The US House Judiciary Committee’s investigation into suspected collusion between the government and Big Tech to censor speech has been expanded to include the case involving an FBI whistleblower.
The whistleblower, Marcus Allen, was interviewed by the nonprofit Catholics for Catholics in a video uploaded to YouTube last month – only to swiftly get blocked.
Now the Committee’s Chairman Jim Jordan wants YouTube owner Alphabet (Google) and its CEO Sundar Pichai to explain what exactly happened, and why. In a letter, Jordan also noted that Allen was one of the witnesses before the Committee’s Select Subcommittee looking into the alleged collusion.
We obtained a copy of the letter for you here.
Allen testified before Congress and managed to get the FBI to restore his security clearance, which was thought to have been revoked by the agency as a retaliatory measure.
According to Jordan, Allen, a Marine, is not only a whistleblower who “detailed serious misconduct at the FBI” but also a devout (Catholic) Christian, and one who has expressed that.
For that reason – and the fact a Catholic organization interviewed Allen – the Judiciary Committee chief sees YouTube’s decision to block the video as a combination of censorship of both political and religious speech, and one that he views as “deeply troubling.”
Jordan has been steadfastly trying to unravel the web of suspected collaboration of some private sector actors with the government to stifle online speech (like Google, seemingly willingly), but also that which came under pressure (in the case of former Twitter, and, even Meta).
In the letter, Jordan made a point of this new instance of YouTube censorship being of particular concern “in light of YouTube’s previous collusion with the Biden-Harris Administration and Alphabet’s pattern of anti-conservative political bias.”
Jordan’s letter details the contents of the video that YouTube users currently can’t see since it’s been censored. In it, Allen spoke of his ordeal as an FBI whistleblower, and how his faith helped him through. As he spoke, Allen prayed a rosary.
The block was “almost immediate,” Jordan noted.
A January 2023 leaked field office memo showed that the FBI even included the Catholic faith as a subject of interest. The memo’s title was, “Interest of Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremists in Radical-Traditionalist Catholic Ideology Almost Certainly Presents New Mitigation Opportunities.”
But more documents showed that the memo may not have been a one-off as far as the FBI is concerned.
As Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton noted, “These documents disprove the FBI’s narrative that the spy operation against Catholics and churches was limited to one field office. In fact, the operation seems to have been approved by top lawyers in the FBI.”
