Staff Reports
Jim Jordan, who is in charge of the House Judiciary Committee, has sent a subpoena to Elvis Chan, who is the Assistant Special Agent in Charge of the FBI's San Francisco Field Office. Chan is said to be part of a plan by Big Tech to censor speech during the 2020 election. After the Department of Justice said Chan couldn't do a private interview, this subpoena was sent.
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Jordan has said that the House Judiciary Committee is looking into how much the Executive Branch has worked with companies and middlemen to control speech. He thinks that Chan, as the main point of contact between the FBI's Foreign Influence Task Force and social media companies, can give important information about how this review should be done.
The worry is that the federal government and big social media platforms are working together to shut down unpopular political views, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Jordan says that the First Amendment is broken when the government puts pressure on Big Tech and other middlemen to block certain points of view.
The committee wanted to record an interview with Chan, but the FBI and the committee had different ideas about how things should be done, so the interview was canceled. So, the order was sent out by the committee.
The subpoena for Jordan is part of the ongoing court case Missouri v. Biden, in which Republican-led states are questioning the government's dealings with big social media companies. In his statement for the case, Chan said that the FBI helped Big Tech companies censor speech in a big way by working with them. The FBI met with these companies once a week, told them to take down certain accounts, and helped keep certain stories from getting out.
Judge Terry Doughty's decision that the Biden administration's acts violated the First Amendment right to free speech was recently upheld by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. On this issue, the Supreme Court is expected to make a final ruling.
In conclusion, the order sent to Elvis Chan is a big step forward in the investigation into censorship by Big Tech. It shows how much the government is involved in putting down certain political views. As the court case goes on, it is still unclear how the Supreme Court will decide and protect the First Amendment rights of Americans.
