CHARLESTON — A group of 20 attorneys general, including West Virginia’s Patrick Morrisey, is asking Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to disband a new board and “cease all efforts to police Americans’ protected free speech and stop his attack on the First Amendment.”
Mayorkas and the DHS created the Disinformation Governance Board, which was announced April 27 during a budget hearing, to protect national security by disseminating guidance to DHS agencies on combating foreign misinformation and disinformation. Many Republicans have been critical of the board, and some have called for it to be disbanded.
Mayorkas later said the DHS could have done a better job of communicating the purpose of the board, but said GOP criticism was “precisely the opposite” of what it would do. He said the board would not monitor American citizens.
Morrisey
“The Department of Homeland Security is not going to be the truth police,” Mayorkas told a Senate subcommittee May 3. “That is the farthest thing from the truth. We protect the security of the homeland.”
The May 5 letter from the 20 AGs says the board threatens to “enforce silence” when Americans wish to express views disfavored by the Biden administration. It also violates the constitutional freedoms the AGs are responsible for defending.
“Every American knows the U.S. Constitution forbids the government to abridge the freedom of speech,” Morrisey said. “The very existence of the Disinformation Governance Board will inevitably have a chilling effect on free speech.
“All Americans will hesitate before they voice their constitutionally protected opinions, knowing the government’s censors may be listening and watching, so some will decide it is safer to keep their opinions to themselves.”
The AGs also raised their suspicions of the timing of the creation of the board – which was at the same time billionaire Elon Musk announced he is buying Twitter. They say, by the Biden administration’s own admission, it has been “flagging problematic posts” on social media sites and coordinating with the private sector to regulate Americans’ free speech.
The AGs say this action raises questions about the extent of the Biden administration’s practice of coordinating with private sector companies to suppress disfavored speech in America.
The coalition of AGs said the board is already chilling free speech and impeding the political process in West Virginia and every other state.
Morrisey joined the Virginia-led letter with his counterparts in Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas and Utah.