Congressman calls out FBI, says ‘Twitter files only tell part of story’

by Victor Skinner (Center Square)

US Rep. Dan Bishop is using Twitter to reveal how the company worked with the FBI to shut down free speech, the latest in a series of recent posts that have received significant social media attention.

“The FBI sought to silence constitutionally protected speech and access internal Twitter data to further their spying and censorship regime,” the North Carolina Republican posted Thursday, along with a video clip from a recent House Oversight and Accountability Committee hearing. “The Twitter files tell only part of the story. How much pressure did the FBI put on other social media platforms, which had more users and influence?”

The Twitter Files refers to thousands of internal Twitter documents uncovered by CEO Elon Musk and journalists Matt Taibbi, Barry Weiss and others that reveal how the company handled numerous problems. It includes its moderation process for a New York Post article on the Hunter Biden laptop controversy; Shadows are prohibited; Donald Trump’s suspension from the platform; and FBI liaison with the company’s trust and safety team.

Related: Elon Musk reveals little-known State Department agency as ‘worst offender in US government censorship’

Posted the video Testimony by the bishop Thursday from George Washington University professor Jonathan Turley, a nationally recognized constitutional law scholar.

“The question that comes to me is this,” Bishop said in a 1 minute, 52 second video clip of the committee hearing. “How can the FBI, sworn to protect the Constitution, justify using its resources, agents, etc., to use intense enforcement to call for social media platforms to use those standards to quash speech protecting the Constitution?”

Turley replied that legal issues aside, there are bigger questions.

“It’s particularly unfortunate that the main law enforcement agency is playing this role, an agency with incredible power,” he said. “Here you have the government itself looking for citizens who should be silenced and targeted. That in itself is an issue, whether it also triggers an agency relationship.

“Do we want to go back to the days when governments created these kinds of lists?” asked Turley.

Bishop’s post generated more than 70,000 views with more than 1,800 likes and 660 retweets in about 17 hours.

One of his many tweets on Dec. 20 about the 4,155-page, $1.7 trillion spending bill now has more than 24 million views. It was a tweet that informed the world that he and his team were reading the bill and would post “some of the most serious provisions”. Subsequent tweets have generated a few thousand to over 1 million views.

One of the follow-ups said, “The omnibus has more than $15 billion That’s about 700 additional pages — with a total of more than 7,000 marks from both sides.”

Related: Trump: Kasturi is a free speech hero who has done this country a great service

A January 10 tweetOn Friday, the congressman’s page was pinned “The Deep State is on Notice,” referring to House Resolution 12 calling for an investigation into the collection and sharing of information by the US government and private organizations. By the end of the day, it had garnered more than 500,000 views.

Other bishops’ posts on Twitter have also been popular in recent weeks. A Jan. 2 tweet asked why congressmen had not received Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s rules package at least 72 hours earlier. The infamous McCarthy needed 15 rounds of voting to become speaker of the chamber.

A post panning President Joe Biden’s State of the Union on Tuesday generated more than 41,000 views and nearly 850 likes: “This meeting can be an email” Wrote Bishop.

Syndicated with permission from Center Square.