Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) has called on several Big Tech companies to disclose information about their interactions with federal agencies.
We obtained a copy of the letter for you here.
Cruz argues that these interactions may have violated First Amendment rights.
His office sent letters to Google, Meta, LinkedIn, Yahoo, Medium, Reddit, Microsoft, Pinterest, and Wikipedia, requesting details about their coordination and communication with federal agencies during the COVID-19 pandemic, specifically in relation to misinformation.
These inquiries follow the Twitter Files, a series of reports on internal Twitter communications that revealed the platform’s collaboration with the FBI on misinformation issues.
Cruz has requested information about communications with 23 federal agencies, such as the FBI, CIA, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Justice, and others. He also wants to know if the tech companies sent lists of users to federal agencies for review or if they received requests to monitor accounts.
Furthermore, Cruz is seeking details about the companies’ interactions with specific government officials, including FBI agent Elvis Chan, former Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Director Chris Krebs, and former Department of Defense General Counsel William Castle.
