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CISA slammed for role in 'censorship industrial complex' as budget faces possible $500M cut. Because who needs cybersecurity when there’s culture wars to win. President Trump's 2026 budget proposal would gut the US govt's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, aka CISA, by $491 million - about 17 percent - while accusing the organization of abandoning its core mission in favor of policing online speech. The cuts – which are largely symbolic at this stage as they need to be approved by Congress – are framed as a purge of the so-called "censorship industrial complex," a term the White House uses to describe CISA's work countering misinformation. In its fiscal 2024 budget request, the agency had asked [PDF] for a total of just over $3 billion to safeguard the nation's online security across both government and private sectors. The enacted budget that year was about $34 million lower than the previous year's. Now, a much deeper cut has been proposed, as the Trump administration decries the agency's past work tackling the spread of misinformation on the web by America's enemies, as well as the agency's efforts safeguarding election security. Given Trump has been incorrectly banging on for years about how the 2020 election was rigged against him – in reality, the real-estate tycoon lost, and Joe Biden won fair and square – quelle surprise that Donald has an almighty beef with CISA. Last week, at the RSA Conference in San Francisco, NSA's flagship State of the Hack talk was quietly axed, and senior CISA officials were largely no-shows, save for one panelist and no press briefings. US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, whose agency houses CISA, was announced as a surprise keynote speaker instead. "They were deciding what was truth and what was not," she said of CISA while reiterating past promises that the agency would face cuts. "And it's not the job of CISA to be the Ministry of Truth." The White House's budget proposal was harsher in its criticism of the agency, adopting Mao-like rhetoric. CISA was more focused on censorship than on protecting the nation's critical systems "The budget eliminates programs focused on so-called misinformation and propaganda as well as external engagement offices such as international affairs," it reads [PDF]. "These programs and offices were used as a hub in the censorship industrial complex to violate the First Amendment, target Americans for protected speech, and target the President. CISA was more focused on censorship than on protecting the nation’s critical systems, and put them at risk due to poor management and inefficiency, as well as a focus on self-promotion." Although CISA may take a hit, the Department of Homeland Security as a whole makes out like a bandit in the Trump administration's suggested budget, with a $43 billion-plus boost aimed at ramping up mass deportations and finishing the wall along the Southwest border, stretching from the California coast to the Gulf of Mexico America. The proposed cuts don't stop at CISA. If the President gets his way, the Transportation Security Administration, aka TSA, would lose $247 million, and non-disaster funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency could be slashed by $646 million. In FEMA's case, the budget's authors take aim at its focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion, alleging the agency "discriminated against Americans who voted for the President in the wake of recent hurricanes, skipping over their homes when providing aid." One FEMA staffer was fired in late 2024 for allegedly instructing teams to avoid homes displaying Trump signs. While an internal investigation found no evidence of a broader policy of political discrimination, the incident went viral, and front-line FEMA staff faced threats and harassment as a result. Still, as we said and like the one for NASA, this budget package is just a proposal. It has to survive Capitol Hill, where lawmakers including House Rep Eric Swalwell (D-CA) are already pushing back against deep cuts to CISA. The horse trading is going to be intense.