MRC Free Speech America update summary: Following President Donald Trump's executive order on March 14, 2025, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem cut staff at the DHS's Science and Technology Directorate, and in April 2025, she halted all funding to, and effectively shut down, the Science and Technology Directorate. These actions are currently in litigation.
The following article is a supplement to the MRC Report: The Biden Administration Waged War on Free Speech with 57 Censorship Initiatives.
Initiative #30: The Night Fury Fallout
Type of Censorship: Policy or Rulemaking
Agencies Involved:
- Department of Homeland Security
- Science & Technology Directorate (S&T)
Summary:
After the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was caught using Big Tech platforms to create social credit scores (“risk scores”) for Americans, it promised to craft new protocols to better protect Americans’ civil liberties from government censorship. Under DHS Secretary Mayorkas, the department broke that promise.
Beginning in 2018, the Department of Homeland Security’s Science & Technology Directorate (S&T) launched the initiative “Night Fury.” For “Night Fury,” the agency paid for the mass surveillance and data collection of Americans’ social media accounts, with contractors creating numerical “risk scores” for each user (as documented by the Brennan Center and Breitbart News).
After the story broke, a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report found systemic failures by S&T to follow its internal procedures to protect Americans’ privacy rights and civil liberties. S&T committed to enact a series of changes to prevent the misconduct from occurring again. However, in 2022, a scathing inspectors general report confirmed that the administration of Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas had failed to implement the promised changes, and the risk of a “Night Fury” repeat remained.
Key Individuals:
- Kathryn Coulter Mitchell, Acting DHS Under Secretary for Science & Technology
- Alejandro Mayorkas, Secretary of Homeland Security
