Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2025
Floor Speech
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. CLYDE. Mr. Chair, today, I am offering an amendment to flat fund the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, also known as CISA, to keep it at the FY24 enacted level saving $57.8 million.
On CISA's website, the mission reads: ``We lead the national effort to understand, manage, and reduce risk to our cyber and physical infrastructure.'' Unfortunately, CISA has strayed far from this mission.
Two years ago, CISA was part of the infamous Disinformation Governance Board, which was established at the Department of Homeland Security to censor Americans' free speech.
While the so-called Disinformation Governance Board was rightfully disbanded a few months later after enormous public outcry, many will be shocked to learn that CISA has not stopped monitoring and censoring Americans' free speech.
According to a 2022 news report: CISA drafted plans to target ``inaccurate information'' on a wide range of topics, including the origins of COVID-19, the efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccine, racial justice, the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the nature of U.S. support to Ukraine.
Also, business records released by Twitter suggest that CISA distorted its mission from protecting the Nation's critical cyber and physical infrastructure into controlling what Americans can say and what speech is acceptable online.
This is terrible. Americans' First Amendment should not be regulated or controlled through government by proxy censorship.
CISA was first created before my arrival in Congress with bipartisan support. Under the Trump administration, CISA focused on foreign disinformation and countering foreign influence. Unfortunately, since the current administration took office, CISA has aggressively shifted beyond the original mandate of countering foreign threats.
In January 2021, CISA officials renamed the Countering Foreign Influence Task Force, one of the key bodies of countering disinformation founded during the Trump administration, to the ``mis-, dis-, and malinformation team,'' meaning they took the word ``foreign'' out of the title.
Last summer, the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government released a report, titled: ``The Weaponization of CISA: How a `Cybersecurity' Agency Colluded With Big Tech and `Disinformation' Partners to Censor Americans.''
Several disturbing details about CISA were released in this report, including that CISA is ``working with Federal partners to mature a whole-of-government approach'' to curb alleged misinformation and disinformation and that CISA wanted to use the same taxpayer-funded nonprofits as its mouthpiece to ``avoid the appearance of government propaganda.'' This is simply censorship by proxy.
Last week, I had a conversation with the Director of CISA, and she told me that this report by the Select Subcommittee on Weaponization of the Federal Government is full of inaccuracies. Basically, it is not worth the paper it is written on. I strongly disagree. I think our Weaponization Subcommittee has done a phenomenal job.
CISA needs to return to its original mission of strengthening and protecting our national cybersecurity and infrastructure, not censoring Americans' free speech. CISA's bloated budget and the agency's increased weaponization mission to police free speech has gone on simultaneously.
There is a clear connection: Given extraordinary increases in funding, CISA has used taxpayer dollars to censor Americans and target speech that they find disagreeable. Therefore, I offer an amendment to flat fund CISA to maintain the FY24 enacted level. This agency must be refocused on their true mission, not given more funding to continue undermining our constitutional rights.
The only thing that gets agency attention in Washington, D.C., is funding. By flat funding CISA for FY25 it is simply putting them on notice, a shot across the bow would be the Navy way of saying it, to get their attention and cease the weaponization of this agency.
Mr. Chair, I hope that all Members of this committee will support this amendment to correct this weaponized agency and thereby defend our First Amendment rights for all Americans.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. CLYDE. Mr. Chair, may I inquire as to the time remaining.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. CLYDE. Mr. Chair, first, I commend the chairman here of our Appropriations Subcommittee.
On sections 544 and 545 of this bill, I think it is critically important to prohibit the funding to classify or facilitate the classification of any communications by a United States person as mis-, dis-, or malinformation. I think, though we put the policy in the bill, it is the funding that gets agency attention, as I have mentioned before.
I think it is critically important to ensure that the funding that we have sends that signal to CISA that they cannot abridge Americans' First Amendment rights through modifying what people can see by classifying information.
Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source