Spooks in Silicon Valley: Flow of U.S. Intelligence Analysts Into Big Tech Jobs Raises Alarm

The courts and Congress are digging deeper into federally sanctioned Big Tech censorship. A troubling revolving gate has formed between the U.S. intelligence and Big Tech giants, who are at the forefront of one the most intense battles for freedom of speech in American history.

Just the News reviewed LinkedIn employment records of top Big Tech executives and found that at most 200 ex-workers of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Central Intelligence Agency, Federal Security Agency, National Security Agency, National Security Council, and Homeland Security Department were able to land Silicon Valley jobs. Many of these positions are in content moderation units, which regulate supposed. “disinformation” Unfairly slowing news and opinions that are not in line with approved, left-tilting norms. 

They include Aaron Berman, who was a CIA analyst for a decade before joining Facebook parent Meta to be a product policy manager for diinformation. James Baker is the former FBI general counsel, whom Elon Musk fired as Twitter’s chief attorney after a dispute about prior review. “Twitter Files” Releases that expose past censorship of the platform. Baker was one the key FBI agents involved in the obtaining of a FISA warrant on the basis of the now-debunked Steele dossier. This warrant was used to spy on Carter Page, a former Trump campaign adviser.

The spooks-to-Silicon-Valley pipeline has sent an army of federal agents, intel analysts and even psychological operations experts once trained with taxpayer money to fight foreign enemies or capture big criminals into higher-paying private sector jobs where those same skills now target Americans’ opinions in the name of fighting “disinformation.”

Just the News reached out to the ex-intel employees but none of them returned email or phone calls. Some of the video clips posted online showed that some of them acknowledged being part of a new wave of Big Tech censors operating within a world with little consensus about legality and what should be done.

“There is very little agreement whether we should be leaving more content up or taking more content down,” Berman said in a video posted on Meta’s site. “With any particular rule or issue that we’re looking at where something has come up, where the rules are not 100 percent clear, we’re not going to make everybody happy.”

Berman, whose LinkedIn bio boasts that he used to prepare the daily presidential brief at the CIA. However, Berman acknowledged discomfort in the power he now has in Big Tech to determine the difference between the two. “harmful content” Free speech.

“It’s a balance,” He said it in the video. “I think it should make me uncomfortable, and all of us who do this work.”

Federal intelligence veterans are more open to expressing biases than others. For example, Nick Rossmann, former CIA analyst current senior manager of Trust & Safety at Google, overtly supported defeated 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, said Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner should be strangled and declared, “Anti-vaxxers are like Nazis.” 

During the COVID-19 outbreak, Rossmann even seemed to wish death on elderly Trump voters, tweeting, “I hope they cough on their grandparents, who voted for Trump, & get to rot.” 

Jacqueline Lopour, another Hillary Clinton supporter and former CIA analyst — she served for 10 years in the agency — is currently Google Senior Manager, Intel Collection, Trust & Safety. She manages “Intel operations spanning multiple threat verticals, including violent extremism, cyber threats, misinformation, hate speech, spam, fraud, security and privacy, and more,” According to her LinkedIn bio.

Interview with Canadian Broadcasting Company, 2017. Lopour invoked her CIA experience to uncritically vouch for the agency’s assessment that Russia meddled in U.S. politics to tip the 2016 election In favor of Donald Trump “They [Russia] deliberately released the DNC information to @wikileaks … with the specific motivation of helping Trump get elected.” 

LinkedIn profiles revealed that several other top Big Tech team members served in the Department of Defense or CIA. A Twitter account anonymously posted by @NameRedacted247 detailed the increasing pipeline of intelligence and law enforcement officers. in a 30-part Twitter thread.

Former President Donald Trump spoke out on the subject with a video messageHis proposal to end the revolving Door between the Deep State was lauded by.” and the “Tech tyrants” by imposing “a 7-year cooling off period, before any employee of these powerful agencies is allowed to take a job at a major platform.” 

Recent reporting “shows the FBI and other rogue agencies have been systematically colluding with former national security officials placed in high positions at Twitter and very likely other companies to advance their censorship regime,” Trump.

“This anti-American effort,” He went on, has been “working to silence dissenting opinions on COVID and crucial issues in public health and on the [2020] election.” Drunken doctors and other health professionals are suppressed “had nothing to do with science” Oder “saving lives,” He claimed. “This was about government working with powerful corporations to seize power over you, the American people.”

Trump demanded that the new Congress hold hearings immediately and issue subpoenas “to investigate the role of the FBI and other federal agencies in censoring lawful speech.” 

An ex-high ranking Trump Administration national security adviser Kash Patel told The John Solomon Reports podcast has recently stated that any elected official who colludes with Big Tech to censorship purposes must be held responsible. 

“We need to be talking about suspensions, and a complete barring of these individuals from all committees and other such matters,” Patel was the senior counsel to the House Intelligence Committee, which was headed by Rep. Devin Nunes. “Since the Republicans have the majority in the House, they can do that with [former House Intelligence Committee Chairman] Adam Schiff.” 

According to LinkedIn profile checks done by Just The News, Twitter employs at most 10 ex-FBI agents. 

Just the News reached out to several former members of the intelligence community now employed by Big Tech for comment but has received no replies.

Just the News also reached Facebook, Google and Twitter along with the FBI. The FBI, NSA and DOD did not respond. “CIA’s intelligence mission is foreign focused, and the Agency at all times abides by US laws, regulations, and executive orders that prohibit unlawful collection related to US persons.” 

The FBI Washington, D.C. Field Office refused to comment, but the NSA advised reaching out and questioning each Big Tech company individually. 

You can follow Nick via Twitter @NGivasDC