We were warned nearly 50 years ago that government had the ability to control the information Americans were "entitled" to receive, but we disregarded that warning because, after all, this is America, the Land of the Free."
But during the last several weeks, with the release of the so-called Twitter Files, we learned that the FBI has been doing exactly that — controlling the narrative — and what was once considered conspiracy was actual fact.
Twitter is not merely a social media platform. It’s also the No. 1 vehicle for officeholders to keep their constituents informed and for journalists to promote stories and columns.
And because of that it was targeted by federal authorities, a fact that may have remained hidden except for billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk’s decision to acquire Twitter and turn it into the free speech public forum originally envisioned.
Musk himself made that clear during a recent podcast appearance.
"To be totally frank, almost every conspiracy theory that people had about Twitter turned out to be true,” he said.
"Is there any conspiracy theory about Twitter that didn’t turn out to be true?"
There’s no question but that Twitter was corrupt. It withheld as "conspiracy theories," for example:
•All New York Post stories reporting on the influence-peddling of Hunter Biden, activities from which then-Vice President Joe Biden profited
•Any posts that questioned the effectiveness and safety of mRNA COVID vaccines as well as the use of masks
•Any claims that COVID-19 may have been released to the world as the result of a Wuhan, China lab leak
•Any claims that the 2020 presidential election may have been incorrectly decided
All have since been proven to be either factual or at least highly plausible.
But if pre-Musk Twitter was corrupt, the federal government was even more so. Twitter only acted at the direction of the FBI.
While Democrats claimed that Russia interfered in the last two U.S. presidential elections, recent disclosures revealed who actually interfered, as Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., confirmed last week.
"The FBI deliberately interfered in not one, but two separate presidential elections… there have got to be repercussions for that," he told reporters last week.
"We're going to have to have clearly a conversation about the future of the FBI and what it's doing in our democracy. Because that kind of power — the power they have is immense, and if they’re going to use it in this way then I have to say our constitutional order is not secure."
Among the facts he ticked off was the FBI’s suppression of the Hunter
Biden "Laptop From Hell" story, despite the fact that they’d had the actual laptop in their possession for a full year and "knew it was true, yet put out that it was Russian disinformation. And we see now with Twitter. They went after Twitter and told them to take it down, and Twitter was most aggressive in doing so."
As evidence of official meddling mounted, the FBI released a statement claiming that it was all routine.
"The correspondence between the FBI and Twitter show nothing more than examples of our traditional, longstanding and ongoing federal government and private sector engagements, which involve numerous companies over multiple sectors and industries," the statement said.
If the FBI’s meddling into private conversations and the dissemination of news and information is "traditional, longstanding and ongoing," the problem is worse than originally imagined.
"As evidenced in the correspondence, the FBI provides critical information to the private sector in an effort to allow them to protect themselves and their customers," the statement continued.
Censoring speech and news outlets does not equate to “providing information.”
"The men and women of the FBI work every day to protect the American public. It is unfortunate that conspiracy theorists and others are feeding the American public misinformation with the sole purpose of attempting to discredit the agency."
So now outraged members of the public are the "conspiracy theorists."
On Aug. 17, 1975, the late Sen. Frank Church, an Idaho Democrat, appeared on NBC's "Meet the Press" and delivered a warning to America that intelligence-gathering technology could be turned around and used against U.S. citizens.
"The technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back," he said.
Keep in mind this is long before emails and an internet was even imagined.
He was referring to landline telephones, telegraphs, and radio communications by ships and aircraft.
"I don’t want to see this country ever go across the bridge. I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision so that we never cross over that abyss. That’s the abyss from which there’s no return."
Many people believed Church to be something of a conspiracy theorist, just like they believed those who promoted things like the Hunter Biden laptop story and issues with COVID vaccines, were deemed conspiracy theorists.
So what’s the difference between fact and conspiracy?
In Church’s case, about 47 years. But it can be as little as a year.
Michael Dorstewitz is a retired lawyer and has been a frequent contributor to Newsmax. He is also a former U.S. Merchant Marine officer and an enthusiastic Second Amendment supporter. Read Michael Dorstewitz's Reports — More Here.
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