The censorship industrial complex is worldwide.

The Ukrainian security services wanted some accounts on Twitter banned, including a number of journalists in America and abroad, and the FBI passed along the request from them to Twitter’s Trust and Safety Department. God only knows what accounts on other social media platforms were banned or were requested to be banned at the behest of a foreign government.

Article here: https://t.co/onb5mLXrjB

In March 2022, an FBI Special Agent sent Twitter a list of accounts on behalf of the SBU, Ukraine’s main intelligence agency. The accounts, the FBI wrote, “are suspected by the SBU in spreading fear and disinformation.” pic.twitter.com/mxwGrVNLuz

— Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) June 7, 2023

It is hard to imagine that the Security Service of Ukraine is incapable of reaching out to Twitter with their concerns, so using the FBI as a conduit is a clear attempt to use the US government to pressure the platform in a manner that a third-party actor could not. It is absurd to suggest otherwise, and the history of the government using “disinformation” as a smokescreen for outright censorship bolsters that argument.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has aided a Ukrainian intelligence effort to censor social media users and obtain their personal information, leaked emails reveal.

In March 2022, an FBI Special Agent sent Twitter a list of accounts on behalf of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), Ukraine’s main intelligence agency. The accounts, the FBI wrote, “are suspected by the SBU in spreading fear and disinformation.” In an attached memo, the SBU asked Twitter to remove the accounts and hand over their user data.

The Ukrainian government’s FBI-enabled targets extend to members of the media. The SBU list that the FBI provided to Twitter included my name and Twitter profile. In its response to the FBI, Twitter agreed to review the accounts for “inauthenticity” but raised concerns about the inclusion of me and other “American and Canadian journalists.”

The FBI’s attempt to ban Twitter accounts at the request of Ukrainian intelligence is among the most overt requests for censorship revealed to date in the Twitter Files, a cache of leaked communications from the social media giant.

The FBI’s censorship request was relayed in a March 27th, 2022 email from FBI Special Agent Aleksandr Kobzanets, the Assistant Legal Attaché at the US Embassy in Kyiv, to two Twitter executives. Four FBI colleagues were copied on the exchange.

What was particularly of note in this attempt was the direct targeting of journalists who were not toeing the line on the war in Ukraine.

I happen to (mostly) support Ukraine in its efforts to defeat Russia’s aggression, for the simple reason that Ukraine was clearly the victim of the conflict.

That doesn’t mean that Ukraine has the right to expect that every person in the United States should be drafted into their war effort, and it certainly doesn’t justify the suppression of basic rights at the behest of the US government on behalf of an ally.

“Spreading fear and disinformation” as an accusation for a foreign security service is pretty rich. Spreading fear and disinformation is pretty much the remit of any security service at any time, especially in times of war.

There was a time when American citizens were led to believe–apparently wrongly–that their law enforcement agencies existed to defend their rights. Perhaps this was always a naive assumption, but perhaps their efforts to suppress Americans’ rights are especially egregious now.

Way back in the 1970s, which seems not so long ago to me, but it is the Dark Ages to many Americans now, the FBI faced similar and worse charges and had to be dramatically reformed.

The reforms didn’t stick, and perhaps that was destined to be the case. Power corrupts, and law enforcement agencies have enormous powers over people, and the temptation to use these powers must be immense.

Unfortunately, the difference between the 1970s and the 2020s is that the MSM thought of itself as in opposition to the elite; these days it is one of the heads of the Hydra.

Thus very few are pushing for the sort of reforms that took place during the 1970s, and opposition to making those reforms is near universal.

As the Donald Trump witch hunts exposed, the Elite is a separate entity from the people temporarily in power in Washington. The overlap is vast, but the loyalty of the Deep State is to the Elite, not to the President or the political appointees in the Executive Branch of government.

As these revelations show, the Elite is also transnational. One would have expected a law enforcement agency to stand up for American citizens’ rights against a foreign government–even one with which we are allied.

But no. They don’t serve us. You know who they do serve.