The Pennsylvania Department of State refused to provide The Federalist with important communications, plans, and other material related to its work with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).
The Federalist filed a Right To Know Request (RTKR) with the Pennsylvania Department of State on July 25 seeking “communications between PA DOS and CISA beginning from March 1, 2024 – present day.”
The request was made in light of The Federalist’s previous reporting that uncovered the state’s partnership with CISA to “mitigate threats” to elections, including speech it deems “misinformation.” CISA has been described as the “nerve center” of government censorship operations. The state would provide no additional details to The Federalist about what the collaboration would look like aside from indicating that it would include sharing “intelligence among the included government agencies.” The state never clarified what “intelligence” was being referred to nor what would be done with that information.
Notably, one email obtained by The Federalist in its RTRK response shows Secretary of State Al Schmidt (in an email to a slew of individuals, including those associated with CISA) talking about a meeting that occurred in which there were discussions on how to improve “information sharing.”
(What the “information” is remains unknown because the state stonewalled and then refused to turn over any substantive material about its ongoing work with a censorship agency that has targeted free speech over the years.)
The department first told The Federalist on Aug. 1 that it required 30 days to complete the
