The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) – a part of the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) – has been enlisting private entities to help achieve one of its goals.
According to CISA, it would be to combat election misinformation and secure “election infrastructure” – while according to critics, it is to continue with the mission of censoring lawful speech “disfavored” by the current authorities seeking to remain where they are after November – by hook or crook.
CISA doesn’t feel the need to hide this activity that has been taking place since 2018 through a program called the Election Infrastructure Subsector Coordinating Council (SCC). It is here that US government entities – federal, state, and local – meet private groups (“partners” as CISA calls them).
We obtained the latest document for you here.
What’s coordinated here, according to the agency, and as was reported by The Federalist, is the reduction of “cyber, physical, and operational security risks to election infrastructure.” The coordination is done to the point where government and private sector have adopted “a unified approach.”
Information sharing ahead of the presidential election is also happening as SCC works with the Government Coordinating Council (GCC).
According to CISA, this collaboration is now “unprecedented” while what is referred to as “private sector owners and operators” sit, as part of SCC, in meetings with the FBI and election officials.
But CISA has other partners – the Election Integrity Project (EIP), formed months before the 2020 election, which has been blasted by the House Judiciary Committee as a tool for the government to bypass the First Amendment and censor speech.
The CISA site has a document, “Mis-, Dis-, and Malinformation: Planning and Incident Response Guide for Election Officials,” put together by CISA/GCC Joint Mis/Disinformation Working Group.
In it, CISA “defines” what each of its targets is supposed to be, and ends up doing what all “misinformation warriors” do – offer subjective and broad descriptions susceptible to interpretation, instead of clear definitions.
For example, “malinformation” is said to be information “based on fact, but used out of context to mislead, harm, or manipulate.”
The document mentions “delegitimization of election results” as one form of mis, dis, and mal information.
It’s unclear if CISA has both 2016 and 2020 elections in mind – or only one – but this is how the activity is described: “Narratives or content that delegitimizes election results or sows distrust in the integrity of the process based on false or misleading claims.”
