Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas tried again Wednesday to clarify the purpose of the newly created Disinformation Governance Board while testifying before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
''What this working group seeks to do is actually develop guidelines, standards, guardrails to ensure that the work that has been ongoing for nearly 10 years does not infringe on people's free speech rights, rights of privacy, civil rights and civil liberties,'' The Hill reported that Mayorkas told lawmakers in the hearing.
''It was quite disconcerting, frankly, that the disinformation work that was well underway for many years across different independent administrations was not guided by guardrails.''
Mayorkas and his department have come under fire for announcing the creation of the board last week and have tried several times to clarify its mission and scope.
In a fact sheet issued by the agency on Monday, DHS said it was focusing on ''false information that is deliberately spread with the intent to deceive or mislead.''
''When it comes to DHS's work, the department is focused on disinformation that threatens the security of the American people, including disinformation spread by foreign states such as Russia, China, and Iran, or other adversaries such as transnational criminal organizations and human smuggling organizations,'' the agency's fact sheet reads.
''Such malicious actors often spread disinformation to exploit vulnerable individuals and the American public, including during national emergencies.''
The agency cited examples that included human smugglers persuading illegal migrants to illegally cross the southern border, correcting false information about safe drinking water during Hurricane Sandy, and working with federal cybersecurity agencies to combat disinformation being spread to ''critical infrastructure.''
Calling the board, directed by author and researcher Nina Jankowicz, an ''internal working group,'' the agency said that it plans to be transparent and issue quarterly reports to Congress and the related oversight committees.
In a televised interview with CNN on Sunday, Mayorkas said the board has ''no operational authority or capability'' and would not be used to collect information from U.S. citizens or attempt to censor them.
''We in the Department of Homeland Security don't monitor American citizens,'' he said in the interview.
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., one of the critics of the board, said that he was concerned the board would censor citizens' speech, and took issue with Mayorkas describing its work as setting ''guardrails.''
''I don't want you to have guardrails,'' Paul said at Wednesday's hearing. ''I want you to have nothing to do with speech.''
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