The Biden-Harris Administration Faces Lawsuit Over Pennsylvania Election Task Force

The Biden-Harris Department of Homeland Security is currently entangled in a significant lawsuit demanding the agency's compliance with a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request concerning a task force created in Pennsylvania to address supposed “election threats.”

Pennsylvania's Democratic Governor, Josh Shapiro, announced the launch of the “Election Threats Task Force” on February 29, stating that its purpose is to deliver “trusted election information” and “reduce threats” to the electoral process.

The Center to Advance Security in America (CASA) reported that the Department of Homeland Security acknowledged its request for information regarding Pennsylvania's collaboration with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). However, as noted in court documents first obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation, CASA, a branch of DHS, claims it has not received any documents or further communication since the initial acknowledgment.

CASA's FOIA request was submitted following a March report by The Federalist, which disclosed that the Shapiro administration was working with CISA as part of the task force—a detail not explicitly mentioned in Shapiro's original February 29 statement.

“In March, the Center to Advance Security in America (CASA) filed a FOIA request to DHS-CISA to obtain communications related to the establishment of the Pennsylvania Election Task Force, which is intended to suppress election-related speech labeled as ‘misinformation’. CISA has yet to respond to CASA's request,” CASA Director James Fitzpatrick informed the news outlet.

Federal law requires that the government respond to FOIA requests within 20 working days of receipt, according to the National Archives. In its lawsuit, CASA is asking the court to compel DHS to produce the requested documents within ten days of the court’s ruling.

“CASA submitted this FOIA request to DHS 145 days ago. We are now 80 days away from the election, and the public still has not seen the communications about the creation of this task force, which could be used to potentially censor election-related speech in the most crucial battleground state in America,” Fitzpatrick told the DCNF. “We are filing this lawsuit to force DHS to follow the law and immediately release these records to the American public.”

In his original press release, Shapiro mentioned that the task force, which includes various federal and state agencies and offices, would “share information and coordinate strategies to address threats to the election process, protect voters from intimidation, and provide accurate, trusted election information.” He also pointed to a webpage that would “fact-check” claims related to Pennsylvania's election procedures.

In June, the Supreme Court overturned a lower court’s order that had prevented multiple government agencies, including CISA, from asking social media platforms to censor posts on contentious topics like COVID-19 and election integrity. During a conference, Democratic Senator Mark Warner of Virginia noted that CISA and other agencies resumed their collaboration with social media companies in March.

Censorship became a hot topic during the 2020 presidential election when Twitter blocked several accounts, including that of then-White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, for sharing an October 14, 2020, report by the New York Post regarding the contents of a laptop allegedly belonging to Hunter Biden.

At that time, several current and former intelligence officials claimed that the information on the laptop seemed to be ‘Russian disinformation.’ However, multiple reports released well after the election confirmed that the controversial contents of the laptop were authentic and not part of a Russian operation.

Some of these reports suggested that had voters in certain swing states, which were won by Joe Biden, been aware that the contents were real, they might have voted for then-President Trump instead. This led Republicans to accuse Democratic allies in the intelligence community and the media of censorship and spreading “misinformation.”