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)
Matt,
In which case you get the bitch seat, and she drives. Well deserved on your part. Didn’t recognize you today.
I was a soldier, and the only time I looked for a foxhole was when the gas tank got empty over the Yuma
Mountains. Could not land a helicopter, much less a Beaver. We did not have parachutes.
Idealist707, you have simply re-stated the same charge in a slightly different way so I will simply re-answer in kind.
It sounds like you are asking me to prove in political terms that a geometrical figure with three sides is a triangle. I can’t “prove” that Romney would be contained by gridlock or partisan struggle, but I can claim based on past history that it is a reasonable assumption. It is demonstrably why George Bush’s assault on the safety net failed, for instance.
But it has become clear that you were not asking me for proof of anything anyway. At least not in some reasonable manner to which I could respond. You were simply trying to set me up for an opinion you had already formed; namely that I’m a troll. I said, “Boo!” Aren’t you happy now?
Dredd,
I was in the Navy. I wore boots, and I had a knife. There aren’t any foxholes in the ocean.
Watch out for preachers who don’t know what they’re talking about. And don’t drink the lemonade.
My apology to bettykath. Maybe I’ll buy a Harley.
Matt Johnson 1, May 21, 2012 at 1:09 pm
I was sorta remembering my kids telling me about a certain character on Sesame Street, “Forgetful Jones” I think it was, who was always inventing things that had already been invented.
Legalizing propaganda in the U.S.eh? would be an example of that, in the sense that it is not only legal, it is a billion dollar industry.
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Stay away from the Lemonade.
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Indeed, and stay away from the tin foil hats too, as you watch the word morph.
Words are one of the prime targets of propagandists:
(Your God Wears Combat Boots), This change in meaning of this phrase is one of the fingerprints of propaganda. There are countless others.
1zb1,
“What is wrong with you people!”
That we don’t agree with you? That we don’t play by your rules?
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I thought this post WAS about government propaganda. One would think that talking about what propaganda is and how propaganda has been used by governments in the past IS pertinent to this discussion. Sorry I didn’t limit my comments to points that you believe are pertinent to the discussion.
I’m not a lawyer, I’m an accountant. I don’t know how to write legal rules. There are rules, you know.
em: this was a discussion about a bill related to the use of certain kinds of information. it was generally mischaracterized in the Hastings article; further mischaracterized in your blog; and further further mischaracterized by others.
i doubt you even read the bill brefore even writing about it.
from there you have gone from to what is propaganda; and from there to the use of propaganda and its relationship to the holocaust; and from there to all “propaganda” by the government contributes to holocaust:
em: you asked me: “Should I assume that you believe that Nazi propaganda did no harm to the Jews who lived in Germany?”
em, I’m sure in some way you are ernast and mean well, but can i tell you i really just have no interest in talking to you further about this.
What is wrong with you people!
bettykath,
Do you have a motorcycle? I won’t ride on the bitch seat.
Matt Johnson 1, May 21, 2012 at 1:02 pm
bettykath,
Stay out of India. Go play games in Baja instead..
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Huh?
BB,
I understand your not wanting to participate in something that’s corrupt. May I suggest an alternative? Vote, but vote for someone other than a candidate of the two-headed party. We already have a very large contingent not participating. What we need is more people being active in their non-support.
I think voter participation would go up if none-of-the-above were on every ballot.
On the downside, with the privately developed computer voting machines, there is no guarantee that your vote will be counted, or counted as you intended, but still, maybe it will be. Btw, “Tests of a number of electronic voting machines that recorded shockingly high numbers of extra votes in the 2010 election show that overheating may have caused upwards of 30 percent of votes in some South Bronx voting precincts to go uncounted. WNYC first reported on the issue in December 2011, when it was found that tens of thousands of votes in the 2010 elections went uncounted because electronic voting machines counted more than one vote in a race.
You can read whatever you choose to read into my comments. It appeared to me–and you can correct me if I misintrepreted your argument–that you have no problem with government produced propaganda paid for by the taxpayers. You appear to think that a government will never have bad/evil intentions when spreading/distributing propaganda. It was our government that fed propaganda to journalists like Judith Miller that helped the Bush Administration sway the opinion of many citizens–and also members of the media–about the advisabilty of starting a preemptive war with Iraq.
You can denigrate my argument all you want. I think I made a valid point about government propaganda. Should I assume that you believe that Nazi propaganda did no harm to the Jews who lived in Germany?
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Is mission accomplished? Stay off the aircraft carriers.
1zb1,
Did I insult you in any way?
1zb1,
“em, like so many of the “conversations” on this blog – dare i say all – it routinely descends from the absurd to the ridicules; and from something vaguely resembling an actual discussion of the issue at hand to an exchange of insults; from paying a fine becomes forcing you to eat broccoli, and now in your case from setting rules for disclosing information to now causing the holocaust.
“i have only myself to blame for wasting my time here, and jt for letting it persist.’
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You can read whatever you choose to read into my comments. It appeared to me–and you can correct me if I misintrepreted your argument–that you have no problem with government produced propaganda paid for by the taxpayers. You appear to think that a government will never have bad/evil intentions when spreading/distributing propaganda. It was our government that fed propaganda to journalists like Judith Miller that helped the Bush Administration sway the opinion of many citizens–and also members of the media–about the advisabilty of starting a preemptive war with Iraq.
You can denigrate my argument all you want. I think I made a valid point about government propaganda. Should I assume that you believe that Nazi propaganda did no harm to the Jews who lived in Germany?
I was sorta remembering my kids telling me about a certain character on Sesame Street, “Forgetful Jones” I think it was, who was always inventing things that had already been invented.
Legalizing propaganda in the U.S.eh? would be an example of that, in the sense that it is not only legal, it is a billion dollar industry.
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Stay away from the Lemonade.
bettykath,
Stay out of India. Go play games in Baja instead..
bettykath 1, May 21, 2012 at 11:22 am
Dredd 1, May 21, 2012 at 10:34 am
“What is the GOP-run House going to legalize next, water?”
Did you mean “privatize” instead of “legalize”? They’re working on it.
Matt Johnson 1, May 21, 2012 at 11:24 am
Dredd,
What is the GOP-run House going to legalize next, water?
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A gallon of water is worth more in the middle east than a gallon of oil. Figure that out.
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I was sorta remembering my kids telling me about a certain character on Sesame Street, “Forgetful Jones” I think it was, who was always inventing things that had already been invented.
Legalizing propaganda in the U.S.eh? would be an example of that, in the sense that it is not only legal, it is a billion dollar industry.
A bit off topic but I want to share. Wayne Madsen has a special added feature.
“GOLDEN FECES AWARD
“In April, Greek anti-austerity protesters dropped off a replica of a golden turd at the German embassy in Athens. The giant curled turd was covered in gold paper. In honor of these protesters, WMR will, every Friday, name its recipient of the “Golden Feces” award. The winner will be the person or institution that demonstrated an utter disregard for the common folk or the truth or just plain common sense during the previous week’s news cycle.
“The WMR Golden Feces award will be presented and posted on the public page of WMR based on nominations from you, the subscribers, on Thursday evening of each week. To make your nominations, please indicate on the Thursday forum dedicated to the nomination, your choice and a brief explanation of why. When able, WMR will forward the announcement of the award by e-mail to the recipient.”
I have such a list and he wants only one!!
em, like so many of the “conversations” on this blog – dare i say all – it routinely descends from the absurd to the ridicules; and from something vaguely resembling an actual discussion of the issue at hand to an exchange of insults; from paying a fine becomes forcing you to eat broccoli, and now in your case from setting rules for disclosing information to now causing the holocaust.
i have only myself to blame for wasting my time here, and jt for letting it persist.
BB,
My original comment was to YOUR contention that abstaining from voting was a viable strategy.
To that I asked for you to produce an example of one which has súcceeded historically or to outline how it would work today.
So far you have produced nothing of what I asked for.
You have not even said that the request was invalid and for what reasons. You thus avoid the issue.
What you call that I don’t know.
But you are producing words which don’t advance or even address the issue. Which is your original claim, which I challenged.
Can you address the issue? I don’t think you will.
Matt,
I don’t have TV so had to look up Greta Van Susteren. She seems to be a Palin supporter. Wonder why? She “married tort lawyer John P. Coale in 1988. Coale, a self-described ‘ambulance chaser’, became known as ‘Bhopal Coale’ for his solicitation of clients among victims of the Bhopal disaster. He has served as an adviser for Sarah Palin.”