FBI Colluded with Ukrainian Spy Agency and Big Tech to Censor Americans: Report
A congressional report claimed the FBI used a backdoor channel with U.S. social media companies, which was used to censor the speech of Americans online at the request of a “compromised” Ukrainian intelligence agency, beginning last year.
The House Judiciary Committee and the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government released a report Monday titled “The FBI’s Collaboration with a Compromised Ukrainian Intelligence Agency to Censor American Speech.”
The report claimed the FBI partnered with the Security Service of Ukraine, or SBU, to suppress Americans’ free speech online.
The report said the SBU’s use of the FBI to censor Americans began following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Accounts targeted were accused of being pro-Russian propagandists or had otherwise expressed skepticism of Ukraine’s government.
The SBU shared lists of social media accounts it said were spreading Russian disinformation with the FBI. The bureau then contacted the relevant platforms from there for action, per the report.
The collaboration involved the routine sharing of documents containing thousands of social media accounts for takedown, resulting in the targeting of verified U.S. government accounts.
Per the report, the FBI provided social media platforms like Facebook with spreadsheets and other documents that flagged accounts for removal.
Some of the accounts belonged to American journalists, and one was a verified U.S. State Department account.
The report alleged the FBI offered Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, “legal cover” to facilitate the removal of accounts at the request of the SBU.
The Committee’s subpoena to Alphabet, the parent company of Google and YouTube, revealed that the FBI also contacted the company to request some accounts be censored at the request of the SBU.
“The FBI and SBU also tried to censor American journalists on Twitter,” the 27-page report stated.
According to lawmakers, if the SBU was dissatisfied with actions taken on specific accounts, the FBI would follow up with the platforms to follow up with them.
The report laid into the bureau for allegedly violating the First Amendment on behalf of a foreign entity.
“The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States is the bedrock of our political system and guarantees every American the right to speak his or her mind freely and without interference from the government,” the report stated.
It added, “It is predicated on the understanding that no government official has a monopoly on the truth and that every American is capable of evaluating competing claims and deciding what to believe.”
The report concluded the FBI used at least seven “willing” agents whose decision to work on behalf of a questionable foreign agency was “intentional.”
According to the report, lawmakers believed the SBU itself might have been “compromised” by Russian agents.
The SBU was founded after the fall of the Soviet Union and might be staffed with agents friendly to Russia who might have come from the remnants of the KGB or Russia’s Federal Security Service — or FSB.
The compromised agency reached out to the bureau 16 times in March 2022 alone with requests to pressure, Facebook, Google, Twitter and YouTube to take down content and to ban accounts.
The report noted, “Nothing in the United States Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT) with Ukraine, ratified in 2001, compels the FBI to aid the SBU’s efforts to censor Americans on American social media platforms. Even if it did, any such requirement would be unconstitutional and therefore invalid.”
“The FBI violated the First Amendment rights of Americans and potentially undermined our national security,” the report found. “This new information raises grave concerns about the FBI’s credibility as the nation’s premier law enforcement organization.”
The report vowed that lawmakers on the House Judiciary Committee would continue to investigate the FBI’s involvement in the alleged international plot to censor American citizens.
It concluded, “Efforts to counter purportedly foreign ‘disinformation’ campaigns, however noble their intentions, cannot justify the censorship of Americans.”
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