'What Could Be More Orwellian?': Hawley Asks Nominee About Ensuring CISA Does Not Censor Viewpoints

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During a Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing on Thursday, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) spoke about online censorship.

Transcript

00:00Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Congratulations to the nominees. Thank you for being here.

00:05Mr. Planky, if I could just start with you. One of the most troubling things that we have seen

00:09in the last few years when it comes to behavior by the government is the effort by the federal

00:14government to coerce and otherwise pressure social media companies to engage in mass censorship

00:21of private American citizens across a range of topics. COVID-19, vaccines, elections,

00:27school board meetings, and unfortunately, the agency that you've been nominated to lead

00:32is right, was right in the thick of it, CISA. Much to that agency's shame, I must say, and I think a

00:38direct violation of the First Amendment of the United States because what the Supreme Court has

00:41said over and over is the federal government cannot use private entities to do what the First Amendment

00:46bars the federal government from doing. And as you probably know, there's been much litigation about

00:50this. The discovery in that litigation is damning for many agencies in the federal government,

00:56including CISA. So my question is, what are you going to do to ensure that CISA gets out of the

01:01speech regulation business, the surveillance business, when it comes to private American

01:09citizens, and gets back into what it's supposed to do, which is actually to keep us safe. Not to

01:13regulate our speech, not to follow us around online, but to be stopping cyber attacks and ensuring

01:18cyber security. Senator, thank you for that question. I believe to be an important one,

01:24and so does Secretary Noem and President Trump. It is not CISA's job and nor is it in its authorities to

01:34censor or determine the truths, whether it be on social media or in any level of media.

01:43CISA will not do any of that work, will not be a part of any of that work if I am confirmed.

01:48I'd like to focus CISA on what it's mandated to do, and that's protect the federal civilian executive

01:56branch, as well as protect the critical infrastructure of the United States. Cyber security is a big

02:02enough problem. We have adversaries at our door, inside our house, and all over us every day. I need,

02:11if confirmed, I need my people at CISA to be focused on eradicating those adversaries from the federal

02:16government computer systems as well as critical infrastructure of the United States. Let me just

02:21read some of the euphemisms that your predecessor used to talk about CISA's mission and the censorship

02:28effort. Narrative control, perception management, information integrity. That was my favorite.

02:36You're telling me you're going to get CISA out of the business of policing narrative control. I mean,

02:41narrative control, good lord. I mean, what could be more Orwellian than that? A federal government,

02:46the most powerful government in the world engaged in narrative control? So your testimony here is,

02:52is that you will get CISA out of this business, you will comply with the First Amendment to the

02:57Constitution of the United States, and you will not engage in censorship of American citizens of any

03:03kind. Am I understanding you correctly? Senator, to put it bluntly, yes, you are understanding me

03:08correctly. Good. Let's talk about what that's going to look like in the election context. Obviously,

03:12CISA has important election security work, protecting our election infrastructure. That's

03:17important work. That's designated by statute. That, however, is different than monitoring political

03:23speech and monitoring political campaigns. How are you going to draw a line? Tell us how you're going

03:28to make the line clear between cyber security protections for our elections and political content

03:34moderation, which again is unfortunately what your agency has been involved in in recent years.

03:38Senator, thank you for that question. If confirmed, CISA's role, election security is a subsector

03:48of critical infrastructure, and it's election infrastructure that is the piece of that. And

03:54the president has already given guidance on this in his recent executive order. That guidance says

03:59that the Department of Homeland Security will focus on electronic election systems, so e.g., like a voting

04:10system that an American might use to vote to ensure that it is assessed prior to an election,

04:18that there is no adversarial actions or vulnerabilities in it. Now, that is tasked in the president's

04:24executive order that he has already thought of, down to DHS. If Secretary Noem tasks CISA to do that,

04:33which I could imagine she likely will, my team, if confirmed, will focus on the assessments of that

04:42election infrastructure. Good. Well, everything you said to me is encouraging. I'm glad to hear it. I know

04:47that you appreciate that CISA has a major trust deficit, given what's happened in the last four years.

04:52And that's a problem, because, you know, we've gone so far in this body. There are tasks that,

04:56frankly, CISA ought to be performing, including things related to, like, the security of rural

05:00hospitals, which is very important to me, very important to my state. Forty percent of the

05:04hospitals in my state are rural. We need the cyber security help. But frankly, we've been very

05:09reluctant to use CISA for any of this, because CISA has been a surveillance and censorship machine for

05:14the last four years. This has got to stop. We've got to get this agency back on track, and I hope that

05:19you're the right person to do it. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

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Transcript

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