7 ms·

Guy Sims Fitch, a Fake Writer Invented by the US Government

152 points by lermontov 10y ago

kalleboo 10y ago
When we're on the topic of US propaganda, it's a good time to remind everyone about the Smith–Mundt Act, which regulates US government propaganda. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith–Mundt_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith–Mundt_Act
- justratsinacoat 10y ago
  And we can't forget its recent weakening! [0] While my wiki link is barely two clicks away from yours, it's still important to highlight what's going on in re "public diplomacy information" now being deployable domestically; the language on the Smith-Mundt Act wiki page makes it sound like it's merely now being archived or something: >The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013 (section 1078 (a)) amended the US Information and Educational Exchange Act of 1948 and the Foreign Relations Authorization Act of 1987, allowing for materials produced by the State Department and the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) to be released within U.S. borders for the Archivist of the United States.[1][2] Another fun fact: this particular year's National Defence Authorization Act also contained the "Feinstein-Lee Amendment", which is the one that lets them detain US citizens indefinitely without charge for suspicion of ties to terrorism. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Defense_Authorization_Act_for_Fiscal_Year_2013#Smith-Mundt_Modernization_Act_of_2012 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Defense_Authorization...
  - anigbrowl 10y ago
    The whole point of the Feinstein-Lee Amendment was to prevent the government from detaining citizens indefinitely. http://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=b5294991-c86f-4b13-8708-83db770d7740 http://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-relea...
    - jwtadvice 10y ago
      This is correct. But what's pointed out is that it only protects citizens. It clarifies, as there was a deadlock in the Senate over the issue before it, that non-citizens (other persons) or those no longer recognized as citizens (i.e. lost due to joining a foreign army or suspected of national security violations such as terrorism) do not have these protections. The Constitution of course evaluates people as having these rights. It's a bit of a silly game to try to pretend that The Constitution is relevant today as it was written hundreds of years ago - but these differences are crucial. The placement of the boundary of habeus corpus - for all of the recent experimentation the United States has been doing with it - has been clarified by Lee-Feinstein as short of a protection for people and only a protection that extends to certain people under certain circumstances.
      - dv_dt 10y ago
        So, a person who is a citizen, could have their citizenship revoked for being a terrorist (by some definition) and then be detained indefinitely? Am I reading your, and the parent, comment correctly?
        jwtadvice 10y ago
        Yes. The amendment clarifies the boundaries of habeas corpus. These boundaries apply only to particular people - namely those people with recognized US citizenship. First, most of the human rights abused by the United States governments are non-Americans to begin with (let's put aside the penal system and some very sordid history with suppression of domestic civil rights groups for a second). The amendment clarifies that foreign targets have no right to habeas corpus, a trial, to know even what they are being held for, etc. A very large contingency of innocent people suffer through this, but this isn't the comment to expound on it. Second, the US can revoke citizenship of those it deems dangerous to national security (people like Snowden among them). Take for instance the first result from searching "revoke citizenship join ISIS": http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2015/01/14/paris-lessons-us-must-revoke-citizenship-americans-who-join-isis-al-qaeda.html http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2015/01/14/paris-lessons-us-m... The criticism of the amendment is that the boundaries drawn do not respect the rights of "people" - only the rights of those for which it is convenient to respect (less than 4% of the people on Earth, and no serious dissidents, whistleblowers, etc).
  - jwtadvice 10y ago
    And other legislation that castrated domestic propaganda protections including NSPD-1 and NSPD-16 and NDAA 2015.
    - dragonwriter 10y ago
      > And other legislation that castrated domestic propaganda protections including NSPD-1 and NSPD-16 NSPD-1 and NSPD-16 are presidential directives, not legislation, and have no legal force to the extent that they conflict with actual legislation, including the statutory ban on domestically-directed propaganda.
      - jwtadvice 10y ago
        Agreed, but as you likely know they are directives to the entire executive apparatus that cause it to discover, and then pass, the legislation it needs (therefore it's inclusion next to NDAA). They are similar in kind to the Executive Orders, for example the now infamous EO12333 that carved the legal space and interpretation within the US government to justify many information activities, including propaganda and it being the authority the NSA points to for many of its activities - including domestic and global surveillance. Note the content of the aforementioned presidential directives declare authority to use Civil Affairs Information Support (military capabilities joined on civilian infrastructure) during moments of national emergancy - such as Hurricane Katrina but also used for civil unrest like Occupy Wall and Ferguson.
  - mzw_mzw 10y ago
    I hope everyone here who is complaining about this isn't going to just turn right around and enthusiastically vote to re-elect the party which did it. But I'm pretty sure that's what is going to happen.
    - __jal 10y ago
      Say, which party hasn't done something despicable in the last, say, 100 years? Remember that the Greens arguably gave us Baby Bush and the Libertarians have run unapologetic racists relatively recently. I'm thinking the Progressive Dane Party may be your guiltless party. Or perhaps the New Black Riders Party. (At least until they get power, at which point they'll actually do something, at which point they'll get the opportunity to do something awful, which they almost certainly will, because that's what happens.)
      - mzw_mzw 10y ago
        I'm not saying there's any specific party you have to vote for. But if you don't vote against, they won't learn. "I hate that thing you did, but I'm voting for you anyway" translates to a politician as "You don't need to do anything to earn my vote and can betray me as often as you want."
      - eyelidlessness 10y ago
        > Greens arguably gave us Baby Bush 1. No they didn't. 2. Even if they had, it hardly makes sense to hold both the Green Party and the Republicans responsible for that.
bksenior 10y ago
Is this the inspiration for "Sidd Finch?"
jwtadvice 10y ago
Or Jeff Gannon, the fake journalist at press briefings during the Bush Administation, the Psyops Units at PBS/CNN and the new buildings next to Google HQ, the relationship between State Department propaganda and SONY as leaked by the disclosures a few years ago, the "War of Ideas" program, the Overt Peacetime Psyops Program (OP3) out of the DoD, the NSA task to use global surveillance to measure in real time the effects of US propaganda programming, Judith Miller and others who worked with the state to sell the war, the weaponization of information in the press (the "echo chamber" Josh Earnest bragged about creating for the Obama Administration), war censorship and media imbedding laws that removes the possibility of investigative reporting on US war operations, the FBI hacking of the Associated Press, the censorship of public records in the State Department Press Briefiengs, the censorship of media coverage in Ferguson via the FAA, the engineered content in public school education textbooks and standards, the censorship of public records (such as over 80% of the Torture Program Reports), the partnership with media companies on narrative that led to both the censorship of surveillance reporting during the Bush Administration and the ouster of Snowden Document content from US media firms including social media sites like Facebook, the coercive leverage in the relationship with media companies (e.g. the bankruptcy of QWest in retaliation for refusing national security backdoors), operations like Earnest Voice to arm our military with astroturfing and persona management technology, the flood of military users and narrative into social media sites like reddit, the huge cashflows of taxpayer money into PR firms to manage public perception of the state and the police, operations like Zunzuneo focused on destabilizing countries overseas, etc.
- otoburb 10y ago
  The parent comment reads like a very focused adaptation of Billy Joel's lyrics from the 1989 hit single "We Didn't Start The Fire"[1] [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Didn%27t_Start_the_Fire https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Didn%27t_Start_the_Fire
- unexistance 10y ago
  * Jeff Gannon, the fake journalist at press briefings during the Bush Administation * the Psyops Units at PBS/CNN and the new buildings next to Google HQ * the relationship between State Department propaganda and SONY as leaked by the disclosures a few years ago, * the "War of Ideas" program, the Overt Peacetime Psyops Program (OP3) out of the DoD, * the NSA task to use global surveillance to measure in real time the effects of US propaganda programming, * Judith Miller and others who worked with the state to sell the war, * the weaponization of information in the press (the "echo chamber" Josh Earnest bragged about creating for the Obama Administration), * war censorship and media embedding laws that removes the possibility of investigative reporting on US war operations, * the FBI hacking of the Associated Press, * the censorship of public records in the State Department Press Briefiengs, * the censorship of media coverage in Ferguson via the FAA, * the engineered content in public school education textbooks and standards, * the censorship of public records (such as over 80% of the Torture Program Reports), * the partnership with media companies on narrative that led to both the censorship of surveillance reporting during the Bush Administration and the ouster of Snowden Document content from US media firms including social media sites like Facebook, * the coercive leverage in the relationship with media companies (e.g. the bankruptcy of QWest in retaliation for refusing national security backdoors), * operations like Earnest Voice to arm our military with astroturfing and persona management technology, * the flood of military users and narrative into social media sites like reddit, * the huge cashflows of taxpayer money into PR firms to manage public perception of the state and the police, * operations like Zunzuneo focused on destabilizing countries overseas, etc.
bedros 10y ago
a fictional story of gay syrian girl prosecuted by syrian government, a similar propaganda to demonize syrian government and promote US imperialist foreign policy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Gay_Girl_In_Damascus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Gay_Girl_In_Damascus what's missing from article is the IP address of the account used by creator of this fictional girl is from Virginia, USA
- PhasmaFelis 10y ago
  That's incorrect. The IP address was in Edinburgh, Scotland, where the hoaxer Tom McMaster lived. Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/a-gay-girl-in-damascus-comes-clean/2011/06/12/AGkyH0RH_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/a-gay-girl-in... Other sources mention Georgia (the nation) and Istanbul, Turkey, where he was apparently vacationing: http://www.afterellen.com/movies/444337-gay-girl-damascus-amina-profile-story-two-straight-men-pretending-lesbians-online http://www.afterellen.com/movies/444337-gay-girl-damascus-am... He apparently liked to visit the Middle East, having taken photos of Syria (that he passed off as "Amina's") on a previous trip. McMaster is a miserable lying asshole who did enormous harm, but promoting gay rights (however incompetently) is not "US imperialist foreign policy." Dozens of nations embraced gay rights laws long before the US did, and dozens still have better ones than we do. It is not--unfortunately--our doing that the world is slowly crawling out of the gutter of homophobia.
  - R_haterade 10y ago
    >promoting gay rights (however incompetently) is not "US imperialist foreign policy." Pray tell why Pussy Riot got a spot on 60 Minutes, then?
    - seanmcdirmid 10y ago
      Is "60 Minutes" now in charge of the US's imperialist foreign policy? I thought it was just a news magazine show on CBS, I didn't know it was owned by the US government.
eth0up 10y ago
The good old days: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird
TazeTSchnitzel 10y ago
It's amusing that the letter author uses an apparently fabricated quote from their own pseudonym, then remarks “How true!” Yes, funny how you agree with yourself, isn't it!
Gustomaximus 10y ago
An anecdote: A friend of my father bought a South American newspaper in the 60's. He did so being backed by a silent partner. What he found out later was the investor was not really the wealthy person he had met but the CIA who wanted a stake and influence in this newspaper. He sold out upon finding this out and I always found this interesting as I imagine this was not a one off event. So writing is one thing, owning media outlets seems even more amazing. Also he also told me about 20 years ago to watch, Hillary Clinton will likely be president. I remember repeating his prediction at the time and people scoffed at the suggestion.

152 points by lermontov 10y ago

When we're on the topic of US propaganda, it's a good time to remind everyone about the Smith–Mundt Act, which regulates US government propaganda. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith–Mundt_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith–Mundt_Act

justratsinacoat 10y ago
And we can't forget its recent weakening! [0] While my wiki link is barely two clicks away from yours, it's still important to highlight what's going on in re "public diplomacy information" now being deployable domestically; the language on the Smith-Mundt Act wiki page makes it sound like it's merely now being archived or something: >The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013 (section 1078 (a)) amended the US Information and Educational Exchange Act of 1948 and the Foreign Relations Authorization Act of 1987, allowing for materials produced by the State Department and the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) to be released within U.S. borders for the Archivist of the United States.[1][2] Another fun fact: this particular year's National Defence Authorization Act also contained the "Feinstein-Lee Amendment", which is the one that lets them detain US citizens indefinitely without charge for suspicion of ties to terrorism. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Defense_Authorization_Act_for_Fiscal_Year_2013#Smith-Mundt_Modernization_Act_of_2012 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Defense_Authorization...
- anigbrowl 10y ago
  The whole point of the Feinstein-Lee Amendment was to prevent the government from detaining citizens indefinitely. http://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=b5294991-c86f-4b13-8708-83db770d7740 http://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-relea...
  - jwtadvice 10y ago
    This is correct. But what's pointed out is that it only protects citizens. It clarifies, as there was a deadlock in the Senate over the issue before it, that non-citizens (other persons) or those no longer recognized as citizens (i.e. lost due to joining a foreign army or suspected of national security violations such as terrorism) do not have these protections. The Constitution of course evaluates people as having these rights. It's a bit of a silly game to try to pretend that The Constitution is relevant today as it was written hundreds of years ago - but these differences are crucial. The placement of the boundary of habeus corpus - for all of the recent experimentation the United States has been doing with it - has been clarified by Lee-Feinstein as short of a protection for people and only a protection that extends to certain people under certain circumstances.
    - dv_dt 10y ago
      So, a person who is a citizen, could have their citizenship revoked for being a terrorist (by some definition) and then be detained indefinitely? Am I reading your, and the parent, comment correctly?
      - jwtadvice 10y ago
        Yes. The amendment clarifies the boundaries of habeas corpus. These boundaries apply only to particular people - namely those people with recognized US citizenship. First, most of the human rights abused by the United States governments are non-Americans to begin with (let's put aside the penal system and some very sordid history with suppression of domestic civil rights groups for a second). The amendment clarifies that foreign targets have no right to habeas corpus, a trial, to know even what they are being held for, etc. A very large contingency of innocent people suffer through this, but this isn't the comment to expound on it. Second, the US can revoke citizenship of those it deems dangerous to national security (people like Snowden among them). Take for instance the first result from searching "revoke citizenship join ISIS": http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2015/01/14/paris-lessons-us-must-revoke-citizenship-americans-who-join-isis-al-qaeda.html http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2015/01/14/paris-lessons-us-m... The criticism of the amendment is that the boundaries drawn do not respect the rights of "people" - only the rights of those for which it is convenient to respect (less than 4% of the people on Earth, and no serious dissidents, whistleblowers, etc).
- jwtadvice 10y ago
  And other legislation that castrated domestic propaganda protections including NSPD-1 and NSPD-16 and NDAA 2015.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    > And other legislation that castrated domestic propaganda protections including NSPD-1 and NSPD-16 NSPD-1 and NSPD-16 are presidential directives, not legislation, and have no legal force to the extent that they conflict with actual legislation, including the statutory ban on domestically-directed propaganda.
    - jwtadvice 10y ago
      Agreed, but as you likely know they are directives to the entire executive apparatus that cause it to discover, and then pass, the legislation it needs (therefore it's inclusion next to NDAA). They are similar in kind to the Executive Orders, for example the now infamous EO12333 that carved the legal space and interpretation within the US government to justify many information activities, including propaganda and it being the authority the NSA points to for many of its activities - including domestic and global surveillance. Note the content of the aforementioned presidential directives declare authority to use Civil Affairs Information Support (military capabilities joined on civilian infrastructure) during moments of national emergancy - such as Hurricane Katrina but also used for civil unrest like Occupy Wall and Ferguson.
- mzw_mzw 10y ago
  I hope everyone here who is complaining about this isn't going to just turn right around and enthusiastically vote to re-elect the party which did it. But I'm pretty sure that's what is going to happen.
  - __jal 10y ago
    Say, which party hasn't done something despicable in the last, say, 100 years? Remember that the Greens arguably gave us Baby Bush and the Libertarians have run unapologetic racists relatively recently. I'm thinking the Progressive Dane Party may be your guiltless party. Or perhaps the New Black Riders Party. (At least until they get power, at which point they'll actually do something, at which point they'll get the opportunity to do something awful, which they almost certainly will, because that's what happens.)
    - mzw_mzw 10y ago
      I'm not saying there's any specific party you have to vote for. But if you don't vote against, they won't learn. "I hate that thing you did, but I'm voting for you anyway" translates to a politician as "You don't need to do anything to earn my vote and can betray me as often as you want."
    - eyelidlessness 10y ago
      > Greens arguably gave us Baby Bush 1. No they didn't. 2. Even if they had, it hardly makes sense to hold both the Green Party and the Republicans responsible for that.

bksenior 10y ago

Is this the inspiration for "Sidd Finch?"

jwtadvice 10y ago

Or Jeff Gannon, the fake journalist at press briefings during the Bush Administation, the Psyops Units at PBS/CNN and the new buildings next to Google HQ, the relationship between State Department propaganda and SONY as leaked by the disclosures a few years ago, the "War of Ideas" program, the Overt Peacetime Psyops Program (OP3) out of the DoD, the NSA task to use global surveillance to measure in real time the effects of US propaganda programming, Judith Miller and others who worked with the state to sell the war, the weaponization of information in the press (the "echo chamber" Josh Earnest bragged about creating for the Obama Administration), war censorship and media imbedding laws that removes the possibility of investigative reporting on US war operations, the FBI hacking of the Associated Press, the censorship of public records in the State Department Press Briefiengs, the censorship of media coverage in Ferguson via the FAA, the engineered content in public school education textbooks and standards, the censorship of public records (such as over 80% of the Torture Program Reports), the partnership with media companies on narrative that led to both the censorship of surveillance reporting during the Bush Administration and the ouster of Snowden Document content from US media firms including social media sites like Facebook, the coercive leverage in the relationship with media companies (e.g. the bankruptcy of QWest in retaliation for refusing national security backdoors), operations like Earnest Voice to arm our military with astroturfing and persona management technology, the flood of military users and narrative into social media sites like reddit, the huge cashflows of taxpayer money into PR firms to manage public perception of the state and the police, operations like Zunzuneo focused on destabilizing countries overseas, etc.

otoburb 10y ago
The parent comment reads like a very focused adaptation of Billy Joel's lyrics from the 1989 hit single "We Didn't Start The Fire"[1] [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Didn%27t_Start_the_Fire https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Didn%27t_Start_the_Fire
unexistance 10y ago
* Jeff Gannon, the fake journalist at press briefings during the Bush Administation * the Psyops Units at PBS/CNN and the new buildings next to Google HQ * the relationship between State Department propaganda and SONY as leaked by the disclosures a few years ago, * the "War of Ideas" program, the Overt Peacetime Psyops Program (OP3) out of the DoD, * the NSA task to use global surveillance to measure in real time the effects of US propaganda programming, * Judith Miller and others who worked with the state to sell the war, * the weaponization of information in the press (the "echo chamber" Josh Earnest bragged about creating for the Obama Administration), * war censorship and media embedding laws that removes the possibility of investigative reporting on US war operations, * the FBI hacking of the Associated Press, * the censorship of public records in the State Department Press Briefiengs, * the censorship of media coverage in Ferguson via the FAA, * the engineered content in public school education textbooks and standards, * the censorship of public records (such as over 80% of the Torture Program Reports), * the partnership with media companies on narrative that led to both the censorship of surveillance reporting during the Bush Administration and the ouster of Snowden Document content from US media firms including social media sites like Facebook, * the coercive leverage in the relationship with media companies (e.g. the bankruptcy of QWest in retaliation for refusing national security backdoors), * operations like Earnest Voice to arm our military with astroturfing and persona management technology, * the flood of military users and narrative into social media sites like reddit, * the huge cashflows of taxpayer money into PR firms to manage public perception of the state and the police, * operations like Zunzuneo focused on destabilizing countries overseas, etc.

bedros 10y ago

a fictional story of gay syrian girl prosecuted by syrian government, a similar propaganda to demonize syrian government and promote US imperialist foreign policy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Gay_Girl_In_Damascus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Gay_Girl_In_Damascus what's missing from article is the IP address of the account used by creator of this fictional girl is from Virginia, USA

PhasmaFelis 10y ago
That's incorrect. The IP address was in Edinburgh, Scotland, where the hoaxer Tom McMaster lived. Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/a-gay-girl-in-damascus-comes-clean/2011/06/12/AGkyH0RH_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/a-gay-girl-in... Other sources mention Georgia (the nation) and Istanbul, Turkey, where he was apparently vacationing: http://www.afterellen.com/movies/444337-gay-girl-damascus-amina-profile-story-two-straight-men-pretending-lesbians-online http://www.afterellen.com/movies/444337-gay-girl-damascus-am... He apparently liked to visit the Middle East, having taken photos of Syria (that he passed off as "Amina's") on a previous trip. McMaster is a miserable lying asshole who did enormous harm, but promoting gay rights (however incompetently) is not "US imperialist foreign policy." Dozens of nations embraced gay rights laws long before the US did, and dozens still have better ones than we do. It is not--unfortunately--our doing that the world is slowly crawling out of the gutter of homophobia.
- R_haterade 10y ago
  >promoting gay rights (however incompetently) is not "US imperialist foreign policy." Pray tell why Pussy Riot got a spot on 60 Minutes, then?
  - seanmcdirmid 10y ago
    Is "60 Minutes" now in charge of the US's imperialist foreign policy? I thought it was just a news magazine show on CBS, I didn't know it was owned by the US government.

eth0up 10y ago

The good old days: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird

TazeTSchnitzel 10y ago

It's amusing that the letter author uses an apparently fabricated quote from their own pseudonym, then remarks “How true!” Yes, funny how you agree with yourself, isn't it!

Gustomaximus 10y ago

An anecdote: A friend of my father bought a South American newspaper in the 60's. He did so being backed by a silent partner. What he found out later was the investor was not really the wealthy person he had met but the CIA who wanted a stake and influence in this newspaper. He sold out upon finding this out and I always found this interesting as I imagine this was not a one off event. So writing is one thing, owning media outlets seems even more amazing. Also he also told me about 20 years ago to watch, Hillary Clinton will likely be president. I remember repeating his prediction at the time and people scoffed at the suggestion.