Biden’s Department of Homeland Security is promising not to violate the Constitution with its artificial intelligence use, but its past censorship efforts raise serious questions.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a press release Sept. 14 on its implementation and use of artificial intelligence (AI). “DHS will only acquire and use AI in a manner that is consistent with the Constitution and all other applicable laws and policies,” the agency asserted. But the DHS's past extensive censorship efforts in coordination with Big Tech and so-called media literacy organizations put into question the department's promise to operate within the bounds of the Constitution.
In the press release, DHS acknowledged that the agency already uses AI “to advance its missions.” The new policies will supposedly ensure “responsible use of AI” through testing and oversight of “face recognition and face capture technologies.” DHS’s Chief Information Officer (CIO) Eric Hysen is now the first DHS Chief AI Officer. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas talked about “civil rights” and Hysen prioritized AI “free from discrimination” in the press release, but the DHS has an anti-free speech track record.
“The Constitution’s Abuser-in-Chief promises to uphold the Constitution. It would be breaking news if he meant it,” said MRC Free Speech America Vice President Dan Schneider. “Mayorkas and Joe Biden can keep their pinky promise. What we really need is a government that will protect our rights, not abuse them for their partisan purposes.”
In fact, DHS has been repeatedly exposed for its reported censorship collusion with Big Tech. Most infamously, the Biden DHS launched an Orwellian Disinformation Governance Board (DGB). Though the Biden administration shut down the DGB amid relentless backlash, including exclusive MRC reporting, DHS continued its anti-free speech misdeeds.
The DHS press release included two policy statements, with the first containing the promise of defending constitutional rights. “DHS will not collect, use, or disseminate data used in AI activities, or establish AI-enabled systems that make or support decisions, based on the inappropriate consideration of race, ethnicity, gender, national origin, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, nationality, medical condition, or disability,” DHS droned. The agency also asserted in its statement about “face recognition and face capture technologies” that Americans will allegedly have the right to opt out of such tech…only for “non-law enforcement uses.”
As part of its new Freedom of Information Act investigations, MRC Free Speech America uncovered DHS’s Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention Grant Program (TVTP), and TVTP’s weaponization against Christians, conservatives and Republicans under Biden.
Documentation showed, too, that DHS worked with four private groups to censor alleged election-related “misinformation” before, during and after the 2020 election. This work continued in the 2022 election cycle. Then, House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations, and Accountability Chairman Dan Bishop (R-NC) said during a May congressional hearing that the DGB was just “the tip of the iceberg of [DHS’s] censorship laundering schemes.”
This long-term and extensive censorship coordination is what make the DHS’s assurances of protecting Americans’ rights when it comes to AI so highly questionable.
Conservatives are under attack. Contact your representatives and demand DHS be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on so-called extremism and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us at the Media Research Center contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.
