This hearing took place in Washington, but Lara's testimony would be valid in any Western country.
Lara Logan outs Corporate Media-
Government Collusion
Media Censorship and the First Amendment: A threat to Freedom and the Republic
The following is a transcript of the above video, but I urge everyone to watch this video.
It is chilling. It is important. And it is truth.
Senator Ron Johnson:
Our next presenter is Ms. Lara Logan. Lara Logan is an award-winning investigative journalist, former 60 Minutes correspondent and Chief Foreign Correspondent and Chief Foreign Affairs correspondent for 60 Minutes and host of The Rest of the Story with Lara Logan.
Lara Logan:
Thank you, Senator Johnson. Hello everybody. I was asked to testify on media censorship and the First Amendment, the importance of free speech. And I do want to say that it is an honor and a privilege to be here with all of you and with you. Senator Johnson, thank you for hosting this “Rogue” committee.
It is important to all of us because of everything discussed today, that we address the vital principles and values that exist really only in the United States of America. And that said, these are the worst of times for the media in this country. We live in the age of information warfare where propaganda is not simply a weapon, it is the entire field of battle. This is a war for our minds that is aided by advanced technology, and we have never been here, not in all of human history.
It is a moment when we as journalists should stand together united and regardless of politics, we should fight for the truth and we should fight for freedom. Yet not very long ago, we allowed one of our own Tucker Carlson to be branded as a traitor simply for doing his job. In fact, there were many, so-called journalists who were leading the charge against Tucker, accusing him of treason for the simple fact of interviewing the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin. And to my knowledge, there was not a single legacy media institution that spoke up.
This was more than a politically motivated attack on one man. It was a betrayal of the most sacred principles of a free press. And my media colleagues know this to be true no matter what they say. My fear is that they either no longer care or that they lack the moral courage to be honest, including with themselves. I have worked at the highest levels of the media as a full-time correspondent for 60 Minutes, chief Foreign correspondent for CBS News, chief Foreign Affairs correspondent for CBS News. That was my home for 16 years. And as a journalist, I have sat down with world leaders, mass murderers and terrorists, and I have held people on both sides of the aisle accountable.
I have seen suffering and I have faced evil, and I have walked through the fires of hell on distant battlefields. I faced my own death at the hands of a mob of some 200 men in Egypt when I was gang raped and sodomized and beaten almost to death while on assignment for 60 minutes.
And yet for almost a decade, I have been targeted and falsely branded and accused of many things that I did not do. They have attacked my work, my character, my sanity, and my marriage. And I am not alone. We are many and we will not give up, and we will not give in to those who wish to censor the idea of free speech. In America and all over the world, media companies, institutions, and journalism schools have failed all of us. And for too long we have allowed nonprofit organizations to masquerade as nonpartisan media watchdogs, when in fact they are a little more than highly paid political propagandists and assassins, whose entire reason for being is to crush anyone who stands in their way.
And along with them, the long held and cherished ideas of free speech, free thinking, and free minds. This is a blood sport for them. Their political allies and their puppet masters. They know how to kill a journalist without murdering them. We call it cancel culture. In truth, it is a death sentence and they get away with it because they have information dominance. Some are strong enough to survive, but only a few like Glenn Greenwald, Tucker Carlson, Matt Taibbi, only a few like them are able to reach greater heights and thrive. These nonprofits that I'm talking about are part of a vast censorship network that includes government agencies. They use deception to mask their actions with lofty goals like preventing the spread of misinformation, disinformation hate speech. They use phrases like protecting democracy. And make no mistake, words matter. The media is collaborating with government agencies and operatives to censor and shape the information battlefield to justify certain actions.
For example, when the president of the United States threatens the unvaccinated saying his patience is wearing thin and accuses them of putting communities at risk, his words are designed to justify hatred, censorship, and intimidation. And when the Vice President compares January 6th to 9-11 and Pearl Harbor, it is a predicate to silence the opposition and justify the weaponization of the justice system.
We are already witnessing another shaping operation to influence the outcome of the 2024 election this time with the false claim that if one side wins, it'll be the end of democracy. This lie contrived to ensure a particular outcome and to sabotage free speech. Yet again, overseas taxpayer funds from hardworking Americans are being doled out by contractors under the Office of Transition Initiatives at USAID or the State Department Bureau, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. These contractors, many of them ideological zealots, who are not even US government officials often make over a quarter million dollars a year and are outside the reach senators like yourself and committees like this.
They hand out taxpayer dollars to programs that are shaped by highly partisan NGOs who hide behind terms like interreligious dialogue, when in fact they are funding Muslim schools that train Islamic terrorists like they did in Malaysia. Another example is Humanist International. Through them, the State Department is funding atheism grants that actively cultivate an atheist advocacy network in Nepal. This is not just to attack religion and manipulate foreign politics. It is an attack on free speech, faith and God. While propaganda and censorship are not new, technology means unprecedented power and reach in the hands of a few companies like Facebook, Instagram, and Google. As you have heard many times today, they have been allowed to amass monopoly power. And as a result, they not only reach billions of people across the world every second of the day, they have absolute control over what we see and what we hear. Imagine those tools in the hands of Lenin, Stalin, Mao or Hitler.
When I became a journalist more than 35 years ago, we wanted emergency restrictions in apartheid South Africa and I was 17 years old. Public safety and security were the weapons of state senses. Ours was the truth. We had no Bill of Rights, no Constitution, no First Amendment, no Declaration of Independence, and journalists would have to hide footage from the security police sometimes sewing the tapes into their mattresses at home so they could not be seized and used to identify and target the protestors that we'd filmed. The light of freedom that set fire to our hearts in South Africa was lit thousands of miles away. It was lit right here where we sit today in the United States of America.
When the founding fathers put freedom of speech, first - it was not by chance. It was by design. The rights that followed were in part, created to protect the first Amendment. Without it, they knew that freedom itself would perish. I am reminded today of the word spoken by the British Foreign Secretary. So Edward Gray in 1914, at the beginning of the First World War, he said, “The lamps are going out all over Europe. We shall not see them lit again in our lifetime”. We are once again watching the lights of freedom go out. They're going out here and all over the world and it is up to us to determine if they will be lit again ever.
Thank you, Senator Johnson. I'm ready to take your questions.
Senator Ron Johnson:
Thank you, Ms. Logan. You said you've been targeted over the last 10 years. Can you describe what precipitated your targeting?
Lara Logan:
Yes. I'm reporting the truth about Benghazi. I was attacked by one of those NGOs that masquerades as a nonpartisan watchdog in violation of its 501c3 status. It occupies a highly partisan position. I'm talking about Media Matters for America. I'm sure there are many doctors in this room, scientists who've been attacked by the same people, the same people that run that - David Brock, for example.
And another political assassin now runs an organization called Facts First, USA, which is designed to make sure that your research, Dr. (Sabin) Hazan never reaches the people or the public. There are other organizations like Defeat Disinformation, which claims to be a PAC that goes after disinformation, particularly set up to target Covid. And throughout Covid with General Stanley McChrystal and the other people that advise that organization. But what Senator Johnson, it's not a secret that these organizations exist. What is not widely known and talked about is that it's paid for by us.
It's paid for by the taxpayers in your omnibus spending bills that get shoved through the House and the Senate against the will of the people of this country. There are cutouts for these NGOs, and what they do is they launder this money. They pass it from one NGO to the next, and in the name of preventing the spread of disinformation, they censor silence, intimidate, and punish.
I said that this is a death sentence for journalists. It's how you murder a journalist without killing them. It's how you murder a scientist without killing them. It's how you murder a doctor without killing them. It's how you murder the vaccine injured when they haven't died yet. It's how you finish them off and everybody else in their family.
And it's time for people in this building who come to work every day here to serve us. This is the only country where the people are, the government. This is a government for the people of the people and by the people. And the same is said for so-called Journalists. This man (Mr. Del Bigtree) has been targeted for simply going to the FDA hearings and filming them when they approve vaccines. Just filming them not doing a thing and putting that out and showing people there is no real approval process. They didn't actually do their jobs. And for that, he's been targeted for years long before COVID ever hit.
So, it's time now for us to stop taking taxpayer funds to slit our own throats.
Thank you.
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