid Debate, by David Zweig
Pentagon Was Involved in Domestic Censorship Scheme, by Alex Gutentag
The Virality Project Was a Government Front to Coordinate Censorship, by Andrew Lowenthal and Alex Gutentag
- Dr. Fauci, were you coordinating with the FBI, CIA, DHS, CISA or any other intelligence entity to censor messaging that questioned or contradicted Task Force/NSC policy?
- Why were intelligence agencies involved in censoring Covid messaging?
Were international NGOs and the WHO involved in censorship of American citizens?
Here’s one of the earliest known instances of Covid censorship from all the way back in February 2020, in which the following international cast participated:
- Anthony Fauci of the U.S. NIAID and Francis Collins of the U.S. NIH
- Jeremy Farrar, then head of the British Wellcome Trust (the wealthiest nonprofit in the UK that prospered during Covid and gave money to EcoHealth Alliance, among other Covid-related orgs) now Chief Scientist at the WHO
- Tedros Ghebreyesus, head of the World Health Organization (WHO) and Bernhard Schwartlander, the WHO representative in China (about whom little info is available online – and who requires more investigation).
As reported by US Right To Know :
on Sunday, February 2, 2020 at 11:28am
Farrar flagged a ZeroHedge article [now archived] in an email to Fauci and Collins, raising the possibility of virus=bioweapon. In the email, he mentioned that the WHO leaders were in the process of making an important decision. He said they might “prevaricate” which means “avoid telling the truth.”
Regardless of whether they prevaricated or not, just two and a half hours later, at approximately 1:57pm ZeroHedge was suspended on Twitter.
- Dr. Fauci, was your correspondence with Farrar, involving the leaders of the World Health Organization, in any way related to the suspension of ZeroHedge on Twitter?
- If so, which of you was responsible for conveying the message to Twitter about the suspension?
- Were international organizations like the WHO, and NGOs including the Wellcome Trust, involved in Covid censorship activities in coordination with U.S. officials/agencies?
- Were you involved in any international Covid censorship activities?
Google is Criticized As it Suspends Reform UK Ads During Election Campaign
By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | June 22, 2024
Google has suspended the advertising account of Reform UK, a political party in the United Kingdom, formerly known as the Brexit Party. Nigel Farage, the leader of Reform UK, took to Twitter to express his outrage, labeling the move as “election interference.”
Google’s suspension comes at the height of the election campaign with, less than two weeks to go until the country goes to a vote on July 4th.
In his tweet, Farage stated: “🚨 ELECTION INTERFERENCE ALERT 🚨 Big Tech giant @Google has BLOCKED our Ad Accounts. They are trying to stop the Reform message.” He also called on Matt Brittin, President of Google Europe, Middle East, and Africa, to address the issue urgently, indicating the party’s demand for immediate action.
This incident raises significant concerns about the role of Big Tech companies in political processes, particularly in the context of advertising and free speech, and during a campaign season where time is of the essence.
While Google has not yet publicly responded to Farage’s allegations or provided a detailed explanation for the suspension, such actions are typically justified by violations of the company’s advertising policies.
Reform UK, which has positioned itself as a critic of the establishment and advocate for major reforms in British politics, relies heavily on digital platforms to disseminate its message.
Columbia University students’ charges dropped after pro-Palestine protest arrests
MEMO | June 22, 2024
New York Criminal Court Judge Kevin McGrath decided to dismiss the cases filed against 30 people arrested during pro-Palestine protests in Hamilton Hall at Columbia University.
According to the Guardian: “Stephen Millan, a prosecutor in the Manhattan district attorney’s office, told the court on Thursday his office would not prosecute 30 protesters who were Columbia students at the time of the arrest, nor two who were Columbia employees, citing prosecutorial discretion and lack of evidence.”
The prosecutor added that no police officers were harmed during the arrests.
Judge McGrath confirmed that the cases filed against 30 detained protesters and university employees had been dropped.
On 18 April, 2024, students and academics who condemn the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip began a sit-in on the campus of Columbia University in New York, demanding that its administration stop its academic cooperation with Israeli universities and withdraw its investments from companies supporting the occupation of Palestinian territories.
After the intervention of the police and the arrest of dozens of protesters, the protests expanded to other universities and spread to countries such as France, the UK, Germany, Canada and India, all of which witnessed demonstrations in support of their American counterparts and demands to stop the Gaza war and boycott companies that supply weapons to Israel.
EU’s Mass Surveillance Faces Fierce Resistance
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | June 21, 2024
The European Union (EU) has managed to unite politicians, app makers, privacy advocates, and whistleblowers in opposition to the bloc’s proposed encryption-breaking new rules, known as “chat control” (officially, CSAM (child sexual abuse material) Regulation).
Thursday was slated as the day for member countries’ governments, via their EU Council ambassadors, to vote on the bill that mandates automated searches of private communications on the part of platforms, and “forced opt-ins” from users.
However, reports on Thursday afternoon quoted unnamed EU officials as saying that “the required qualified majority would just not be met” – and that the vote was therefore canceled.
This comes after several countries, including Germany, signaled they would either oppose or abstain during the vote. The gist of the opposition to the bill long in the making is that it seeks to undermine end-to-end encryption to allow the EU to carry out indiscriminate mass surveillance of all users.
The justification here is that such drastic new measures are necessary to detect and remove CSAM from the internet – but this argument is rejected by opponents as a smokescreen for finally breaking encryption, and exposing citizens in the EU to unprecedented surveillance while stripping them of the vital technology guaranteeing online safety.
Some squarely security and privacy-focused apps like Signal and Threema said ahead of the vote that was expected today they would withdraw from the EU market if they had to include client-side scanning, i.e., automated monitoring.
WhatsApp hasn’t gone quite so far (yet) but Will Cathcart, who heads the app over at Meta, didn’t mince his words in a post on X when he wrote that what the EU is proposing – breaks encryption.
“It’s surveillance and it’s a dangerous path to go down,” Cathcart posted.
European Parliament (EP) member Patrick Breyer, who has been a vocal critic of the proposed rules, and also involved in negotiating them on behalf of the EP, on Wednesday issued a statement warning Europeans that if “chat control” is adopted – they would lose access to common secure messengers.
“Do you really want Europe to become the world leader in bugging our smartphones and requiring blanket surveillance of the chats of millions of law-abiding Europeans? The European Parliament is convinced that this Orwellian approach will betray children and victims by inevitably failing in court,” he stated.
“We call for truly effective child protection by mandating security by design, proactive crawling to clean the web, and removal of illegal content, none of which is contained in the Belgium proposal governments will vote on tomorrow (Thursday),” Breyer added.
And who better to assess the danger of online surveillance than the man who revealed its extraordinary scale, Edward Snowden?
“EU apparatchiks aim to sneak a terrifying mass surveillance measure into law despite UNIVERSAL public opposition (no thinking person wants this) by INVENTING A NEW WORD for it – ‘upload moderation’ – and hoping no one learns what it means until it’s too late. Stop them, Europe!,” Snowden wrote on X.
It appears that, at least for the moment, Europe has.
Feminist Accuses UK Police of “Harassment” Over Tweet Investigation
By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | June 20, 2024
Maya Forstater, a feminist activist and head of the charity Sex Matters, has been targeted following a tweet she posted about Dr. Kamilla Kamaruddin, a transgender doctor. Forstater is currently under police investigation for what the Metropolitan Police has termed “malicious communication.” The tweet in question, posted on the social media platform X in June last year, criticized Dr. Kamaruddin for the manner of conducting intimate examinations, which Forstater claimed the doctor enjoyed doing without patients’ consent.
This investigation stems from Forstater’s response to a blog post by Dr. Kamaruddin, a former GP who became a transgender woman. Dr. Kamaruddin noted that patients allowed more latitude for intimate examinations compared to before Kamaruddin transitioned. Forstater’s tweet linked back to an earlier blog post where she had questioned the legitimacy of consent given by Dr. Kamaruddin’s patients.
The legal ramifications for the alleged offense could be severe, with potential imprisonment of up to two years. Forstater, who had previously won an employment tribunal case affirming her right to express gender-critical views without facing job discrimination, expressed her distress over the ongoing investigation.
In an interview with The Times, she disclosed receiving an email from the police in August, notifying her of the investigation but omitting the reasons. She was later interviewed under caution at Charing Cross police station.
During the interview, Forstater was questioned about the potentially “transphobic” nature of her tweet.
She defended her position, asserting, “My tweet isn’t even something that would get deleted by Twitter.” She described the experience as a form of “bullying and harassment” due to her beliefs and mentioned the possibility of legal action against the police for their handling of the case.
As of ten months after the initial contact from the police, Forstater’s situation remains unresolved despite her lawyer’s efforts to challenge the grounds of the investigation.
She lamented, “Despite my solicitor following up with written representations giving chapter and verse on the law, arguing that the investigation is unjustified and pressing for resolution, I remain under investigation.”
Kansas Sues Pfizer Over Misleading COVID Vaccine Safety and Efficacy Claims
By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D. | The Defender | June 20, 2024
The State of Kansas on Monday sued Pfizer, alleging the pharmaceutical giant misled the public by marketing its COVID-19 vaccine as “safe and effective” while concealing known risks and critical data on limited effectiveness.
The lawsuit, filed by Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach in the District Court of Thomas County alleges that beginning in 2021, shortly after the vaccine rollout, Pfizer covered up the fact that the vaccine was connected to serious adverse events, including myocarditis and pericarditis, failed pregnancies and deaths.
The complaint also alleges the company falsely claimed that its original vaccine retained high efficacy while knowing that efficacy waned over time and didn’t protect against new variants.
Pfizer also misled the public by claiming the COVID-19 vaccine would prevent transmission, even though the company never studied the vaccine’s capability to prevent transmission.
By marketing the vaccine as safe and effective despite its known risks, Pfizer violated the Kansas Consumer Protection Act because millions of Kansans heard those misrepresentations, the complaint alleges.
More than 3.3 million Kansans received the Pfizer shot, accounting for more than 60% of all vaccine doses given in the state.
Pfizer denied the allegations, telling The Hill, that the case has “no merit” and that the company plans to respond to the suit in “due course.”
“We are proud to have developed the COVID-19 vaccine in record time in the midst of a global pandemic and saved countless lives. The representations made by Pfizer about its COVID-19 vaccine have been accurate and science-based,” the company said.
Covering up data on vaccine’s safety for pregnant women
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) monitor adverse events in several ways, including through the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), a passive reporting system that healthcare providers and patients can use to report vaccine injuries.
A total of 1,898,829 reports of adverse events following COVID-19 vaccines have been submitted to VAERS between Dec. 14, 2020, and May 31, 2024. Of those, 983,178 are associated with the Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccines.
The complaint said that in addition to VAERS, Pfizer maintained its own database that “contained more adverse event data than VAERS.” The data were obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit after Pfizer refused to release it publicly.
That database, the case alleged, contained 1,223 reported fatalities as early as Feb. 28, 2021.
Pfizer concealed or omitted data related to the vaccine’s safety for pregnant women, its association with heart conditions, its effectiveness against variants and its ability to stop transmission, the lawsuit alleges.
“Pfizer marketed its vaccine as safe for pregnant women,” Kobach said in a press statement posted on X. “However, in February of 2021 Pfizer possessed reports for 458 pregnant women who received Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine during pregnancy. More than half of the pregnant women reported an adverse event, and more than 10% reported a miscarriage.”
Early reporting in 2021 by the CDC’s Dr. Tom Shimabukuro in the New England Journal of Medicine claiming the shots were safe for pregnant women based on the CDC’s own VAERS and vaccine safety monitoring system (V-safe) data has been shown to be statistically flawed.
Kobach also referred to Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla’s comment in January 2023 about myocarditis. Bourla said, “We have not seen a single signal, although we have distributed billions of doses.”
That was after internal documents showed the company had detected a safety signal and the FDA in June 2021 added a warning regarding myocarditis and pericarditis, both rare heart inflammation conditions, to Pfizer and Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccines.
The CDC has acknowledged that those conditions have most frequently been seen in adolescent and young adult males.
Kobach said that while Pfizer was claiming the vaccine was effective against variants, the company had data showing that effectiveness was less than 50%.
“Pfizer urged Americans to get vaccinated in order to protect their loved ones, clearly indicating a claim that Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccination stopped transmission,” Kobach said. “Pfizer later admitted that it never even studied transmission after the recipients received the vaccine.”
Pfizer engaged in ‘civil conspiracy’ with government agencies
The lawsuit also alleges Pfizer engaged in censorship attempts with social media companies to silence people criticizing its safety and efficacy claims.
The lawsuit charges “civil conspiracy” between Pfizer, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Virality Project and others “to willfully conceal, suppress, or omit material facts relating to Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine.”
During a press conference, Kobach pointed to comments Bourla made on “Face the Nation,” explaining why Pfizer declined to accept government funding for developing the vaccines under Operation Warp Speed.
Bourla said he didn’t want to have to submit to the government oversight that would be required.
“When you get money from someone that always comes with strings,” Bourla said. “They want to see how we are going to progress, what type of moves you are going to do. They want reports. I didn’t want to have any of that.”
Similar case filed in Texas last year, more coming
Kansas isn’t the first state to sue Pfizer over alleged false marketing claims. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in 2023 sued the drugmaker alleging it made “false, misleading and deceptive claims” about its COVID-19 vaccine and tried to intimidate and censor critics who questioned those claims or cited facts that countered them.
According to that lawsuit, Pfizer’s marketing claims about the efficacy, duration of protection and ability of its COVID-19 vaccine to prevent transmission violated the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act.
Pfizer moved to dismiss the case, claiming it is protected under the federal Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act (PREP Act), which grants protections to drugmakers who make “medical countermeasures” authorized for emergency use.
However, in his opposition to Pfizer’s motion, Paxton said the immunity protection provided under PREP and invoked by Pfizer in this case extends only to possible personal injury claims, not to deceptive marketing claims brought by a state.
Ray Flores, senior outside counsel to Children’s Health Defense, told The Defender the major difference in the Kansas case is that Kansas alleges a conspiracy with officials at the HHS and others to conceal or suppress information about the shot.
He also said the monetary damages Kansas seeks could be hundreds of times more than what is sought in the Texas suit.
Flores said Kansas has a strong case, based on the evidence of previous payments the company was ordered to make to multiple states for marketing violations related to other drugs.
He said:
“The exhibits alone should give pause to us all: the chronology of Pfizer’s false statements, a payout $137.9M to resolve previous violations, three separate stipulations that Pfizer not engage in deceptive promotions of its products, censorship and Pfizer’s denial of any wrongdoing.
“It is astonishing that the U.S. Government does business with Pfizer and grants special protections when Pfizer has a proclivity to flout the law.
“The allegations in the complaint are referenced-citation gems that every lawyer around the country should incorporate in this war for our health freedoms.”
Kobach told the press that five other states will be filing similar lawsuits, the Kansas Reflector reported.
“More suits may follow, depending on Pfizer’s reaction,” Kobach said.
As of April of last year, over 400,000,000 Pfizer COVID-19 shots had been administered in the U.S. according to Statista.
Watch John Campbell, Ph.D., discuss the latest lawsuit against Pfizer:
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
UK Labour Party ditches candidate for sharing RT content in 2018
RT | June 20, 2024
The UK Labour Party has suspended one of its parliamentary candidates just two weeks before the general election, after senior members were made aware of his apparent sharing of RT content, six years ago, on his social media.
Andy Brown is campaigning to represent the Aberdeenshire North and Moray East constituency in northeast Scotland. The party’s decision to remove him was reported on Tuesday by The Press and Journal, a local newspaper, and has since become a national news story.
The posts that got Brown in trouble relate to the 2018 Salisbury poisoning case, which the British government claimed to be a Russian assassination attempt on Sergey Skripal, a defector spy. The politician reportedly shared a link to an RT article, which questioned London’s narrative, as well as a social media post suggesting that then-prime minister Theresa May was hiding vital information about the incident.
Brown has claimed in an interview with the BBC that he did not share the posts, and that his account “may have been corrupted at some point.” He rejected the suggestion that he may have forgotten sharing them.
Labour Party bosses were also “spooked” by another post apparently shared by Brown, which questioned claims that anti-Semitism was widespread in the Labour Party, the Scottish newspaper said. The allegation was instrumental in the ouster of Jeremy Corbyn, a vocal pro-Palestinian figure, as Labour party leader. His whip in parliament was later removed by his successor, Keir Starmer, meaning effective expulsion from the party.
Commenting on the Andy Brown case, Labour’s shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves told Sky News on Wednesday: “I hadn’t heard of this guy until this morning, and I’m very, very pleased that I will hopefully not have to hear of him again because he’s been suspended as a Labour candidate.” She added that unlike Corbyn, Starmer takes “swift action when people misbehave”.
“People who do not share our values in the changed Labour Party get kicked out,” Reeves stressed.
Although he has been deselected, Brown can still stand as a candidate for the election on July 4. Paper ballots will still carry his original description and a Labour logo, according to the British press. If elected, he will be an independent MP – not unlike Corbyn, who is running to represent the constituency of Islington North.
The UK banned RT from broadcasting in March 2022, after the Ukraine conflict escalated into open hostilities.
House Committee Subpoenas State Department on Proxy Censorship Claims
By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | June 19, 2024
The Chairman of the US House Committee on Small Business Roger Williams last week subpoenaed the State Department and Global Engagement Center (GEC) after they refused to turn over requested documents related to accusations of “censorship-by-proxy.”
We obtained a copy of the subpoena for you here.
GEC was used to flag posts that would then get censored by social media platforms and was also involved in giving grants to fund online blacklisters.
The documents and communications the committee requested but failed to obtain concern the latter activity, specifically an investigation into government bankrolling companies that hindered US small businesses from competing simply because they engaged in lawful online speech.
The material the committee wants for its probe goes back to grants awarded since 2018. The request names almost two dozen entities – the Global Disinformation Index (GDI) and NewsGuard among them.
In a statement, Chairman Williams explained that the investigation has been ongoing for a year, with the focus on how the US government may be using taxpayer money to put roadblocks in the way of the country’s small business development – namely, by hampering them online.
“All Americans deserve a fair shot to compete in the marketplace, and the government should not be tipping the scales against any business for their legal speech on the internet,” Williams is quoted as saying while explaining the need to hit the GEC and the State Department with a subpoena after they repeatedly refused to cooperate.
Williams described this attitude by the government as unacceptable, given that (with the importance of unhindered presence on the internet), “the livelihoods of many small businesses are on the line.”
The Committee’s investigation focuses on how what is described as “censorship-by-proxy” (i.e., the government circumventing constitutional prohibitions to censor online speech by looking for “friendly” non-governmental entities to put pressure on social platforms) – affects US small businesses’ bottom line.
And logically, impeding them from gaining exposure and reach online, especially, but not only, during the pandemic, would have caused serious consequences.
The House Committee said that over the year of the investigation, GEC “slow-rolled document production and ignored legitimate oversight document requests.”
And so, 12 months into it, and after repeated accommodations – such as giving GEC extra time and even narrowing the scope of the requests – the Committee now feels it’s time to “escalate the issue at hand, and issue the subpoena.”
As they say – “nice just doesn’t work with some people.”
Germany lists BDS movement as ‘extremist’ for questioning ‘Israel’
Al Mayadeen | June 19, 2024
A new report issued by Germany’s Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser on Tuesday revealed that it was dealing with the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement as a “suspected extremist case,” noting that it had “links to secular Palestinian extremism.”
The report claimed that the BDS is not a homogeneous association, party, or organization.
German news site Watson cited the report as saying that “there is sufficient, strong, factual evidence to suggest that [the] BDS thereby violates, among other things, the idea of international understanding” by questioning “Israel’s” existence.
The report said, “After the terrorist attacks by Hamas on Israel on October 7, 2023, BDS-affiliated groups mobilized and participated in many anti-Israel gatherings and intensified their demands for an end to an alleged ‘Israeli apartheid’ as well as called for a boycott of companies and goods related to Israel.”
German news site Judische Allgemeine quoted Faeser as stating, “We must oppose internal threats from extremism just as decisively as [we do] external threats,” adding, “We absolutely have to break the spiral of escalations in the Middle East, leading to even more disgusting hatred of Jews here.”
“Security authorities are reacting with great vigilance to the latest developments and are actively taking action against any kind of anti-Israel and antisemitic agitation,” she continued.
German-Israeli Society welcomes decision
Meanwhile, German public-broadcasting radio station Deutschlandfunk confirmed reports that Germany’s federal domestic intelligence agency labeled the BDS movement as an extremist movement – and the German-Israeli Society (DIG) welcomed the decision.
DIG’s president Volker Beck released a statement applauding the announcement.
“For the first time, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution names the anti-Israeli boycott movement BDS as a suspected extremist case in its annual report,” stressing, “This supports the assessment of the German Bundestag in its ‘confront the BDS-Movement Resolutely – Fighting Antisemitism’ resolution in 2019.”
According to Beck, “All forms of antisemitism must be fought equally – consistently. The trivialization of or even sympathy by some cultural institutions with [the] BDS must finally stop.”
“We welcome the recent bans on associations issued by Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser, which weakened the infrastructure of significant extremist-antisemitic organizations. We call for this course to be consistently continued,” she concluded.
This comes only days after more than 2,000 German academics signed a letter calling for the resignation of the country’s Education Minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger criticizing her efforts to penalize scholars supporting pro-Palestinian students.
The scholars emphasized in a statement that “academics in Germany are experiencing an unprecedented attack on their fundamental rights, on the 75th anniversary of the Basic Law.”
They emphasized that Stark-Watzinger’s recent actions have made her position “untenable”.
“The withdrawal of funding ad personam on the basis of political statements made by researchers is contrary to the Basic Law: teaching and research are free. The internal order to examine such political sanctions is a sign of constitutional ignorance and political abuse of power,” the statement pointed out.
Jailed Iranian musician’s social media activities belie French claims against him
By Ivan Kesic | Press TV | June 19, 2024
It’s been more than two weeks since Bashir Biazar, an acclaimed Iranian musician and filmmaker, was arrested and imprisoned in France over charges widely described as politically motivated.
In a chargesheet filed by the French interior ministry, a copy of which is in the possession of Press TV, Biazar is accused of “Iranian propaganda,” “anti-Zionism and anti-Americanism,” “hateful social media posts,” being a “vector of hatred,” and posing a “threat to public order in France.”
Human rights activists, officials, and Biazar’s family and friends have categorically rejected the charges as baseless and driven by the French government’s political motives against the Islamic Republic.
A detailed examination of the charges and Biazar’s social media activities, especially in recent months, makes it clear that the case against him is not based on merit but is politically motivated.
Born and raised in the Islamic Republic of Iran, Biazar is an independent music composer and filmmaker internationally acclaimed for his work.
He has previously served as managing director of the New Horizon Institute of Arts and Culture and was the secretary of the London-based Islamic Student Association.
For many years, he also worked as a production manager at the Music and Song Department of IRIB, Iran’s state broadcaster, and was behind many acclaimed works produced by the organization.
French indictment against Biazar
The French interior ministry accuses Biazar of disseminating alleged Iranian “state propaganda” and promoting “anti-Zionism and anti-Americanism,” which they view as “political-religious interference.”
It also claims that Biazar has “an operational mission to act against Iranian opponents, Jewish, and Israeli targets,” in France and thus represents “a threat to the country’s integrity and security, as well as its international relations.”
The most serious accusations are that he “incites terrorism with hatred,” is involved in “hateful posts on social networks,” “supports Hamas and Hezbollah,” and “smears France.”
French authorities further describe Biazar as “a vector of hatred that seriously threatens public order and fundamental interests of the state,” recommending his expulsion from the country.
His case is cited as “an absolute emergency,” with France believing that his “hostile activities” are damaging the international situation, likely fueling tension, hatred, and violence between communities in the country.
Le Point, a major French weekly political news magazine, recently reported that the ministerial expulsion order was signed on May 22, two weeks before his arrest and imprisonment.
A French court reportedly ordered Biazar to leave the country within 28 days, but French police have not released him, providing no explanation for the continued detention.
False accusations of undermining France
Since his arrest, many commentators, officials, and Biazar’s family and associates have condemned the French indictment and charges against him, terming them baseless and politically motivated.
A close examination of his activities on various social media networks, particularly the X platform (formerly Twitter), reveals the unfounded nature of the charges leveled against him.
Biazar used X for 13 years before his profile was deleted in 2022 “without explanation, warning, and reason.” After that, he created another account on X where he is active now.
He has also been using Instagram to a much lesser extent, leaving only 43 posts on the network.
Instagram, a Meta-affiliated network, has strict rules against pro-Palestinian resistance movements, leading to many pro-Palestine voices being blocked or suspended.
The fact that Biazar’s profile was not deleted or suspended proves he has not broken any rules.
All his social media posts, comments, and tags—whether on X or Instagram—are written in Persian, indicating they are not intended for a French audience.
According to Press TV analysis and examination of his social media activities, no French person follows him, and no French citizen has ever interacted with his posts.
His social media activities, like millions of pro-Palestine advocates around the world, including in France, have primarily focused on the unfolding Israeli genocide in Gaza since October last year.
Voice against Gaza genocide
Biazar, like other conscientious pro-Palestine campaigners, has raised his voice against the Israeli genocide in Gaza, which has claimed the lives of 37,400 Palestinians, most of them children and women.
The pinned post on Biazar’s X handle features a video of him addressing a United Nations session on anti-Iran sanctions, Israeli actions in Gaza, and the world body’s passivity.
“The Zionists have never been so alone, hated, defeated, and humiliated,” he wrote in the tweet.
In a tweet on May 28, Biazar criticized the silence of French President Emmanuel Macron, CNN, and the BBC on Israeli crimes in Gaza, particularly the massacre in southern Gaza’s Rafah refugee camp.
He also posted about anti-Iran elements in London, holding an Israeli flag, and harassing an Iranian woman who was heading to a memorial ceremony.
Some of his tweets showed the massive gathering in different Iranian cities paying tribute to late Iranian president Ebrahim Raeisi and his companions martyred in a helicopter crash.
But, most of his social media activities in recent months were wholly concentrated on the Israeli genocide in Gaza and the Western silence and complicity in it.
In a tweet on May 9, he shared a video clip of the Piers Morgan show in which an Israeli regime spokesman was not able to defend the crimes of the regime against Palestinians.
On October 27, 2023, he criticized the French police’s decision to cancel a permit for a public gathering in support of the Palestinian people and declare it illegal.
Some of his tweets were also dedicated to the US campus movement and police violence against students, like millions of other netizens tweeting about the same.
Biazar commented on French internal security affairs only once, on May 10, comparing adolescent violence during anti-government protests in France to West-backed Iranian riots.
Biazar stated that controlling teenagers during social unrest is the primary responsibility of their parents, aligning with the French Ministry of Justice’s decision last July.
French Minister of Justice Eric Dupond-Moretti said parents who neglect their children under 17 and leave them out at night could face two years in prison and a fine of 30,000 euros.
Biazar emphasized that just two days after this statement, the protests over the police killing of Nahel Merzouk were extinguished completely.
False accusations about resistance movements
Since the Israeli genocide on Gaza began on October 7 last year, Biazar has posted hundreds of tweets about Palestine, the suffering of Palestinians, and criticism of the Israeli regime and Western governments’ indifference, similar to what many French and Western citizens do regularly.
Among these tweets, only nine have mentioned the Gaza-based resistance movement Hamas, all in Persian. Seven were replies to other comments, achieving limited reach.
The two direct tweets commented on videos of Khaled Mashal and Israeli military commander Gadi Eisenkot discussing the impact of Hamas operations.
In reply comments, Biazar criticized media manipulations about Hamas and mentioned their operations’ goals. He stated that Hamas operates in the occupied territories according to UN resolutions and noted the scale of Israeli brutality in Gaza.
Biazar has not commented on Hezbollah in recent months, except for a single comment on a speech by its leader, Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah, criticizing media manipulation of his words.
He has never published material that could indirectly link him to the charges, such as videos of Palestinian resistance groups’ military operations.
#FreeBashir campaign growing louder
The campaign to release Biazar from French captivity has been growing louder and bigger in recent days, with many journalists, activists, artists, and academics joining it.
Richard Medhurst, a British journalist, called his arrest and imprisonment “outrageous” in a post on X.
“French police summoned an Iranian musician on June 4 with no explanation, immediately arrested him for ‘supporting terrorism,’ and drove him 100 km to a camp meant for illegal immigrants. This is purely political and ridiculous,” wrote Medhurst.
Ramy Abdu, the chairman of Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, shared an article on X stating that Biazar “has been languishing in a French prison for almost two weeks following his arbitrary arrest for pro-Palestinian activism.”
Tim Anderson, an Australian academic and writer, said the Macron regime in France has jailed the Iranian musician “for pro-Palestinian activism.”
Marwa Osman, a Lebanese journalist and TV host, asked if Macron had taken the Iranian national “hostage” to “release his agents whom he sent to spy on Iran in 2022.”
“This is how #France is going to play it now? Well, I’d say this is one risky game Macron is playing. Because you know, two can play the same game… always,” she wrote on X.
House Probes NewsGuard’s ‘Fact-checking’ Operations, Citing Federal Funding
By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | June 18, 2024
NewsGuard, a “fact-checking” firm that provides “journalist-produced ratings and ‘Nutrition Labels’ for thousands of news and information websites” to advertisers hoping to steer clear of sites that publish “misinformation,” is under congressional scrutiny for its practices.
Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Accountability, last week launched an investigation into the fact-checking firm, a recipient of federal funding.
The probe will examine “the impact of NewsGuard on protected First Amendment speech and its potential to serve as a non-transparent agent of censorship campaigns,” the committee said.
In a letter to NewsGuard co-CEOs Steven Brill and Gordon Crovitz, Comer highlighted federal funding NewsGuard received “and possible actions being taken to suppress accurate information.”
The letter also questions the potential political bias of NewsGuard’s editorial team.
According to a statement accompanying Comer’s letter, “NewsGuard markets its analytical services to businesses, including technology companies and other advertisement advisors, who direct the advertising buys that provide financial support for much of the news media.”
“Questions now surround the influence of NewsGuard’s business relationships and other influences on its ratings process,” the statement adds.
In an interview Thursday, Comer told One America News that NewsGuard “appears to be a very biased, very unfair service that’s getting federal funds.”
“We want to know why they’re doing this, what the basis is for the criteria that they use to determine these grades,” Comer said. “Because then they turn around and they offer their grades to advertisers, and this is a form of, I believe, trying to discourage advertisers from advertising on conservative networks.”
‘Society doesn’t need hall monitors telling us where we can and cannot go’
The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) in 2021 awarded a contract to NewsGuard. The contract raises questions about the involvement of federal agencies in potential censorship campaigns, according to Comer’s letter.
The $749,387 contract was directed to NewsGuard’s “Misinformation Fingerprints” database. According to NewsGuard, the database is “a catalogue of known hoaxes, falsehoods and misinformation narratives that are spreading online.”
The DOD funding led The Federalist, in a November 2023 article, to report that “NewsGuard is selling its government-funded censorship tool to private companies.”
Also in November 2023, Lee Fang, one of the journalists involved with the “Twitter Files” release called NewsGuard a “surrogate the Feds pay to keep watch on the Internet and be a judge of the truth.”
Although not mentioned in Comer’s letter, other federal agencies also provided support to NewsGuard.
For example, an August 2020 NewsGuard press release states the firm won a “Pentagon-State Department contest for detecting COVID-19 misinformation and disinformation.”
The contest, known as the Countering Disinformation Challenge, sought “to offer solutions to hoaxes related to the COVID-19 pandemic” by helping the U.S. Department of State and the DOD “evaluate disinformation narrative themes in near real time” and to flag “hoaxes, narratives, and sources of disinformation as they emerge.”
NewsGuard, which received $25,000 as part of the contest, worked with the State Department’s Global Engagement Center “to scope and develop a test in support of the DoD’s Cyber National Mission Force.’’
According to a March 2023 “Twitter Files” release, Twitter — now known as X — worked with the Global Engagement Center to brand numerous accounts that posted “legitimate and accurate COVID-19 updates” but which “attacked” U.S. and European politicians as “Russia-linked.”
In December 2023, the State of Texas, The Daily Wire, The Federalist and the New Civil Liberties Alliance sued the State Department, alleging it was using and promoting technology intended to “covertly suppress speech of a segment of the American press.”
In May, a federal judge rejected the State Department’s efforts to dismiss the case.
The Countering Disinformation Challenge also “stressed the need for identifying hoaxes and misinformation in advance — what NewsGuard calls its ‘prebunking’ of hoaxes.”
Twitter began employing the pre-bunking strategy in 2022 before Elon Musk bought the platform.
According to The Daily Wire, one of the “hoaxes” NewsGuard helped the State Department identify “was that COVID might have come from a Chinese lab, a scenario now viewed by U.S. agencies to be likely.”
Bill Rice Jr. is a freelance journalist and blogger who investigated NewsGuard’s operations. He told The Defender, “Four years into our new abnormal, nothing should surprise me.” Yet, he said NewsGuard’s collaboration with government agencies “stuns” him, describing it as “a new level of brazen.”
Although not mentioned in Comer’s letter, NewsGuard also collaborated with the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), authors of the so-called “Disinformation Dozen” list, which includes Robert F. Kennedy Jr., chairman on leave of Children’s Health Defense (CHD). CCDH’s sources of funding have been called into question.
Journalist Paul D. Thacker has investigated CCDH for The Disinformation Chronicle. He told The Defender that groups like CCDH and NewsGuard “always censor people on the left and conservatives because their job is to enforce center-left ‘conventional wisdom.’”
Jeffrey Tucker, president and founder of the Brownstone Institute, agreed. He told The Defender that such groups “are there to censor us … to discredit us, basically. That’s their power, and that’s supposed to make me afraid.”
“These groups work together in a layering fashion, confirming and supporting each other in a web of nonsense,” Thacker said. “These groups add nothing to public discourse except shutting down journalism and silencing people from voicing an opinion. Society doesn’t need hall monitors telling us where we can and cannot go.”
Writing on Substack, Rice noted that NewsGuard has not created “Nutrition Labels” for agencies such as the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or the World Health Organization (WHO), or for figures such as Dr. Anthony Fauci, even after many of their COVID-19-related pronouncements have been proven false.
NewsGuard already had ‘agenda and conclusion’ when reviewing sites
According to Comer’s letter, news outlets have noted frustrations about interactions with NewsGuard representatives over exchanges they “perceive as aiming to suppress information that may challenge widely held views but is not itself inaccurate.”
The letter cited a March 2022 Daily Sceptic article summarizing a Johns Hopkins meta-analysis finding that COVID-19 lockdowns were unnecessary and harmful.
According to the letter, NewsGuard took issue with the story. The Daily Sceptic addressed specific NewsGuard criticisms, but NewsGuard then “reportedly expressed that only retraction would address its concerns” and “subsequently lowered the outlet’s reliability rating shared with advertisers after the outlet chose to stand by its published story on the study.”
Tucker told The Defender he has had similar interactions with NewsGuard:
“NewsGuard has been a constant and censorious annoyance from the very beginning of our operations. At first, I attempted to engage earnestly. I spent hours on the phone with their reporters and researchers and attempted to answer every inquiry. I did this because Brownstone strongly believes in accuracy and truth, whatever it is. So of course, I believed we would pass whatever tests they offered up.
“Over time, it became very clear that they already had their agenda and conclusion. There never really was a point to wasting an instant of time with this organization.”
Tucker referred to NewsGuard and other “fact-checking” sites as “the shallow state.”
“They appear to be these objective organizations that are trying to clean up the internet for misinformation. But then it turns out they’ve got their own sources of funding, and they’ve got strong biases, and their purpose is censorship. That’s their goal. It’s surreptitious censorship, as you know. That’s all they’re about,” he said.
In September 2021, NewsGuard announced it found “more than 500 ‘news’ sites peddling COVID-19 misinformation,” including CHD, in this list. NewsGuard’s statement included praise from a WHO official for “NewsGuard’s tireless efforts to reveal sources of misinformation online.”
‘Who is funding NewsGuard?’
Comer’s letter also addressed concerns about NewsGuard’s most significant corporate backer,” Publicis Groupe, one of the world’s largest advertising agencies. According to the letter, “NewsGuard markets its analytical services to businesses … who direct the advertising buys that provide financial support for much of the news media,” even as Publicis “is itself an advertising holding company.”
“From the beginning, it was ludicrous to think that a ‘fact-checking’ company could be trusted when they are funded by Publicis Groupe, one of the largest PR firms on the planet,” Thacker said. Publicis clients include Burger King, Nestlé, Heineken, auto companies and banks, Thacker said.
“What do you think NewsGuard is going to promote: truth, or messaging for these corporations?” Thacker asked.
In his letter, Comer demanded NewsGuard turn over “Complete versions of all current and past contracts with government entities,” “records of all disciplinary or corrective actions” related to staff violations of its own editorial policy, “policy documents and guidance on managing conflicts of interest related to its investors and other outside influences,” and all documents or data “on corrections, retractions, or the changes to news or opinion articles … associated with inquiries made by NewsGuard.”
Some journalists believe Comer’s letter does not go far enough.
“I would have asked for all financial support over their entire existence, as well as all records involving outreach for financial support,” Thacker said. “I want to know what they are offering sponsors.”
“Follow the money. Who is funding NewsGuard? Also, someone needs to show all the claims of NewsGuard that were and are preposterous,” Rice said.
They also called for Comer’s investigation to lead to drastic action.
“If this company is intentionally trying to harm companies or citizens who are practicing free speech, criminal and civil charges should be brought against this company,” Rice said.
“I don’t care whether they offer censorship programs for industry or governments. These groups are dangerous and need to be shut down,” Thacker said.
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D., based in Athens, Greece, is a senior reporter for The Defender and part of the rotation of hosts for CHD.TV’s “Good Morning CHD.”
The Defender on occasion posts content related to Children’s Health Defense’s nonprofit mission that features Mr. Kennedy’s views on the issues CHD and The Defender regularly cover. In keeping with Federal Election Commission rules, this content does not represent an endorsement of Mr. Kennedy, who is on leave from CHD and is running as an independent for president of the U.S.
With Stanford Out, UW Steps Up for 2024 Election “Disinformation” Research
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | June 17, 2024
If it looks like a duck… and in particular, quacks like a duck, it’s highly likely a duck. And so, even though the Stanford Internet Observatory is reportedly getting dissolved, the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public (CIP) continues its activities. But that’s not all.
CIP headed the pro-censorship coalitions the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP) and the Virality Project with the Stanford Internet Observatory, while the Stanford outfit was set up shortly before the 2020 vote with the goal of “researching misinformation.”
The groups led by both universities would publish their findings in real-time, no doubt, for maximum and immediate impact on voters. For some, what that impact may have been, or was meant to be, requires research and a study of its own. Many, on the other hand, are sure it targeted them.
So much so that the US House Judiciary Committee’s Weaponization Select Subcommittee established that EIP collaborated with federal officials and social platforms, in violation of free speech protections.
What has also been revealed is that CIP co-founder and leader is one Kate Starbird – who, as it turned out from ongoing censorship and speech-based legal cases, was once a secret adviser to Big Tech regarding “content moderation policies.”
Considering how that “moderation” was carried out, namely, how it morphed into unprecedented censorship, anyone involved should be considered discredited enough not to try the same this November.
However, even as SIO is shutting down, reports say those associated with its ideas intend to continue tackling what Starbird calls online rumors and disinformation. Moreover, she claims that this work has been ongoing “for over a decade” – apparently implying that these activities are not related to the two past, and one upcoming hotly contested elections.
And yet – “We are currently conducting and plan to continue our ‘rapid’ research — working to identify and rapidly communicate about emergent rumors — during the 2024 election,” Starbird is quoted as stating in an email.
Not only is Starbird not ready to stand down in her crusade against online speech, but reports don’t seem to be able to confirm that the Stanford group is actually getting disbanded, with some referring to the goings on as SIO “effectively” shutting down.
What might be happening is the Stanford Internet Observatory (CIP) becoming a part of Stanford’s Cyber Policy Center. Could the duck just be covering its tracks?
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The Dirty Little Secret behind the “Global Terrorism Index”
The Omission of Israeli Terrorism in the Occupied Palestinian Territories
By Karin Brothers | Global Research | December 6, 2014
… The Israeli settlements — all of which are illegal – have been identified as a major impediment to peace. The refusal of a major “global” terrorism report to name the Israeli settlers as one of the groups most responsible for terrorism not only misrepresents a major source of regional violence but exposes the Global Terrorism Index as a propaganda tool that supports a U.S. agenda.
In recent years, governments have been attempting to thwart terrorism by blocking supportive fund-raising. When it comes to Israeli settlements, however, the US and Canada actually encourage fund-raising by giving organizations (such as Christian Friends of Israeli Communities (CFOIC) and the Jewish National Fund) financial support in the form of donor tax-deductions.
Charities which provide funds for the Israeli settlements should be regarded as terror-financing organizations. They should not only lose their tax-deductible status, but they should be banned because they support the violation of international humanitarian law. The terror-financing laws that are being strictly enforced for Muslim charities should be applied to Christian and Jewish charities as well. … Read full article
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