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Counter-intelligence operation. It blows my mind that nobody else seems to have noticed the fact that as soon as executive orders were signed, banning military

Counter-intelligence operation. It blows my mind that nobody else seems to have noticed the fact that as soon as executive orders were signed, banning military disinformation campaigns aimed at citizens, all the aliens disappeared! And then after Obama got rid of the last of those protections - on his way out the door, supposedly in the interest of combatting Russian disinformation (seriously, that was the excuse), the aliens suddenly reappeared! I understand the utilitarian logic of it, but it still strikes me as pretty disgusting... there are people who actually believe this crap, and I don't think they're mentally better off for it.

colordrops 4y ago
Interesting theory but there's no way various government agencies stopped and started lying because of some signed orders. Perhaps very public facing transparent agencies like the department of transportation or the like, but the CIA and pentagon never stopped lying.
- sennight 4y ago
  > ...pentagon never stopped lying. Yes it did, I've actually seen a CI op get blown after being picked up by domestic media - months of hard work abandoned the instant Popular Science decided to write, at length, about some gee-wiz military tech - without actually doing any kind of investigation. Say what you will about the CIA and the rest of the USG, but the DoD actually makes a pretty serious effort to follow not only the letter of the law - but the spirit of the law.
  - colordrops 4y ago
    I don't even know how to respond to this. The idea that the intelligence and military apparatuses follow the law to the T is absurd to me. Perhaps some facts to the contrary: * The CIA and NSA conduct mass surveillance of the American public, contrary to the law [1] [2] * The CIA maintains illegal black sites with systematic torture [3] * The CIA made a request to execute a false flag against american citizens to start war with Cuba [4] * The CIA executes illegal assassinations and other covert operations [5] * The Pentagon has presided over many illegal wars and war crimes [6] [7] [1] https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/how-cia-acting-outside-law-spy-americans https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/how-... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM [3] https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/guantanamo-transcripts-give-firsthand-accounts-cia-torture https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/guantanamo-transcripts-g... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods [5] https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2014/12/21/do-we-need-the-cia/end-cia-covert-operations https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2014/12/21/do-we-need-... [6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_war_crimes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_war_crimes [7] https://www.resistance.org/illegal-us-wars https://www.resistance.org/illegal-us-wars
    - sennight 4y ago
      > I don't even know how to respond to this. Apparently by complaining about the CIA... which very solidly rooted in the unaccountable civilian "steady state". The NSA, while technically military, is run by civilian private contractors at the pleasure of the civilian executive branch. The major role military personnel play is to press the enter key, kicking off hacking scripts they didn't write, because we don't want Booz Allen Hamilton directly committing potential acts of war. Finally you end your response with an example of the military actually enforcing the law against transgressors within its ranks... so not a very logical response.
  - MichaelCollins 4y ago
    Even if you've worked for them, you obviously aren't privy to all they do so your confidence is misplaced.
    - sennight 4y ago
      I can see how somebody with no military experience could think that, but one of the first things you notice in their indoctrination programs - the US military has an unmatched institutional memory. As a result of that, in aggregate, their programs are very formulaic - and deviation from that sticks out like a sore thumb. The most questionably legal activities involving the military (not sheep dipped CIA), is related to red cell probes... which is pretty tame compared to what some people (informed by 24 and Jason Borne) seem to believe.
thedorkknight 4y ago
I'm curious how you came to the conclusion that "all the aliens disappeared" for that period of time. Is there a database of sightings that shows a dip then?
- sennight 4y ago
  I'm sure there is some tortured soul who has compiled such a dataset, but you'll have an easier time verifying my claim by looking at the timeline of US military involvement in domestic news articles. You'll notice the military's absence in the narrative (beyond passive object of suspicion) in roughly the stretch between Carter and Obama. I say roughly because the protections against domestic disinformation campaigns was a collection of executive orders and policies that were sunset, or otherwise reversed, in an unorganized manner - meaning that some methods became permissible before others, and some people were slower to rediscover (or just flat out opposed to) the old bag of tricks return.

colordrops 4y ago

Interesting theory but there's no way various government agencies stopped and started lying because of some signed orders. Perhaps very public facing transparent agencies like the department of transportation or the like, but the CIA and pentagon never stopped lying.

sennight 4y ago
> ...pentagon never stopped lying. Yes it did, I've actually seen a CI op get blown after being picked up by domestic media - months of hard work abandoned the instant Popular Science decided to write, at length, about some gee-wiz military tech - without actually doing any kind of investigation. Say what you will about the CIA and the rest of the USG, but the DoD actually makes a pretty serious effort to follow not only the letter of the law - but the spirit of the law.
- colordrops 4y ago
  I don't even know how to respond to this. The idea that the intelligence and military apparatuses follow the law to the T is absurd to me. Perhaps some facts to the contrary: * The CIA and NSA conduct mass surveillance of the American public, contrary to the law [1] [2] * The CIA maintains illegal black sites with systematic torture [3] * The CIA made a request to execute a false flag against american citizens to start war with Cuba [4] * The CIA executes illegal assassinations and other covert operations [5] * The Pentagon has presided over many illegal wars and war crimes [6] [7] [1] https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/how-cia-acting-outside-law-spy-americans https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/how-... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM [3] https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/guantanamo-transcripts-give-firsthand-accounts-cia-torture https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/guantanamo-transcripts-g... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods [5] https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2014/12/21/do-we-need-the-cia/end-cia-covert-operations https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2014/12/21/do-we-need-... [6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_war_crimes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_war_crimes [7] https://www.resistance.org/illegal-us-wars https://www.resistance.org/illegal-us-wars
  - sennight 4y ago
    > I don't even know how to respond to this. Apparently by complaining about the CIA... which very solidly rooted in the unaccountable civilian "steady state". The NSA, while technically military, is run by civilian private contractors at the pleasure of the civilian executive branch. The major role military personnel play is to press the enter key, kicking off hacking scripts they didn't write, because we don't want Booz Allen Hamilton directly committing potential acts of war. Finally you end your response with an example of the military actually enforcing the law against transgressors within its ranks... so not a very logical response.
- MichaelCollins 4y ago
  Even if you've worked for them, you obviously aren't privy to all they do so your confidence is misplaced.
  - sennight 4y ago
    I can see how somebody with no military experience could think that, but one of the first things you notice in their indoctrination programs - the US military has an unmatched institutional memory. As a result of that, in aggregate, their programs are very formulaic - and deviation from that sticks out like a sore thumb. The most questionably legal activities involving the military (not sheep dipped CIA), is related to red cell probes... which is pretty tame compared to what some people (informed by 24 and Jason Borne) seem to believe.

thedorkknight 4y ago

I'm curious how you came to the conclusion that "all the aliens disappeared" for that period of time. Is there a database of sightings that shows a dip then?

sennight 4y ago
I'm sure there is some tortured soul who has compiled such a dataset, but you'll have an easier time verifying my claim by looking at the timeline of US military involvement in domestic news articles. You'll notice the military's absence in the narrative (beyond passive object of suspicion) in roughly the stretch between Carter and Obama. I say roughly because the protections against domestic disinformation campaigns was a collection of executive orders and policies that were sunset, or otherwise reversed, in an unorganized manner - meaning that some methods became permissible before others, and some people were slower to rediscover (or just flat out opposed to) the old bag of tricks return.