Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger
Investigative journalist Michael Hastings recently broke a story on BuzzFeed about an amendment that is being inserted into the latest defense authorization bill. The amendment would “legalize the use of propaganda on American audiences.” Hasting reported that the amendment would “strike the current ban on domestic dissemination” of propaganda material produced by the State Department and the Pentagon. He says the “tweak” to the bill would “neutralize” two other acts—the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948 and Foreign Relations Authorization Act in 1987—which were passed in order “to protect U.S. audiences from our own government’s misinformation campaigns.” Rep. Mark Thornberry (R, Texas) and Rep. Adam Smith (D, Washington) are co-sponsors of the bipartisan amendment.
Hastings says that “the new law would give sweeping powers to the State Department and Pentagon to push television, radio, newspaper, and social media onto the U.S. public.” One Pentagon official who is concerned about the amendment told Hastings, “It removes the protection for Americans. It removes oversight from the people who want to put out this information. There are no checks and balances. No one knows if the information is accurate, partially accurate, or entirely false.” The official added that there are “senior public affairs” officers in the Department of Defense who would like to “get rid” of the Smith-Mundt Act “and other restrictions because it prevents information activities designed to prop up unpopular policies—like the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
In a Mediaite piece last week, Josh Feldman wrote of how the US military has been looking for new ways to spread U.S. propaganda “on social media websites for a while now.” Feldman also made reference to an article that was published in Wired last July. In the article, Pentagon Wants a Social Media Propaganda Machine, Adam Rawnsley told of how the DoD “has been working on ways to monitor and engage in ‘countermessaging’ on social media sites like Twitter.”
According to Hastings, the Pentagon already spends about $4 billion dollars annually to “sway public opinion.”
Here’s something to chill you to the bone: Hastings reported that USA Today had recently published an article about the DoD having spent “$202 million on information operations in Iraq and Afghanistan last year.” Well, it appears that the reporters who worked on the USA Today article were targeted by “Pentagon contractors, who created fake Facebook pages and Twitter accounts in an attempt to discredit them.” (Read about that story here.)
One of Hastings sources on the Hill told him, “I just don’t want to see something this significant – whatever the pros and cons – go through without anyone noticing.” The source added that the law would allow “U.S. propaganda intended to influence foreign audiences to be used on the domestic population.”
Michael Hastings:
The evaporation of Smith-Mundt and other provisions to safeguard U.S. citizens against government propaganda campaigns is part of a larger trend within the diplomatic and military establishment.
In December, the Pentagon used software to monitor the Twitter debate over Bradley Manning’s pre-trial hearing; another program being developed by the Pentagon would design software to create “sock puppets” on social media outlets; and, last year, General William Caldwell, deployed an information operations team under his command that had been trained in psychological operations to influence visiting American politicians to Kabul.
The upshot, at times, is the Department of Defense using the same tools on U.S. citizens as on a hostile, foreign, population.
Is this how we want our tax dollars being spent—to produce propaganda aimed at us Americans to sway public opinion?
SOURCES
Congressmen Seek To Lift Propaganda Ban (BuzzFeed)
Congress May Reverse Ban On Domestic Distribution Of Propaganda Material (Mediaite)
Pentagon Wants a Social Media Propaganda Machine (Wired)
Misinformation campaign targets USA TODAY reporter, editor (USA Today)
3 Occupy livestreamers stopped and rousted at night in their car, guns drawn- they were handcuffed and then released. This was after learning that the apartment they were staying at in Chicago had been sacked that afternoon by the police while they were out covering the march.
They lost some sleep but are back livestreaming today. Pure intimidation of the new media:
http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/Citizen-Journalists-Detained-at-Gunpoint-by-CPD-152206965.html
Excerpt:
April 23-24, 2012 — NSA establishing large Internet surveillance facility in Tennessee
Sources in the U.S. intelligence community report that the National Security Agency (NSA) is establishing a major Internet surveillance at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee that is dedicated to decrypting encoded communications, including file transfers, over the Internet and within private private networks such as those used by banks, foreign governments, and multinational corporations.
“One would hope at some point all members of the press would aspire to be the unwavering voice of the truth. That to me is far more heroic than being a stooge of the government.”
April 20-22, 2012 — NSA spying operation targeting journalists focused but massive
National Security Agency (NSA) sources have reported the following to WMR:
The NSA has conducted a targeted but massive surveillance operation against certain journalists who have routinely exposed NSA’s illegal domestic communication surveillance program, code named STELLAR WIND.
NSA has, for some time, kept tabs on journalists who wrote about the communication spying agency. In its embryonic stage, the journalist surveillance system, originally code-named FIRSTFRUITS, was basically a clipping service that provided NSA and CIA analysts with copies of newspaper, magazine, and Internet articles that mentioned one or both of the two agencies.
Shortly after the September 11, 2001 attacks, Vice President Dick Cheney’s legal counsel, David Addington, visited NSA headquarters at Fort Meade, Maryland with a list of individuals he wanted NSA to spy on and provide Cheney’s office with transcripts of phone calls and e-mails. From that visit, STELLAR WIND was developed as an illegal surveillance system targeting journalists, members of Congress, and other “persons of interest” for the White House.
In March 2004, Attorney General John Ashcroft ruled STELLAR WIND illegal but the next day he became critically ill with pancreatitis. When White House chief of staff Andrew Card and White House counsel Alberto Gonzales visited Ashcroft in his hospital room to demand he sign off on the program, Ashcroft deferred to his deputy James Comey and FBI director Robert Mueller who both refused to authorize the program. George W. Bush overruled Ashcroft, Comey, and Mueller and continued to authorize STELLAR WIND. President Obama has continued to authorize STELLAR WIND, according to NSA sources.
Although STELLAR WIND continues to generally target journalists who write about intelligence and national security matters, NSA has cncentrated its efforts on three journalists, in particular. They are New York Times’ reporter and author of State of War James Risen, journalist and author of The Puzzle Palace and Body of Secrets James Bamford, and WMR editor Wayne Madsen. Risen continues to fight a grand jury subpoena to testify about his sources on Operation Merlin, a CIA program to deliver flawed nuclear design technology to Iran. Former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling has been indicted and charged under the Espionage Act for revealing details of the program. Risen’s subpoena was quashed by Judge Louise Brinkema of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, but the Obama administration has appealed the decision to the U.S. Appeals Court for the Fourth Circuit in Richmond, Virginia and oral arguments in the case are scheduled for next month.
NSA sources report: Wayne Madsen’s e-mails and phone conversations back to 2002 are in the possession of the NSA. The phone calls range from those with his mother to those with government sources. All passwords to social networking websites, banks, phone companies, credit card companies, and his website, WayneMadsenReport, are held by the NSA. The data includes the list of his subscribers to WayneMadsenReport, as well.
The same level of detailed data is maintained on Risen and Bamford.
Personal observation: It is very clear that a number of individuals who contacted this editor over the past several years to pass on information were stymied at the last minute from maintaining contact. These individuals were willing to provide information on: the movement and temporary “loss” of nuclear weapons from Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota to Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana in 2007 coupled with the murder of Air Force special operation Captain John Frueh in Washington state; documents proving Canadian military involvement in torture of detainees in Afghanistan; information on the 2000 attack on the USS Cole in Aden harbor being a “false flag” attack; evidence that there were no human remains found at the crash shite of United flight 93 in Shanksville, Pennsylvania; and evidence showing that Harvard virologist Dr. Don Wiley, who was investigating the initial anthrax attacks, was murdered in Memphis in November 2001.
In all these cases, individuals who contacted this editor and were willing to provide information ceased contact after their initial phone calls, letters, and email.
NSA also maintains mail covers on addresses of certain individuals in the event that contact is made via the U.S. Postal Service or private companies such as FedEx or DHL.
FIRSTFRUITS, which is now known by a different cover name, contains, in addition to articles, complete transcripts of phone calls, e-mails, faxes, and letters, in addition to the numbers and names of all individuals who have been in contact with targeted journalists. In addition to the three high priority targets — Risen, Bamford, and Madsen — other journalists who are a subject of the NSA warrantless surveillance include Bill Gertz of The Washington Times, Eric Lichtblau and Scott Shane of The New York Times, Siobhan Gorman, formerly of The Baltimore Sun and now with The Wall Street Journal, and Seymour Hersh with The New Yorker.
So far, the Obama administration has brought Espionage Act charges against six individuals for contact with the media. They are charged with providing classified information to journalists and “aiding the enemy.”
However, the Justice Department may take an even more draconian turn. This editor has heard from NSA insiders that there is a willingness by some quarters to charge two of the three key targeted journalists under the Espionage Act. Since Bamford and Madsen both once worked at NSA and both signed non-disclosure agreements — Bamford in the 1960s and Madsen in the mid-1980s — there has been talk of indicting them also for violations of the Espionage Act, along with their sources in the intelligence community.
Do you want to kill your food instead? Meat has more calories.
Elaine,
As you said about your topic, most people know about propaganda but it’s still important to talk about it. Likewise, the US govt. has historically been heavily involved in weaponizing the world, overthrowing dictators and the like. JFK is on tape laughing about who he was going to kill in Latin American next! Of course, Eisenhower was installing a puppet in Iran after those people voted the “wrong” way.
So yes, it’s been happening for a long time. I think it is important to understand this aspect of our govt. from a current events as well as an historical perspective. History can give us real insight into the present. Thank you for pointing to our long history in this matter.
I wondered if you connected it to the present in a certain way or if you feel there’s not much continuity to the present situation.
One does have to wonder exactly what advantages will be had by codifying something that has been so extensively practiced since hunter/gatherers started planting crops.
Jill,
Keep drinking whatever soda you want to.
shano,
We’ve been giving weapons to bad guys and aiding and abetting dictators for many decades. SSDD!
Matt,
to answer your questions, Yes, I am a citizen. No, I did not get my law degree from a Cracker Jack Box. I was more inclined to eat Cheese popcorn before Cracker Jack anyway.
The First amendment protects citizens from Government action to supress the freedom of speech, or at least it is supposed to. Not the other way around. The government has no freedom of speech rights to spew propaganda to the citizens.
Jill,
We have to take care with regard to free speech. That’s subjective. What happens if you disclose information that’s in the public domain? When certain people don’t want you to disclose that information?
shano,
You’re correct. Do you think she acted without Obama’s knowledge on a matter of such importance? Because the facts clearly show that her boss approved of weapons sales to Bahrain right in the middle of one instance a very bloody crack down.
Hillary went on a propaganda tour to market Bahrain to the public. She sold them some weapons while they were killing their own citizens in the streets
Will the Neo Liberals ever have to admit this looks terrible and the American people, if they were wise to what the government is doing, would revolt.
Why does Hillary want to give weapons to the bad guys? Because we have a strategic MIC base there. They can blackmail the US for anything they want.
Matt,
I wondered how you felt about the govt.’s exercising of free speech to propagandize US citizens while simultaneously restricting free speech of ordinary citizens, whistle blowers, reporters and the like to tell important but inconvenient truths?
The govt. doesn’t put itself under arrest, pepper spray, torture, seize the assets of or prosecute itself for free speeching. Yet each of these has been and is currently being done to people who don’t free speech the way the govt. approves of.
That’s a huge disparity of treatment. Why do you think there is such a disparity over the use of free speech?
I’m originally from Oregon. And I swat flies with a flyswatter.
This will never fly. Americans will be on to them like flys on merde. I hear the first major wave of propaganda will be code named, “BWS” and will target the “serious people”. It will attempt to convince them there is absolutely no hope breaking free of the pols who are abusing them and they must simply vote, “the lesser of evils” (that’s the code phrase that’s supposed to make their mouths water) even though it will lock them into a deadly relationship of enablement in perpetuity.
Then there is some sort of nonsense about giving them catch phrases, like “purists” to “protect themsleves” when confronted with facts. Absolute rubbish.
Now seriously, can you imagine any Americans falling for that? I mean really…We have nothing whatsoever to fear from this bill even if it passes.
“Then there is some sort of nonsense about giving them catch phrases, like “purists” to “protect themsleves” when confronted with facts. Absolute rubbish.”
BrooklinBridge,
It must be so comforting to have absolute certainty of belief. To sit on your pedestal and look down at the unwashed masses needing your cogent analysis of everything. To feel yourself as one of the few people existing who has integrity. Beyond integrity though, is your complete understanding that “true political insight” only resides with you and those who agree with you. Occasionally though, when you allow the errant stray thought to glide through the perfection of your consciousness, there might be the temporary question of why people aren’t following your lead to the extent that they should, given the perfection of your message. You of course push that away because you will have none of that “being self critical bullshit”. Then you drift back to the mirror in which you contemplate the wisdom and greatness that is you.
The fact is BB that there is a difference between the Corporate Republicans and the Corporate Democrats. They both serve Corporate power, but the Corporate Republican’s will only make things much worse for the middle class,
the poverty stricken, women, gay people and people of color. If you can’t see the fact of that then your political analysis is skewed. Here’s the problem that you and your cohorts face. This country is moving inexorably towards a Feudal Fascist State, if we aren’t mostly there. The need now is to stave it off as long as possible until opposition can build. There needs to be a broad based movement to oppose it, but organization becomes problematic when people like you scare away possible recruits who do not meet up to your level of political perfection. You all simply don’t know how to turn on popular support and build coalitions. So you sit on your asses and pontificate with like minded others, rather the actually creating bridges between people.
You all act like this assault on the Constitution and American Freedoms is something new. I lived through the Cold War and the McCarthy era and people were being murdered back then in service to the M.I. Complex. The problem was that when the revolution, that I was part of, came in the 60’s it was weakened by preening, purist peacocks like yourself. Martin Luther King, the most effective leader of a mass movement in this country’s history was disparaged by the likes of Eldridge Cleaver and Stokely Carmichael, shouting for “Black Power” and destroying the broad based coalition Dr. King had built, taking down the Civil Rights Movement with it. It’s interesting that history shows that both Cleaver and Carmichael eventually sold out.
Then there was the Anti-War Movement originally led by people like Tom Hayden and David Dellinger. That got co-opted by the likes of dilettante Abby Hoffman and Jerry Rubin. They were so personally pure that they believed they could ridicule the public to its face3 and still create a popular movement. All they did was elect Nixon and extend the war. However, Mr. Putative Radical let’s really talk turkey. JFK, RFK and MLK were murdered by forces within our permanent corporate government that would only brook so much opposition to their policies of greed and foreign intervention. You who are so good at political analysis are so quick to criticize Obama for not immediately taking their playthings, like torture and foreign murder, away from the M.I./Corporate Complex. Your preference would be a martyrdom doing what you consider to be the right thing. Any President may be The Commander In Chief, but are you really so naive to believe that he holds real military power?
The only path to change is via broad based, wide spectrum national movements like the recent one in Iceland, or the other nascent ones in Europe. You think you are so wise to the ways of the world but the fact is you simply don’t get it and are dangerous to those of us who do get it, because you sap any potential movement of its recruits by anathematizing them and thus turning them off.
Darren,
I’m an accountant. I’m in Wisconsin.
rafflaw,
Are you a citizen? Did you get your law degree from a cracker jack box?
feemeister,
There certainly was a big government propaganda push to sell the public about going to war with Iraq. And it worked!
I think many of us who are regulars and visitors of this blog realize we have been/are being fed propaganda on a daily basis. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t call attention to it.
Now, Bron, to paraphrase others: Consider that it’s not merely the size of the pie that is the problem, but who gets to determine how big each slice is and what it funds. Size alone is not the problem, and shrinking government in toto to simply wring out the fat that you consider a waste is neither efficient nor certain — unless like Grover N. you want to drown the whole thing (which he really doesn’t). You don’t, do you? Surely you’ve considered this far.
Darren,
I took legal action, too. Didn’t do much good. Welcome to the American legal system. If you want to call it that.