Tag: police state

Disinformation, Censorship, And Information Warfare In The 21st Century

All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.”– Sun Tzu, the Art of War

In recent years, prominent national security officials and media outlets have raised alarm about the unprecedented effects of foreign disinformation in democratic countries. In practice, what they mean is that democratic governments have fallen behind in their command of the methods of information warfare in the early 21st century. As outlined herein, while information warfare is a real and serious issue facing democratic governments in the 21st century, the war on disinformation, as currently practiced, has backfired spectacularly and done far more harm than good, as evidenced most clearly by the response to COVID-19.

We begin with the definitions and history of a few key terms: Censorship, free speech, misinformation, disinformation, and bots.

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The Big List of former federal agents now working for Big Tech

For those who think Big Tech has been a little more Big Brotherish lately, there’s a reason.

The concern has been raised because Big Tech companies like Twitter, Google and Facebook have in recent years openly censored messaging that conflicts with Democrat ideology.

They even shut down the channel for the voice of a sitting president of the United States, Donald Trump, because his opinion about the 2020 election disagreed with theirs.

Of course, the corporations called the speech they censored “misinformation,” but the American public now understands that accusation itself was misinformation.

But the real reason Silicon Valley sometimes is sounding like the FBI headquarters is that Big Tech companies are literally “riddled” with former CIA agents, former FBI staffers, and more.

“So many ex-FBI work at Twitter they have Slack channel and Google is rife with ex-CIA,” a new report says.

The Daily Mail has assembled a list of those who left spy operations for the government and now are in Big Tech, and it runs on for pages. And pages.

The revelation about the large number of former FBI, CIA, NSC and State Department operatives now working for Big Tech “comes amid fears the FBI operated control over Twitter censorship and the Hunter Biden laptop story,” the report said.

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Cops raid hospital room of terminally-ill Kansas man, 69, with just weeks left to live to seize THC paste and weed vape he uses to ease cancer pain – then order him to appear in court even though he can’t move

A terminally-ill Kansas man’s hospital room was raided by cops because he used a weed vape and THC paste to ease the symptoms of the cancer that will kill him within weeks.

Greg Bretz, 69, was targeted by police in Hays Medical Center on December 23. He was after officers found marijuana products within his room, and ordered to appear in court on January 2 – despite being so sick he cannot get out of bed or even move. 

Kansas is one of only three US states where medical marijuana is still illegal. Bretz told the Kansas City Star his doctor had told him to use whatever was necessary to relieve his pain, including products containing THC – the active ingredient in cannabis. 

But another member of staff is believed to have snitched on Bretz and sparked the subsequent raid.  

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Camila Giorgi among the suspects for fake vaccinations

Camila Giorgi would be among the suspects in the investigation opened by the Vicenza prosecutor’s office, in Italy, for false anti-Covid-19 vaccinations. According to what emerged and reported by Italian media, Camila would have only pretended to have been vaccinated against Covid-19, with the intention of obtaining the green pass in any case and not having travel restrictions, as well as regularly participating in the tournaments of the WTA Tour that expressly required the administration.

The news was launched in these hours and has inevitably attracted the attention of the world of sport and music. We now await insights and updates on the matter, which confirm or deny the latest news. It all started last February, when the Vicenza prosecutor’s office conducted an investigation that led to the arrest of three doctors, all accused of various crimes such as corruption for acts contrary to official duties, ideological falsehood committed by the public official in public deeds and embezzlement.

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Governments are Still Free to Use the Pegasus Software Without Human Rights Safeguards in Place

In September 2022, Szabolcs Panyi, a Hungarian investigative journalist with Direkt36, published a story on how the Pegasus software was brought to Hungary. The report demonstrates how easily governments can exploit surveillance technologies without human rights safeguards in place.

Panyi — also a target of Pegasus — explained the circumstances under which Pegasus was brought to Hungary and the National Security Service’s (NSS) role in the transaction. Direkt36 revealed in 2021 that journalists and politicians in Hungary could have been tapped with the tool.

According to Direkt36, the National Security Service commissioned Communication Technologies Ltd. in 2017 to acquire the spy software developed by the Israeli company NSO Group. According to sources familiar with the circumstances of the transaction, the spyware was purchased for HUF 3 billion (approx. EUR 7.45 million). The investigation found that the whole transaction remained secret because, in October 2017, Parliament’s National Security Committee voted unanimously and without question to exempt the purchase of the spy software from public procurement.

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New ‘Twitter Files’ Release on Christmas Eve Exposes FBI Denials About Political Censorship Operation

Despite the FBI’s denials that evidence that the nation’s premier law enforcement agency colluded with Big Tech platform Twitter to unconstitutionally censor Americans’ political speech, a brand-new Twitter Files dump shows that the FBI did just that.

The latest Twitter Files revelations starts off with independent journalist Matt Taibbi discussing the FBI’s response to the first batches of Twitter disclosures.

“It didn’t refute allegations. Instead, it decried ‘conspiracy theorists’ publishing ‘misinformation,’ whose ‘sole aim’ is to ‘discredit the agency,’” Taibbi wrote, referencing the way the FBI dismissed censorship allegations as a conspiracy theory.

The Christmas Eve revelations suggested that the FBI acted as a “doorman to the vast program of social media surveillance and censorship.” Taibbi says more government agencies were involved – from the “State Department to the Pentagon to the CIA.”

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You’d Better Watch Out: The Surveillance State Is Making a List, And You’re On It

You’d better watch out—you’d better not pout—you’d better not cry—‘cos I’m telling you why: this Christmas, it’s the Surveillance State that’s making a list and checking it twice, and it won’t matter whether you’ve been bad or good.

You’ll be on this list whether you like it or not.

Mass surveillance is the Deep State’s version of a “gift” that keeps on giving…back to the Deep State.

Geofencing dragnets. Fusion centers. Smart devices. Behavioral threat assessments. Terror watch lists. Facial recognition. Snitch tip lines. Biometric scanners. Pre-crime. DNA databases. Data mining. Precognitive technology. Contact tracing apps.

What these add up to is a world in which, on any given day, the average person is now monitored, surveilled, spied on and tracked in more than 20 different ways by both government and corporate eyes and ears.

Big Tech wedded to Big Government has become Big Brother.

Every second of every day, the American people are being spied on by a vast network of digital Peeping Toms, electronic eavesdroppers and robotic snoops.

This creepy new era of government/corporate spying—in which we’re being listened to, watched, tracked, followed, mapped, bought, sold and targeted—has been made possible by a global army of techno-tyrants, fusion centers and Peeping Toms.

Consider just a small sampling of the tools being used to track our movements, monitor our spending, and sniff out all the ways in which our thoughts, actions and social circles might land us on the government’s naughty list, whether or not you’ve done anything wrong.

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14 Signs of Totalitarianism

We all know the cons of Twitter, but one of the pros is discovering new and interesting people.

One of my favorite new follows is Benjamin Carlson, a public relations guru and former editor at The Atlantic. Carlson’s tweets are among the best you’ll find on Twitter, and he clearly has a keen understanding of the intersections between media and government, power and propaganda (both current and historically).

One of his recent tweets caught my eye, and I share an adaptation of it below.

1. Dissent is equated to violence

2. Media is controlled

3. The legal system is co-opted by the state

4. Power is exerted to quash dissent

5. State police protect the regime, not the people

6. Rights—financial, legal, and civil—are contingent on compliance

7. Mass conformity of beliefs and behaviors is demanded

8. Power is concentrated in inner ring of elite institutions and people

9. Semi-organized violence is permitted (in some cases)

10. Propaganda targets enemies of the state regime

11. Entire classes singled out for persecution

12. Extra-legal actions are condoned against internal regime opponents

13. Harsh legal enforcement against unfavored classes

14. Private and public levers of power are used to enforce adherence to state dogmas

The list is a bit troubling. At the very least, some of these techniques are playing out before our eyes. This is certainly not to say that the US is a totalitarian state, however.

There are many definitions of totalitarianism, and I don’t believe one can seriously argue that the United States has arrived there. But authoritarianism is certainly in the air, and it emanates most strongly from our nation’s capital.

While both the political Right and the political Left accuse each other of harboring tyrannical ambitions, the philosopher Karl Popper offered a clue as to when a legitimate government crosses the line and becomes a tyrannical one.

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Marijuana Law Reached Peak Absurdity in 2022

Banning a plant with hundreds of industrial and medical uses was never going to work out well, but 2022 saw marijuana prohibition reach peak absurdity, not to mention peak confusion for consumers and new businesses trying to make sense of it all.

At first glance, cannabis reform appears to be humming along smoothly. Maryland, Missouri and Rhode Island approved legalization initiatives in 2022 as states such as New Mexico and New York raced to establish regulations for legal recreational sales. New laws in mostly blue states expunged cannabis arrests from criminal records for thousands of people. President Joe Biden made moves to pardon federal marijuana prisoners and reconsider the federal “scheduling” of marijuana, a baby step toward potentially ending federal prohibition administratively. Lawmakers debated cannabis reform bills in Congress, even if the vast majority were never passed into law.

A look under the hood, however, reveals regulatory chaos in a nation where marijuana remains illegal at the federal level. For many people, 2022 will be remembered as the year “legal THC” hit the shelves, including in almost every state still under prohibition. The hemp industry, which previously brought us non-inebriating CBD in countless forms, leveraged sketchy chemistry and legal loopholes to evade regulation and sell various synthetic THC products that will absolutely get customers high regardless of where they live, making a mockery of what remains of prohibition.

Unlike traditional cannabis sold in legalized states, researchers know little about the potential risks of using synthetic THC, but “legal THC” products are now commonly sold online and in convenience stories. Sales are booming in states where traditional marijuana remains illegal, particularly among novice consumers and medicine seekers who prefer to avoid running afoul of the law. While the hemp industry has expanded access to cannabis edibles that can relieve conditions such as pain and insomnia, unregulated vapes and powerfully psychoactive synthetics are raising public health concerns.

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Was Obama the Architect of the FBI and Big Tech Illegal Censoring Machine?

With the release of the Twitter files by Elon Musk, we learned that the FBI was working with Twitter in censoring and managing messaging on the social media site.  From information being gathered in the case between Missouri and Louisiana and the US government, where The Gateway Pundit is the lead plaintiff, we have also learned that this was taking place with other government departments and other Big Tech companies.

Jason Goodman at Crowdsourcethetruth.com reminds us that Barack Obama signed an Executive Order in 2015 that ties all of this together.

In 2015, long after Ayers and Dohrn helped the obscure Illinois State Senator rise to international prominence, President Obama held a technology summit at Stanford University. After delivering remarks on the future of technology and industry, Obama signed Executive Order 13691 Promoting Private Sector Cybersecurity Information Sharing. In it, the President commanded that, “private companies, nonprofit organizations, executive departments and agencies (agencies), and other entities must be able to share information related to cybersecurity risks and incidents and collaborate to respond in as close to real time as possible.” Stanford students in attendance were probably unaware, but this order codified long standing FBI demands to supersede the fourth amendment and investigate anyone they wanted. This paved the way for the Neo-fascism now being exposed in the ongoing releases of the “Twitter Files”.

Making good on his campaign promise, Obama ensured that America would be fundamentally transformed from a Constitutional Republic into a Neo-fascist Technocratic Autocracy. This new authority would be enforced by a digitally enabled Super-Stasi made up of FBI InfraGard members, (https://www.infragard.org/) and other contractors including hundreds, perhaps even thousands of ordinary citizens patrolling on-line as America’s Secret Police.

Such an Orwellian overthrow would be calculated to happen without anyone noticing until it was too late. The merger of government and corporate technological power enabled a class of politically aligned bureaucratic elites to maintain control by monitoring and stifling opposition rather than allowing open debate in a free marketplace of ideas. These traitors have trampled the Constitution and destroyed the most fundamental aspect of American greatness.

EO 13691 states the following [emphasis added]:

Section 1. Policy. In order to address cyber threats to public health and safety, national security, and economic security of the United States, private companies, nonprofit organizations, executive departments and agencies (agencies), and other entities must be able to share information related to cybersecurity risks and incidents and collaborate to respond in as close to real time as possible.

Organizations engaged in the sharing of information related to cybersecurity risks and incidents play an invaluable role in the collective cybersecurity of the United States. The purpose of this order is to encourage the voluntary formation of such organizations, to establish mechanisms to continually improve the capabilities and functions of these organizations, and to better allow these organizations to partner with the Federal Government on a voluntary basis.

Such information sharing must be conducted in a manner that protects the privacy and civil liberties of individuals, that preserves business confidentiality, that safeguards the information being shared, and that protects the ability of the Government to detect, investigate, prevent, and respond to cyber threats to the public health and safety, national security, and economic security of the United States.

One section of this EO states that agencies are required to share assessments of their agency’s activities and provide those assessments to the DHS.   It may be helpful to get ahold of these assessments.

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