Greenwald: Ex-Spies Run Censorship Operations for Tech Giants
By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D. | The Defender | July 14, 2023
Former security state operatives occupy the highest positions at Big Tech internet platforms, and are responsible for censoring political content and limiting public debate, Glenn Greenwald reported on Tuesday.
Americans have been aware of security state efforts to control media narratives since the 1970s, when the Senate’s Church Committee exposed the CIA’s Operation Mockingbird, Greenwald told listeners of his podcast, “System Update.”
Under that program, CIA agents covertly infiltrated and influenced the nation’s largest news organizations.
Project Mockingbird’s exposure greatly embarrassed the media and the government, as the CIA is forbidden from targeting the American public, Greenwald said.
Over the past decade, a series of whistleblowers revealed the U.S. security state has again amped up its covert targeting of American citizens, particularly since the start of the post-9/11 War on Terror.
News that intelligence agencies spied on Americans or infiltrated the news media was considered scandalous just over a decade ago.
But today, things have changed, Greenwald said. In fact, it has become common for top news outlets to openly hire former U.S. security state agents to report and comment on the news.
And in the last few months, the Twitter files and the latest Missouri v. Biden decision made clear how aggressive the censorship regime has become.
The U.S. government, in part, dictates what content social media platforms ought to allow on their sites, Greenwald said. But, he added:
“There’s another element, another layer to it, which is they’ve infiltrated these Big Tech companies — these ex-CIA agents have — exactly like they’ve infiltrated corporate news outlets. They’re all over these censorship regimes.”
Greenwald said top positions at the tech firms are now held by people coming directly from intelligence agencies.
For example James Baker, who the Twitter Files revealed was involved in most censorship decisions prior to Elon Musk’s takeover of the platform, worked as general counsel for the FBI before he became deputy counsel for Twitter.
“So the FBI sent its top lawyer to go work in the part of Twitter that censored political content,” Greenwald said. “Do you understand? That’s the FBI controlling our domestic political discourse and the limits of it.”
MintPress News profiled a number of former CIA agents who now manage and develop misinformation policies for Facebook in a July 2022 article that Greenwald shared.
According to the article, the problem isn’t that these people are incompetent. “The problem is that having so many former CIA employees running the world’s most important information and news platforms is only one small step removed from the agency itself deciding what you see and what you do not see online — and all with essentially no public oversight.”
Greenwald said this allows the intelligence agencies to maintain significant influence over news and information flows, while maintaining “some veneer of plausible deniability.”
The U.S. government doesn’t need to tell the platforms what to do because the people making the decisions rose in the ranks of the National Security State first — “meaning their outlooks match those of Washington’s,” Greenwald said, quoting MintPress News.
Greenwald said this is evidence of a multi-pronged effort, where on the one side, former security state operatives propagandize the American people on corporate media and on the other side, they control what can be said on the largest Big Tech platforms.
As a result, he said, the entire range of dissenting views is “simply banned.”
The ‘censorship-industrial complex’
The Twitter account @NameRedacted247 tracks the movement of security state operatives into social media corporations where they work on misinformation and disinformation.
The account provided a thread, which Greenwald’s team confirmed, reporting that as of December 2022, Google employed at least 165 people in high-ranking positions from the intelligence community.
Across the company there were 27 former CIA agents, 52 former FBI agents, 30 people who came from the National Security Agency (NSA), 50 from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and six from the Director of National Intelligence.
Facebook had at least 115 former security state operatives in high-ranking positions — 17 from the CIA, 37 from the FBI, 23 from the NSA and 38 from DHS.
Google’s “trust and safety team,” which manages what content is allowed on the platform, is managed by three former CIA agents who control misinformation and hate speech.
One of them, Nick Rossman, referred to “anti-vaxxers” on Twitter as “Nazis” and “Confederates,” Greenwald said, asking:
“Do you think these people are objective arbiters of misinformation? Or do you think they’re using their censorship power inside Big Tech for this in the same way that people inside corporate media are using it to advance the propaganda games of these agencies against their own citizens?”
Greenwald presented a series of online profiles of people who worked in intelligence for years or decades before recently moving into their new roles in Big Tech.
Matt Taibbi reported that the companies began hiring former intelligence agents after the 2016 election when the FBI established its social media-focused task force, The Foreign Influence Task Force or FITF.
Since then, a massive “censorship-industrial complex” has grown up, Greenwald said, that includes the U.S. state, philanthropic foundations, “fact-checking” organizations, Big Tech, universities, think tanks, nonprofits and private contractors.
The ‘hallmark of totalitarianism’
But the most amazing part of this story, Greewnald said, is the lack of pushback by liberals, who used to be the primary critics of the security state. “Central to left liberal politics was the view that these agencies are nefarious,” he said. But that all changed with the Trump presidency:
“… in 2015, in 2016, the US Security state aligned itself against Donald Trump and devoted itself to sabotaging first the Trump campaign and then the Trump presidency.
“That’s where Russiagate came from. That’s where all of those scams came from, including the lie in 2020 if the Hunter Biden laptop was misinformation.”
And because there are now very few media outlets reporting critically on these agencies, he said, they are at “the peak of their power, more powerful than ever.”
Because of that, he said they are embedded in the biggest corporations that control information and propaganda in the U.S. — corporate media and Big Tech.
Greenwald concluded:
“This is why they’re so obsessed with destroying the few outposts of independent media, the few places they cannot control, because without those, they really do have a fully closed information system.
“And a fully closed information system is the hallmark of totalitarianism. If you can control how people think and prevent them from hearing dissent, you can control all of their actions because their actions are based in what their thoughts are.
“And if you can control their thoughts, you don’t even need to control their actions. And that is the system that is being created.”
Brenda Baletti Ph.D. is a reporter for The Defender. She wrote and taught about capitalism and politics for 10 years in the writing program at Duke University. She holds a Ph.D. in human geography from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a master’s from the University of Texas at Austin.
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
Share this:
Related
July 14, 2023 - Posted by aletho | Civil Liberties, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, Video | CIA, COVID-19 Vaccine, FBI, Human rights, NSA, United States
1 Comment »
Leave a comment Cancel reply
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Featured Video
Israeli forces killed 8-year-old Ritaj’s family
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
Book Review
Got His Gun: Lost His Legs, Arms, and Penis
By David Swanson | War is a Crime | October 27, 2013
Ann Jones’ new book, They Were Soldiers: How the Wounded Return from America’s Wars: The Untold Story, is devastating, and almost incomprehensibly so when one considers that virtually all of the death and destruction in U.S. wars is on the other side. Statistically, what happens to U.S. troops is almost nothing. In human terms, it’s overwhelming.
Know a young person considering joining the military? Give them this book.
Know a person not working to end war? Give them this book.
Jones presents the choice before us in the clearest terms in the introduction:
Contrary to common opinion in the United States, war is not inevitable. Nor has it always been with us. War is a human invention — an organized, deliberate action of an anti-social kind — and in the long span of human life on Earth, a fairly recent one. For more than 99 percent of the time that humans have lived on this planet, most of them have never made war. Many languages don’t even have a word for it. Turn off CNN and read anthropology. You’ll see.
What’s more, war is obsolete. Most nations don’t make war anymore, except when coerced by the United States to join some spurious ‘coalition.’ The earth is so small, and our time here so short. No other nation on the planet makes war as often, as long, as forcefully, as expensively, as destructively, as wastefully, as senselessly, or as unsuccessfully as the United States. No other nation makes war its business.
Jones begins her book with that distinguishing feature of war: death. The U.S. military assigns specialists in “Mortuary Affairs” to dispose of the dead. They dispose of their own sanity in the process. … continue
Blog Roll
-
Join 2,755 other subscribers
Visits Since December 2009
- 6,735,382 hits
Looking for something?
Archives
Calendar
Categories
Aletho News Civil Liberties Corruption Deception Economics Environmentalism Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism Fake News False Flag Terrorism Full Spectrum Dominance Illegal Occupation Mainstream Media, Warmongering Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity Militarism Progressive Hypocrite Russophobia Science and Pseudo-Science Solidarity and Activism Subjugation - Torture Supremacism, Social Darwinism Timeless or most popular Video War Crimes Wars for IsraelTags
9/11 Afghanistan Africa al-Qaeda Australia BBC Benjamin Netanyahu Brazil Canada CDC Central Intelligence Agency China CIA CNN Colombia Covid-19 COVID-19 Vaccine Da’esh Donald Trump Egypt European Union Facebook FBI FDA France Gaza Germany Google Hamas Hebron Hezbollah Hillary Clinton Human rights India Iran Iraq ISIS Israel Israeli settlement Japan Jerusalem Joe Biden Korea Latin America Lebanon Libya Middle East National Security Agency NATO New York Times North Korea NSA Obama Pakistan Palestine Qatar Russia Sanctions against Iran Saudi Arabia Syria The Guardian Turkey Twitter UAE UK Ukraine United Nations United States USA Venezuela Washington Post West Bank WHO Yemen ZionismRecent Comments
Aletho News
- Meta’s Oversight Board Adopts International “Norms” Instead of US Free Speech Principles
- RFK Jr. Files Lawsuit Against Meta, Alleging Censorship of Presidential Campaign Video
- Woman Injured by AstraZeneca COVID Vaccine During Clinical Trial Sues for Breach of Contract
- Strategic setbacks for US, Israel as the Resistance Axis gains ground in Syria
- Vulcan Program’s Delay Shows US Can’t Even Copy, Much Less Replace, Russia’s Rocket Engine Know-How
- The U.S. Defeat in Vietnam Changed Nothing
- Firing Blanks: The Pentagon as a Fiscal Disaster Factory
- Russia’s Belousov, Shoigu to Take Part in Informal Putin-Xi Meeting – Kremlin Aide
- Ukrainian military stole money intended for fortifications – media
- Is the U.S. blackmailing India over assassination allegations to be more hostile toward China and Russia?
If Americans Knew
- Knowledge is going up in smoke in Gaza
- Israeli settlers destroy truckloads of aid, as Israeli forces watch, Gazans starve – Day 220
- Who’s Funding AIPAC’s Political Spending Barrage?
- For Columbia and a Powerful Donor, Months of Talks and Millions at Risk
- Columbia crackdown led by university prof doubling as NYPD spook
- Disaster unfolds all over Gaza, West Bank – Day 219
- Israeli airstrikes in southern Gaza, invasion in central Gaza, carpet bombing in north – Day 218
- Strapped down, blindfolded, held in diapers: Israeli whistleblowers detail abuse of Palestinians in shadowy detention center
- Fighter jets, attack drones hammer Rafah; catastrophe looms – Day 217
- What it’s like to be used as a human shield by the Israeli army
Richie Allen
- The Richie Allen Show Returns Tomorrow Wednesday April 24th
- Call Richie Today Monday March 11th From 4.30pm
- Connect To The Richie Allen Show WhatsApp Today
- NHS Asks Patients To Choose From 12 Genders, 10 sexual Preferences & 159 Religions
- The Richie Allen Show Moves To A New Time Slot From Monday Nov 20th
- Starmer Will Sack Shadow Ministers Who Vote For Gaza Ceasefire
- AI Tool Can Predict Heart Attacks Years In Advance
- Nepal Bans TikTok To Preserve Social Harmony
- Bloke Appointed Boss Of Womb Health Charity
- WHO – “Gaza’s Biggest Hospital Becoming A Cemetery”
No Tricks Zone
- Using Nets On The Seafloor To Retrieve Seafood ‘Roughly The Same As Running 100 Coal-Fired Plants’
- New Paper: Global Warming Leading To HIMALAYAN COOLING, Preventing Glacial Melt!
- DNA Evidence Reveals Domestic Cats, Dogs, African Wildcats, Frogs Lived In The Arctic 9000 Years Ago
- -80°C: Antarctic Vostok Station Records “Extreme Winter Cold”…Not Even Winter Yet!
- The German E-Vehicle Nightmare, 2024 Q1 Sales Plummet 14%… “Graveyard” For Unsold Cars
- Newly Discovered 90,000-Year-Old Human Footprints Reveal How Much Higher Sea Levels Used To Be
- Germany’s Economic Bloodbath Worsens As Green Revolution Causes Economy To Bleed To Death
- Water Vapor Absorbs 84 Times More Radiation Than CO2 … Clouds Drove 89% Of 1982-2018 Warming
- The 97% Consensus Claim Is In Fact 97% Bogus
- Post-1980s Increases In Shortwave Radiation Explains Europe’s Warming Trends Far Better Than CO2
More Links
Contact:
atheonews (at) gmail.com
Disclaimer
This site is provided as a research and reference tool. Although we make every reasonable effort to ensure that the information and data provided at this site are useful, accurate, and current, we cannot guarantee that the information and data provided here will be error-free. By using this site, you assume all responsibility for and risk arising from your use of and reliance upon the contents of this site.
This site and the information available through it do not, and are not intended to constitute legal advice. Should you require legal advice, you should consult your own attorney.
Nothing within this site or linked to by this site constitutes investment advice or medical advice.
Materials accessible from or added to this site by third parties, such as comments posted, are strictly the responsibility of the third party who added such materials or made them accessible and we neither endorse nor undertake to control, monitor, edit or assume responsibility for any such third-party material.
The posting of stories, commentaries, reports, documents and links (embedded or otherwise) on this site does not in any way, shape or form, implied or otherwise, necessarily express or suggest endorsement or support of any of such posted material or parts therein.
The word “alleged” is deemed to occur before the word “fraud.” Since the rule of law still applies. To peasants, at least.
Fair Use
This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more info go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
DMCA Contact
This is information for anyone that wishes to challenge our “fair use” of copyrighted material.
If you are a legal copyright holder or a designated agent for such and you believe that content residing on or accessible through our website infringes a copyright and falls outside the boundaries of “Fair Use”, please send a notice of infringement by contacting atheonews@gmail.com.
We will respond and take necessary action immediately.
If notice is given of an alleged copyright violation we will act expeditiously to remove or disable access to the material(s) in question.
All 3rd party material posted on this website is copyright the respective owners / authors. Aletho News makes no claim of copyright on such material.
CIA veteran analyst, Ray McGovern calls it the MICIMATT. The Military-Industrial-Congressional-Intelligence-Media-Acaemia-Think Tank Complex. Winston Churchill said it correctly after WWII when he responded to a question about the future of the British Empire. “Empires of the future will be Empires of the Mind”. Proof of his prediction is born out by the passivity in the general population to crimes being committed by the very agencies that are tasked to protect and serve the public good. The question is, how to stamp it out while we still can?
LikeLike
Comment by Thomas Lee Simpson | August 11, 2023 |