Wray Denies FBI Censored Social Media Speech
The FBI isn’t “in the business” of moderating social media content or forcing companies to limit speech, Director Christopher Wray told the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday.
Committee Republicans pressured Wray in response to a July 4 decision from U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty for Western Louisiana in Monroe. Doughty blocked federal officials from contacting social media companies about online content requests. A lawsuit from attorneys general in Louisiana and Missouri claims Biden administration officials violated the First Amendment by threatening regulatory action against social media platforms if they didn’t meet requests for removal of alleged disinformation. DOJ is seeking an emergency stay against Doughty’s decision from the 5th U.S. District Court of Appeals. Republicans cited examples of what they said was suppression of conservative-leaning content related to President Joe Biden's son Hunter and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Wray should be “deeply disturbed” that the FBI had direct involvement in industry meetings in what Doughty described as the “most massive attack against free speech” in U.S. history, said Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La.
The FBI isn’t in the “business of moderating content or causing any social media company to suppress or censor,” said Wray. Claims the FBI in any way tried to suppress lab leak theories about COVID-19 on social media are “somewhat absurd” since the FBI was the only intelligence agency to conclude COVID-19 likely originated in a Chinese lab. The FBI is focused on malign foreign disinformation, and it doesn’t ask platforms to suppress speech, he said. The FBI alerts platforms when an agency gives information about foreign adversaries controlling false accounts, but it’s ultimately up to the platforms to moderate the content, he said. Content moderation requests aren’t suggestions but orders when they come from one of the most powerful law enforcement agencies in the world, said Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif.
Ranking member Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., accused Republicans of “performance art,” saying they’re only interested in discrediting the FBI, protecting ex-President Donald Trump from ongoing investigations and getting him reelected. Republicans are relying on “conspiracy theories” and are begging for Russia to again interfere in an election to aid Trump, he said. The FBI helped suppress content in the lead-up to the 2020 election, said Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio. Jordan claimed the FBI refused to comment when Facebook asked if the Hunter Biden laptop story was Russian disinformation, which led to story suppression for millions of users.
Democrats and Republicans criticized the FBI for repeated examples of surveillance abuse using Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act authority (see 2306130053). Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., asked Wray if agency officials are still buying location data about Americans from commercial sources. Wray declined to answer, saying he would follow up with staff in order to offer an answer that's precise and offers context. Lofgren cited the reported 3.4 million backdoor searches the FBI did on American data through the FISA database in 2021, and asked if the FBI is still searching American data without a warrant through its FISA database.
FISA Section 702 doesn’t include a Fourth Amendment requirement, said Wray. He noted the 3.4 million figure refers to search terms, not individual Americans. Lofgren said the committee will look further into the issue, to which Jordan agreed. Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., asked Wray how many illegal FISA queries have occurred under his watch at the FBI. He noted a Government Accountability Office report that said more than a million queries were made in error, and the FISA court said the number is around 200,000. Wray said he didn’t have specific numbers on the amount. Gaetz called him “blissfully ignorant” to not know how much the agency is breaking the law under his watch. Gaetz said the court found the FBI to be conducting illegal searches for personal snooping purposes. Citizens trusted the FBI more when it was run by J. Edgar Hoover, said Gaetz.
There have clearly been FISA failures, but there have been reforms with significant improvements since, said Wray. The most recent FISA court opinion found 98% compliance and a DOJ report found 99% compliance, he said: The FBI “had problems,” which are “unacceptable,” but those problems predate the reforms.