Pennsylvania’s Democratic Governor, Josh Shapiro, announced last week that, in an effort to address perceived “threats” to electoral procedures, the state is launching an initiative in partnership with various state and federal agencies.
These partners include the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and, notably, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), an organization long accused of aiding online censorship to impede freewheeling online speech.
The revelation about Pennsylvania’s collaboration with DHS and CISA surfaced after The Federalist pressed the Pennsylvania State Department for more information about the new initiative.
This program, named the Pennsylvania Election Threats Task Force, is expected to bring forth measures for the protection of the electoral system, safeguard voters from any form of intimidation, and provide accessible and trustworthy information about the election.
Al Schmidt, Secretary of the Commonwealth, stated that the task force would focus on addressing lies and baseless “conspiracy theories” aiming to delegitimize the electoral process.
Accusations have been levied against CISA for serving as the epicenter of the federal government’s efforts to censor speech, which is seen as an assault on civil liberties and First Amendment rights.
Documents acquired by America First Legal uncovered that CISA, despite being aware of the risks associated with unsupervised mail-in voting in the 2020 election, dismissed social media posts voicing similar concerns as “disinformation.”
