Leaked FBI document classifies "disinformation" and "misinformation" as "election crimes"

Project Veritas has released a document it says was leaked by a Federal Bureau of Investigation whistleblower showing that the FBI classifies “misinformation” and “disinformation” as “election crimes.”

The FBI’s “2022 Midterm Elections Social Media Analysis Cheat Sheet” lists “Misinformation,” which it defines as “false or misleading information spread mistakenly or unintentionally,” under the umbrella of “election crimes” in the context of social media, along with voter intimidation and suppression, ballot fraud, and other offenses.

“Disinformation,” or “false or inaccurate information intended to mislead others,” is also listed as an “election crime.”

The “cheat sheet” notes at the top that for these “crimes” to “fall under federal jurisdiction,” they “must involve one or more federal candidates on the ballot, election official misconduct, or false voter registration.”

The document also highlights the fact that the First Amendment “prohibits the investigation/intelligence activity based ‘solely’ to monitor the First Amendment activities.” It is notable that private and public social media messages “can,” but do not necessarily, constitute First Amendment-protected speech.

The sheet further states that the Brandenburg test is used to “differentiate protected speech from unprotected speech,” which would be that which “intends to incite imminent lawless action AND is likely to do so.”

Former Trump official and political analyst Sebastian Gorka warned in response to the leak, “Get ready to see Republicans arrested for Social Media “Misinformation.”

In January 2021, a Florida man was charged with “election interference” before the 2016 U.S. Presidential election “stemming from [a] voter misinformation campaign” conducted through social media. Douglass Mackey had allegedly “conspired with others to use social media platforms, including Twitter, to disseminate fraudulent messages designed to encourage” people “to ‘vote’ via text message or social media, a legally invalid method of voting.”

The Biden administration recently dropped plans for a so-called Disinformation Governance Board after backlash over concerns the board would pose a threat to Constitutional rights, including freedom of speech.

On September 28, 2020, the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency (CISA) claimed that “malicious” “foreign actors and cybercriminals” were spreading “disinformation” “in an attempt to manipulate public opinion, discredit the electoral process, and undermine confidence in U.S. democratic institutions.”

Last summer, the Biden administration highlighted so-called “misinformation,” “racism” and “conspiracy theories,” pejoratives frequently applied to mainstream conservative perspectives in a statement declaring domestic terrorism “the most urgent terrorism threat” in the U.S.

The statement referred to an unclassified report from the Office of National Intelligence that cited “narratives of fraud in the recent general election, the emboldening impact of the violent breach of the U.S. Capitol, conditions related to the COVID-19 pandemic, and conspiracy theories promoting violence,” among its chief concerns regarding the radicalization of “domestic violent extremists” (DVEs).