America, stand up and start reading.
Back in the spring, there was a bill called the Countering Information Warfare Act of 2016. It didn’t pass then, but its intent, just this month, did, buried inside another bill called the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017 (NDAA). Here’s the NDAA full, overwhelming text: https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/4909/text
I don’t know how many want to read the 1,500+ page monster. So here are a few highlights.
- The new center will “counter propaganda and disinformation” as defined by the center.
- The new center will “track and evaluate counterfactual narratives”.
- The new center will identify “emerging trends” in “disinformation,” including “information obtained from print, broadcast, online and social media.”
- The new center will use “covert or clandestine special operators and agents to influence targeted populations”.
- The new center has 10 million dollars to pay select members of academia and journalism to “proactively promote fact-based narratives and policies,” and “to expose and refute foreign misinformation and disinformation,” –as defined by the center.
- The new center will pick winners and losers in academia and politics: “The Center is authorized to provide grants or contracts of financial support to civil society groups, journalists, nongovernmental organizations, federally-funded research and development centers, private companies, or academic institutions.”
- The new center will compile and evaluate information that has been gathered by those whom the center funds.
How can they even pretend that this is okay? Who gets funded? Who gets heard?
Imagine: one journalist will write a narrative on Israel that recommends aid to the Jews and another will write another, recommending aid to the Muslims; whose version is going to be funded? One radio station says that the U.N. shouldn’t be collecting global education data without the consent of the people, while another one says it should. Who’s shut down?
How does “countering information warfare” differ from countering free speech? The newly created Center for “Global Engagement” (what a misnamed center) gets to pick– and to pay– its winners in the intellectual and moral debates of journalism, academia, religion and politics.
On what basis will this center determine liars from truth-tellers? Where’s the voting voice in deciding what information should be countered? American founders enshrined free speech as a cornerstone of the USA because no mortal entity should be designated as the enforceable-by-law, undebated truth source. Until December 2016, no such entity existed in our country.
And the U.S. Congress never even got an opportunity to discuss, argue or even vote specifically on this new “Global Engagement” information-countering center. It was sandwiched. That was by design; this wouldn’t have passed in an open atmosphere of debate, and its creators knew it.
In the same manner that (as Senator Lee explained) the pushers of ESSA passed ESSA, federal NDAA also passed: without proper debate, without any news coverage prior to passing into federal law.
New American Magazine reported that it was buried “deep inside the 1,576-page National Defense Authorization Act… Because NDAA funds the military and is considered ‘must pass’ by lawmakers… politicians often sneak outlandish schemes into NDAA”.
The portion of NDAA that I’m reading is Section 1259C. It establishes the “Global Engagement Center” for six reasons (see below) with nine functions (see below) and one appointed person (not elected/not removable) as “coordinator,” of the many “detailees” and appointees.
The federal reasons for the ten million dollar center I will now paste in full. Please don’t be misled or overly reassured by the bill’s frequent use of the term “foreign”. This applies to absolutely everyone, foreign and domestic. (The military is supposed to seek enemies both foreign and domestic, and it does.)
Why was the Center established?
“The purposes of the Center are—
(1) to lead and coordinate the compilation and examination of information on foreign government information warfare efforts monitored and integrated by the appropriate interagency entities with responsibility for such information, including information provided by recipients of information access fund grants awarded under subsection (f) and other sources;
(2) to establish a framework for the integration of critical data and analysis provided by the appropriate interagency entities with responsibility for such information on foreign propaganda and disinformation efforts into the development of national strategy;
(3) to develop, plan, and synchronize, in coordination with the Secretary of Defense, and the heads of other relevant Federal departments and agencies, whole-of-government initiatives to expose and counter foreign propaganda and disinformation directed against United States national security interests and proactively advance fact-based narratives that support United States allies and interests;
(4) to demonstrate new technologies, methodologies and concepts relevant to the missions of the Center that can be transitioned to other departments or agencies of the United States Government, foreign partners or allies, or other nongovernmental entities;
(5) to establish cooperative or liaison relationships with foreign partners and allies in consultation with interagency entities with responsibility for such activities, and other entities, such as academia, nongovernmental organizations, and the private sector; and
(6) to identify shortfalls in United States capabilities in any areas relevant to the United States Government’s mission, and recommend necessary enhancements or changes.
The federal center’s functions I will now paste in full. Remember that this law applies to anyone seen as a potential enemy, foreign or domestic.”
What will the Center do?
“The Center shall carry out the following functions:
(1) Integrating interagency and international efforts to track and evaluate counterfactual narratives abroad that threaten the national security interests of the United States and United States allies.
(2) Integrating, and analyzing relevant information, data, analysis, and analytics from United States Government agencies, allied nations, think tanks, academic institutions, civil society groups, and other nongovernmental organizations.
(3) Developing and disseminating fact-based narratives and analysis to counter propaganda and disinformation directed at United States allies and partners.
(4) Identifying current and emerging trends in foreign propaganda and disinformation based on the information provided by the appropriate interagency entities with responsibility for such information, including information obtained from print, broadcast, online and social media, support for third-party outlets such as think tanks, political parties, and nongovernmental organizations, and the use of covert or clandestine special operators and agents to influence targeted populations and governments in order to coordinate and shape the development of tactics, techniques, and procedures to expose and refute foreign misinformation and disinformation and proactively promote fact-based narratives and policies to audiences outside the United States.
(5) Facilitating the use of a wide range of technologies and techniques by sharing expertise among agencies, seeking expertise from external sources, and implementing best practices.
(6) Identifying gaps in United States capabilities in areas relevant to the Center’s mission and recommending necessary enhancements or changes.
(7) Identifying the countries and populations most susceptible to foreign government propaganda and disinformation based on information provided by appropriate interagency entities.
(8) Administering the information access fund established pursuant to subsection (f).
(9) Coordinating with allied and partner nations, particularly those frequently targeted by foreign disinformation operations, and international organizations and entities such as the NATO Center of Excellence on Strategic Communications, the European Endowment for Democracy, and the European External Action Service Task Force on Strategic Communications, in order to amplify the Center’s efforts and avoid duplication.”
I’m thinking about the past five years in this ed reform information war. Members of the business-political-edu elite dismissed the voices who opposed the Common Core Initiative, calling us “misinformed” despite every evidence and document we shared. The elite posed as purveyors of truth about Common Core, without providing any documentation for their “facts”.
Now that Americans have generally sided with those who used to be called “misinformed,” politicians are hiding their support of it with relabels, pretending that Common Core does not exist any more, or saying that they oppose it, even if by their past actions (Betsy DeVos) we see that they do not.
What if the elite could have silenced the anti-common-core opposition via a federal countering-misinformation center? Under such a federal center, the actual truth– that the Common Core Initiative harms teacher autonomy, student privacy, and classical education– would never had become widespread because it would have been “misinformation” countered by the global engagement center.
If you have read 1984 by George Orwell, remember the dystopian government’s “Ministry of Truth” that controlled political literature, telescreens, and more. The protagonist, Winston, worked as a sort of editor at the Ministry of Truth, falsifying historical facts and news daily, as he was commanded to do. If the Ministry of Truth said that 2 + 2 = 5, then it did.
The hopeful thing keeping the newly created Global Engagement Center of the U.S. Government from behaving exactly like Orwell’s Ministry of Truth, is the spine of We, the People. Orwell wrote, in 1984, that “the proles, if only they could somehow become conscious of their own strength, would have no need to conspire. They needed only to rise up and shake themselves like a horse shaking off flies.” I think America is ready to rise up and shake off the flies.
Or maybe, she’s just fine.
