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)
Welcome to Fascism folks. Admit it or not, this country is no longer a Republic. Our so-called representatives in Congress have sold us out for a
few pieces of silver.
Elaine. You are correct, media stll shills for the wars that we entered in the middle east et al. Even in the days with what I nostalgicly referred to the old days of the newspaper it wasn’t without its yellow leanings, especially with regard to William Hearst. (Excerpt from Wikipedia) To me Sinclair’s writings said it all.
“Hearst’s use of yellow journalism techniques in his New York Journal to whip up popular support for U.S. military adventurism in Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines in 1898 was also criticized in Upton Sinclair’s 1919 book, The Brass Check: A Study of American Journalism. According to Sinclair, Hearst’s newspaper employees were “willing by deliberate and shameful lies, made out of whole cloth, to stir nations to enmity and drive them to murderous war.”
“the press will expose the corruption, sleaze, or other misconduct of the gov’t, corporations, or individuals” Darren
Wikileaks was doing a great job.
Something happened, maybe they did not make a living doing this- or maybe the banks were instructed to stop doing business with them- who can tell?
OT If I may be sort of bossy here, Darren, please add some coconut oil to your diet. It will protect your nerve integrity.
Drink the coconut water too. You should be eating all sorts of beneficial oils packed with Omega 3s. Hemp oil has the best Omega 3 to 6 ratio. /cold pressed organic oils that are fresh!
You need these oils to repair the sheaths that enclose and protect your nervous system. From experience…..
Elaine:
“I’d say government money wasted in this way–as well as other ways–could be used toward repairing roads and crumbling infrastructure, education, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, etc. Our politicians tell us there is no money for such things–but there really is.”
Money is wasted when it isnt yours and when there is no real accountability.
There is plenty of money, it just gets wasted on stupid things and government gets overcharged for all the rest.
“Professor Turley:
Thank you for your kind remarks and to receive such from you to me is a welcome compliment”.
Darren,
I see already that you responded and I deeply apologize for the confusion, but my appreciation still stands. A Kindle Fire sometimes is a damnable device to deal with, but nevertheless I should have used more caution. In any event the slip-up with you wasn’t even my worst of the day. On Raff’s thread on the Clout of the Cubs today, I made a comment seemingly as JT, criticizing the hallowed Wrigley Field and Professor Turley is an ardent Cubs fan.
I was sorry to hear about your Parkinson’s because it runs in my family, but it is good to hear that your are feeling better with therapy. It is so nice to have you on board with us. One of our most honored commentors through the years was a man with the handle FFLEO. He was a retired Federal Agent, lived in the rural West and was a solid Republican. He was also a civil libertarian, with a keen intelligence and a pristine integrity. I admired him greatly and at the time he was the oldest person commenting here, except for myself. He stopped coming over what he felt was an issue of integrity and I still miss his wisdom.
Because this is a blog concerned with civil liberties of there are stories and comments very critical of LEO’s. It becomes easy to forget that those who don’t respect the law are not in the majority. It is also easy to lose sight of the fact that law enforcement officers deal with the difficult political realities of their jobs.I can’t imagine how hard it must be to have entered law enforcement with ideals and have the nature of most systems give you not so subtle messages that there are other agendas that sometimes drive enforcement. I’m an NYC native and the politicians commonly praise “New York’s Finest” and are publicly supportive. However, they barely take care of the precinct working environments/equipment and become aloof towards the police comes contract time.
Mike:
No worries. I’m equally as glad to receive your compliments as well. Keep up the good work and the lively debate Mike .
Darren Smith,
“I guess my own sense of nostalgia still clings to the notion a person can go to the press and the press will expose the corruption, sleaze, or other misconduct of the gov’t, corporations, or individuals. Maybe it is from watching “old” movies as a younger person. ”
*****
I DO believe there are still REAL journalists who work hard to expose corruption, sleaze, or other misconduct of the government, corporations, individuals. That said, I think many of those journalists are not among the talking heads we often see on news programs and the Sunday morning shows like Meet the Press. A handful of corporations now own the majority of media outlets–down from several dozens years ago. I don’t think those corporations are as interested in uncovering the truth as they are at making money. Those corporations, I believe, had a hand in trying to push public opinion toward supporting a war with Iraq.
Darren,
From your writing I take it that you’re a LEO and one with integrity and a good heart. Having worked with LEO’s for 8 years in Child Welfare and working for NYC for 37 years I understand how hard it is to do the right thing. I applaud you.
(I previously made this comment above but it appeared with Professor Turley’s name, since I was using a Kindle earlier that had not logged out from JT’s wordpress account after I’d written my post yesterday. Sorry for any confusion)
Yemen has only certain few government-authorized news outlets. Saleh controlled the information in Yemen until the Internet took over and he couldn’t stop information. Once you have the government merging with the news outlets, you don’t have to go far (just have so many people buy guns that there are more guns than people) to become Yemen.
Another interesting aspect of this is, why so open about it? What does it say when our government doesn’t even bat an eye in introducing a bill (or amendment) to make propaganda legal?
Let the chips fall where they may. Otherwise, you get what you get.
This is not a society built on accountability, but one built on LIABILITY. Thus, as Darren Smith says, you can’t make anyone accountable unless you can hold them liable, which is generally NOT something our “justice” system wants to get behind. That is, it is all for accountability of the little guys who are easy to push around; accountability for the big guys who can’t be pushed around so quickly is a rare commodity indeed.
Our “justice” system particularly does not want to get behind a demand for accountability on the part of any governmental entity, whether it’s city, county, state, agency, even quasi-governmental or the big contractors. There are just too many heads that could roll if the heads started rolling.
Not sure I want to live in a nation that frames its own citizens by planting evidence to prove their propaganda:
http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2012/05/19/nato-3-came-to-chicago-to-commit-terrorist-acts-of-violence-cpd-fbi-secret-service-claim/
Jill,
“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.”
I’m not sure exactly what you mean. What does “it” refer to–the use of propaganda…the weaponizing of other countries…the propping up of dictators…helping to overthrow elected leaders in other nations?
All of the above?
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.”
Again, one wonders how this is different from now except, or course, in terms of formal accountability (a big yawn from the banks at the mention of “accountability”). No one knows if the information is accurate, partially accurate, or entirely false. That is an amazingly exact description of every single mainstream news or opinion show on any channel out there.
Granted, putting it in a bill and making it law is hideous, remarkable if you think about it, and run of the mill if you don’t.
Professor Turley:
Thank you for your kind remarks and to receive such from you to me is a welcome compliment. I’m grateful for this.
I had to retire from the Sheriff’s Office this year due to coming down with Young Onset Parkinson’s Disease. I’m still on the roster for a small city PD I work part time for on occasion, often when rookies were in the academy. The Chief there held the faith one day I would return to working the road and wants to see me doing this. Lately I have seen my condition improve and I might be able to come back maybe on a part time basis. At least it is a good goal to motivate me during physical therapy.
Again, Thank You Professor.
Maybe Wayne Madsen should stop talking to his mother. Is he Italian?
Do you know who is the largest dealer of military armaments in the world? The United States.
My two previous posts are in response to the expectation that journalists would keep us informed about what’s going on.
Even if the journalists writes a good story, there is no guarantee that it will be published in MSM.
Obama has been ruthless in prosecuting whistle-blowers. In some cases, the feds have planted evidence so the person is charged with espionage.