Guy Sims Fitch, a Fake Writer Invented by the US Government | Hacker News Reader

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

paleofuture.gizmodo.com

152 pointslermontov40 comments

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.

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

* 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.

i fear that we have arrived at the endpoint described by a CIA director named william casey: "We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false."

it's a possibility now. the avenues for revolt are waning as their control over the public mind solidifies.

Thanks for the quote! Barbara Honegger writes:

https://www.quora.com/Did-William-Casey-CIA-Director-really-...

"indeed said by CIA Director William Casey at an early February 1981 meeting of the newly elected President Reagan with his new cabinet secretaries to report to him on what they had learned about their agencies in the first couple of weeks of the administration."

To consider: Media Consolidation 1983-2011

http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--8OufMYrC...

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.

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

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!

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

what's missing from article is the IP address of the account used by creator of this fictional girl is from Virginia, USA

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...

Other sources mention Georgia (the nation) and Istanbul, Turkey, where he was apparently vacationing: 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.

>promoting gay rights (however incompetently) is not "US imperialist foreign policy."

Pray tell why Pussy Riot got a spot on 60 Minutes, then?

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.

It's a distribution channel, same as NPR. Here's how the sausage gets made: "you're in journalism, you want the story? We'll give you access to get the story, but it would be great if alongside that you gave coverage to [topic] with a narrative that helps build support for our diplomatic goals."

I only bring up NPR because I can remember feeling sick to my stomach when I realized how outright manipulative their coverage of Syria in 2012 was. I was wondering why we weren't at war with Assad after a week of 'All Things Considered'. Now I'm certain they were manufacturing consent, again. Especially given how nicely a disruptive actor like ISIS gels with the current administration's diplomatic interests in the region.

I love this how people compare the US system to say Russia's. "The press isn't owned/controlled by the government, but it might as well be!" But in reality, this is just a red herring to prop up crappy despots.

Nobody from the state department went to the 60 minutes crew and said: "If you don't interview Pussy Riot, we won't give you stuff." No, no, Russia solidified Pussy Riot's fame when they threw them in jail for...wait, what "premeditated hooliganism performed by an organized group of people motivated by religious hatred or hostility". Ya, because they criticized the church for supporting Putin?

It's like China and the Dalai Lama: the popularity of the DL is completely related to the vitriol of the Chinese government. Whenever the Chinese government criticizes the DL, he becomes more popular, simple/easy.

Russia makes its own bed, the US media requires no pushing from the state department at all to make these stories interesting to the American public.

stories about russian oppression are interesting to the us public because of decades of media coverage... nobody is interested elsewhere because the media doesnt even cover when a neutral or us-aligned country is oppressive.

Nobody elsewhere? plenty of countries are more obsessed with Russia than America is. Heck, Ukraine, or even China.

it worries me that this spot-on comment has been downvoted... government control of the media has been very well characterized by chomsky et al., among others.

It's solid taken in isolation. The problem is the context: from his previous post, R_haterade appears to think that journalists covering homophobic oppression is "US imperialist foreign policy"--that a free and honest press should be expected to ignore human rights abuses if they're against groups he doesn't like. That makes his later, more cogent points seem like a mere smokescreen.

I should perhaps be more articulate. Coverage of human rights abuses is never much more than propaganda.

We do it, China does it, North Korea does it. It's the same everywhere.

Now, do human rights abuses give me the warm and fuzzies? No. But when someone is trying to tell me how reprehensible a regime is because of their human rights record, I'm reduced to rolling my eyes because the agenda is never about human rights.

Because it's news.

I don't understand why you guys bother going through these contortions to vilify anyone pro-gay while pretending that you're not actually anti-gay. Suppressing gay rights and gay issues is never about homophobia, it's always about free speech or imperialism or journalistic bias some other buzzword. Do you think you're fooling anyone?

Why do I have to be pro- or anti- anything? I'm ambivalent about homosexuals. And that's on days when I even think about homosexuals.

Why can't I observe that it's convenient for a propaganda machine to highlight an enemy's mistreatment of a marginalized class?

Your comment typifies the mental short-circuiting that identity politics encourages. I suggest you not take everything so personally, and stop defaulting to the supposition that anything you don't agree with must be bigoted.

Or, to put it another way: If the CIA had set out to slander the poor, unappreciated Syrian public servants who kidnap and murder gay people, their sinister propaganda operative wouldn't have pulled "Amina's" picture off of Google Images. He wouldn't have gotten her "hometown pictures" from his own vacation photos on his public Facebook.

McMaster is too stupid to be a government agent. You are seriously underestimating your enemy if you think the US intelligence system is that dim.

> McMaster is a miserable lying asshole who did enormous harm, but promoting gay rights (however incompetently) is not "US imperialist foreign policy."

I think using fake stories to push various agendas is wrong. Policy makers should make decisions on real data otherwise you end-up with nasty stuff(i.e. civil war).

I think the Iraq war(and perhaps other wars) was started using a fake story too. It may worth it to start a war if the crazy guy has weapons of mass destruction but it's not the case anymore if you just want to push your culture and interests into a foreign country. At least the plan should be different(i.e. full colonisation instead of just knocking the current regime). It's all about responsibility and honesty or the lack of them.

Not the IP address but as the article states: the creator "was raised in Harrisonburg, Virginia" USA.

You shouldn't be downvoted only for that detail, IMHO. I didn't know about the whole story, so it's worth reading the post.

On another side, I also think that mentioning such a fact doesn't prove that the author didn't act alone, so "readers beware." But "readers beware" should always be implicit anyway.

And it's symptomatic that 2011 was actually the very characteristic year of foreign (US included) supported "spontaneous" actions against Assad in Syria and the appropriate media coverage.

This Washington Post article was somewhat exceptional, it covers the Wikileaks provided US confidential cables:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/us-secretly-backed-syri...

Is this the inspiration for "Sidd Finch?"

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

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...

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-relea...

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.

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?

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-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).

>”Article the seventh... No person shall [...] be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; [...]." //

I guess that was revoked at some point? Notice it says person and not citizen.

If the government can strip your citizenship away because of their suspicions of your ties to terrorism (ie, extrajudicially (ie, arbitrarily)) , then do whatever they want with you because you're no longer under the aegis of the law, enshrining the right of citizens to not be detained indefinitely seems kinda toothless (hey, wasn't that the status quo before the War on Terror?). If they want to do this to a citizen, they can dispel the protection by making the target not a citizen anymore.

All this is especially troubling because, as noted below, the Constitution, and other human rights legislation, typically extends protection to "persons".

And other legislation that castrated domestic propaganda protections including NSPD-1 and NSPD-16 and NDAA 2015.

> 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.

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.

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.

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.)

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."

> 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.

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