Sen. Rand Paul: DHS Monitoring Americans Through 12 Overlapping Products

Sen. Rand Paul( R-Ky. ) cited at least 12 programs the Department of Homeland Security ( DHS ) uses to monitor what Americans say online as proof the agency has deviated from its original goal.

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee heard testimony from DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on April 18 regarding his department’s’s budget requests, and Paul made his remarks during that reading.

Even the American Civil Liberties Union said it was time to reevaluate DHS’s’s actions after the senator claimed that it had been using the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency( CISA) to engage in” abusive practices” of tracking Americans’ online movements.

Paul also emphasized that, given that different U.S. intelligence agencies have determined that COVID-19 originated in a biolab, DHS should have been keeping an eye on and looking into the existence of biological research labs in the United States during the pandemic.

According to Paul,” DHS was privately considering how it can strengthen social media repression of Americans using third-party nonprofits as… a hub for information to prevent the appearance of authorities propaganda ,” rather than concentrating on actual threats like this.

Paul continued in his speech to Mayorkas,” A report released last month by the Brennan Center for Justice found at least 12 overlapping DHS services for tracking what Americans are saying digitally.” ” It discovered that the department’s’s programs have strayed from its initial counterterrorism mission into tracking social and political groups and monitoring First Amendment-protected activity of American members.” This is a substantial potential victimization.

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