America flirts with George Orwell on ‘disinformation’ board

OPINION:

President Joe Biden’s Homeland Security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, told Congress his agency is creating a “Disinformation Governance Board” to take on lies and deceits tied to the 2022 midterms and, ostensibly, the liars and deceivers who tell the lies and deceits.

What a concept.

It’s George Orwell’s dystopian “1984” come alive. A government-sanctioned Department of Disinformation supposedly aimed at rooting out lies, but actually, instead, at its own root, advancing the lies the government wants told.

Just the introduction itself of this new board reeked of propaganda.

First came Democrat Rep. Lauren Underwood’s sad and sorry appeal about the victim status of her minority voters who are oh so horrifically targeted by election and issue-oriented disinformation campaigns. Then came the question: Mr. Mayorkas, what to do, what to do?

Then came Mayorkas with his “just happen to have an answer handy for ya” response — why we have a “Disinformation Governance Board” to solve just such a dilemma, he said.

“The goal is to bring the resources of [DHS] together to address this threat,” he said.

Threat?

In America, government is the threat. As Ronald Reagan once quipped, the most terrifying words in the English language are “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”

Now the Department of Homeland Security is going to be an arbiter about what information to trust, versus what information to label untrustworthy?

One of the nation’s most secretive and least transparent agencies is going to tell free American citizens which speech to believe.

That this announcement comes just on the heels of Elon Musk’s announced buy of Twitter, one of the left’s largest tools of propaganda — one of Democrats’ greatest devices for shutting down conservative thought and speech — is strangely coincidental.

But perhaps before raising that point, we ought to wait for the Department of Homeland Security’s disinformation board to weigh in and advise whether it’s OK to discuss. After all, who understands disinformation better than government?

America’s turning a frightening corner. 

“Barack Obama Takes On a New Role: Fighting Disinformation,” The New York Times just wrote.

“Disinformation Is a Threat to Our Democracy,” Barack Obama himself just said.

No. It’s not. The government is the real threat to societal freedoms. Disinformation, on the other hand, is just another word for freedom of speech.

• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter by clicking HERE. Her latest book, “Socialists Don’t Sleep: Christians Must Rise Or America Will Fall,” is available by clicking HERE.