An independent news publisher on Monday sued the federal government and a “watchdog” group that touts itself as a media fact-checker, claiming First Amendment violations and defamation.

Consortium for Independent Journalism filed the lawsuit against NewsGuard Technologies, Inc. and the U.S. government in the Southern District of New York, accusing the organization of defaming Consortium News and conspiring with the government to violate the First Amendment.

The United States of America and NewsGuard “are engaged in a pattern and practice of labelling, stigmatizing and defaming American media organizations that oppose or dissent from American foreign and defense policy, particularly as to Russia and Ukraine,” the lawsuit reads.

According to the lawsuit, NewsGuard and the federal government formed an alliance under an element of the Intelligence Community known as the Pentagon Cyber Command.

The contract between the two defendants allegedly coerces news outlets to “alter viewpoints” through a NewsGuard program called the “misinformation fingerprints” project, which reportedly received a $750,000 government grant in September 2021.

The lawsuit claims NewsGuard’s software has targeted and defamed Consortium News since the outlet was formed in 1995.

“NewsGuard attaches automatically (and arbitrarily) its electronic ‘brand safety’ or ‘nutrition’ labels to all works of a targeted media organization that appear on a NewsGuard subscriber’s search engine and social media platforms, thereby defaming the entirety of a news organization’s output and slandering its reputation for integrity,” the lawsuit reads.

Bruce Afran, Consortium News’s attorney, reportedly said, “The First Amendment rights of all American media are threatened by this arrangement with the Defense Department to defame and abridge the speech of U.S. media groups.”

“When media groups are condemned by the government as ‘anti-U.S.’ and are accused of publishing ‘false content’ because they disagree with U.S. policies, the result is self-censorship and a destruction of the public debate intended by the First Amendment,” Afran said.

The publisher seeks a permanent injunction for the court to deem the program unconstitutional, prohibit the federal government and NewsGuard from continuing the alliance, and more than $13 million in damages.

The independent news publisher’s lawsuit comes a week after former State Department official Mike Benz, executive director of the Foundation for Freedom Online, claimed NewsGuard allegedly partnered with the European Union to develop codes to combat “mis- and disinformation” on the X social media platform.

The claim sparked a series of posts accusing NewsGaurd of working with other government agencies and organizations to discredit dissenting views from news outlets and influencers.

X-owner Elon Musk called NewsGuard a “scam” and said that the organization should be “disbanded immediately,” noting that “[a]nything with a name that sounds like it came out of an Orwell novel should never be trusted.”

This is crazy! https://t.co/1jurj3sUnW

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 19, 2023

NewsGuard’s Matt Skibinski reportedly called the organization “an alternative” to government suppression.

“NewsGuard was created as an alternative to the black-box algorithms that decide which news content is promoted and which is not on Big Tech platforms — and as an alternative to any government censorship of content,” he said in a statement to Newsmax last week.

Rep. Rashida Tlaib is facing calls to be barred from receiving future classified briefings on military operations in Israel after she has continued to tout debunked Hamas propaganda and repeatedly attacked Israel in the days following an unprecedented terror attack in the country that resulted in the deaths of 1,400 Israelis.

“I demand that Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib be prevented from participating in any classified briefing about Israel’s ongoing military operations, Israel’s self-defense efforts, or any American military movements in and around the region,” Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX) said in a letter to House leadership.

“While there has been broad bipartisan support for Israel’s right to self-defense, we must not allow Hamas sympathizers in this body to serve as the mouthpiece for Palestinian terrorists,” Jackson continued. “Rather than condemn the attacks by Hamas, Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib has chosen to side with Hamas by spreading misinformation. It has become clear that Congresswoman Tlaib’s allegiance lies with Hamas, therefore she cannot be trusted with sensitive information. Her participation in classified discussions around Israel’s self-defense would threaten the integrity of the operation and put American and Israeli lives at risk.”

Jackson cited the fact that Tlaib would not condemn the beheadings of Israeli babies, her repeated promotion of debunked Hamas propaganda that falsely claimed Israel bombed a hospital, and her extensive history of anti-Semitism.

“Congresswoman Tlaib has made her stance clear that she would rather support Hamas and other Iranian terrorist proxy organizations than support the self-defense of Israel and American interests in the Middle East,” he concluded. “Her words and actions have made it clear that she is unable to be trusted with sensitive information, thus she should be barred from receiving classified updates on the war occurring in Israel. I demand that her security clearance be revoked immediately and that she be prevented from participating in any relevant briefings.”

Tlaib continued promoting the false claims about the hospital explosion on Monday night, even though top intelligence agencies from around the world have virtually all concluded that the explosion was caused by a rocket fired by terrorists inside Gaza.

“Both the Israeli and United States governments have long, documented histories of misleading the public about wars and war crimes,” she claimed, adding that she “cannot uncritically accept Israel’s denials of responsibility as fact.”