The COVID Censorship Regime: A Chilling Assault on Free Speech

A Ludlum-esque Conspiracy

Imagine a virus, emerging from a foreign land, sparking a domestic crisis. Bureaucrats seize power, coercing private entities to enact their will. They dictate what citizens can read and write, effectively nationalizing information. Later, their true motives emerge: a cover-up of their own culpability in the virus's creation. Bribed scientists, targeted journalists, burner phones, secret meetings—a shadow government evading accountability.

This isn't fiction. This was the COVID regime's coordinated attack on free expression in the United States, a technological power grab that Justice Neil Gorsuch described as potentially "the greatest intrusions on civil liberties in the peacetime history of this country."

The Internet's Broken Promise

The internet once promised liberation, a free flow of information impervious to authoritarian control. President Clinton famously quipped about China's attempts to control the internet: "Good luck. That's sort of like trying to nail Jell-O to the wall."

The 2012 Democratic National Platform echoed this optimism, vowing to protect an internet "unfettered by censorship." Yet, within a decade, this promise lay shattered. The U.S. Security State weaponized technological advancements against the First Amendment, transforming online censorship from an abstract fear into a stark reality.

The internet, instead of liberating, empowered governments to surveil and silence. The digital age didn't democratize information; it centralized it.

The Proximal Origin of Pandemic Censorship

January 27, 2020. While the world mourned Kobe Bryant, Anthony Fauci received a chilling email: He might be implicated in the origin of the burgeoning COVID-19 pandemic. His NIAID had funded gain-of-function research on coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, potentially violating an Obama-era moratorium.

Fauci, the highest-paid government official, faced ruin. He and his British counterpart, Jeremy Farrar, initiated a cover-up, recruiting virologists to discredit the lab-leak theory. This marked the proximal origin of COVID censorship, born from self-preservation.

Despite initial concerns from virologists about the virus's unusual characteristics, a paper titled "The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2" was rushed to publication in Nature Medicine. It dismissed the lab-leak theory, contradicting the authors' earlier private communications and laying the groundwork for widespread censorship.

The Most Massive Attack Against Free Speech

The ensuing censorship campaign was unprecedented in scope. The Biden administration, through officials like Rob Flaherty, pressured Big Tech to silence critics of the government's COVID narrative. Flaherty's demands, often laced with profanity and threats, targeted true but inconvenient information, even private messages.

Judge Terry Doughty, in Missouri v. Biden, called it "the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history," likening the government's actions to an Orwellian "Ministry of Truth."

Censoring the Doctors

California, under Governor Newsom, went further, criminalizing dissent within the medical profession. AB 2098 threatened doctors with punishment for sharing COVID information that contradicted the "scientific consensus," a constantly shifting target. This law, thankfully struck down by a judge, epitomized the authoritarian impulse of the COVID regime.

The Security State Turns Inward

The Department of Homeland Security, not the CDC, became the lead agency in the COVID response. CISA, a DHS subsidiary, labeled "misinformation" a terror threat, targeting those who "undermine public trust." They classified dissent alongside national security risks and worked in tandem with social media companies, NGOs and the Intelligence Community to control Americans’ access to information.

CISA’s director, Jen Easterly warned the public to avoid picking their own facts and that the organization controlled the cognitive infrastructure of the US, suggesting their scope included controlling Americans’ opinions. Other government agencies and sub-organizations were involved. The National Science Foundation tracked locations and identities of purveyors of “dubious COVID information” and the government-funded program, CryptoChat examined private, encrypted messages for such information.

The COVID censorship regime, born from self-interest and cloaked in the language of public health, represented a profound betrayal of American principles. Its legacy remains a chilling reminder of the fragility of free speech in the digital age.