[HN Gopher] The CIA and the Media (1977)
___________________________________________________________________
The CIA and the Media (1977)
Author : 1cvmask
Score : 229 points
Date : 2021-12-09 14:27 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.carlbernstein.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.carlbernstein.com)
| dionian wrote:
| Wasn't the CIA one of the groups pushing the Russia conspiracy
| angle? I remember John Brennan, former head of the CIA, was on
| MSNBC for years pushing this theory.
| mhh__ wrote:
| Emphasis on _one of_ though, it wasn 't like they just dropped
| a bomb and left. There were other groups involved.
|
| This
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Links_between_Trump_associat...
|
| And
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_...
|
| are fairly good articles last time I checked.
|
| I kind of subscribe to the "OSINT groups are led on by state
| intelligence agencies" theory, but that doesn't mean they're
| wrong.
| yonaguska wrote:
| Shhh- none of that happened. Move on please. Biden is president
| now and all that stuff is irrelevant now.
| dang wrote:
| Could you please stop posting unsubstantive and/or flamebait
| comments to Hacker News? We're trying for something different
| here.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| yonaguska wrote:
| Sorry, not trying to flamebait, just making light of the
| fact that what was the biggest news story for nearly 3
| years running, and is now a common cultural reference- has
| been memory-holed now that facts about the case are coming
| out. I could have phrased it better.
| CosmicCarl wrote:
| State-sponsored terrorist organisation, with a reach greater than
| any other.
| landonxjames wrote:
| I'm generally less worried about explicit interference like this
| (which mostly seems to eventually be found out) than I am about
| the more insidious and ingrained Propaganda Model [0] proposed by
| Chomsky and Herman in Manufacturing Consent. In their own words:
|
| > Structural factors are those such as ownership and control,
| dependence on other major funding sources (notably, advertisers),
| and mutual interests and relationships between the media and
| those who make the news and have the power to define it and
| explain what it means. The propaganda model also incorporates
| other closely related factors such as the ability to complain
| about the media's treatment of news (that is, produce "flak"), to
| provide "experts" to confirm the official slant on the news, and
| to fix the basic principles and ideologies that are taken for
| granted by media personnel and the elite, but are often resisted
| by the general population.1 In our view, the same underlying
| power sources that own the media and fund them as advertisers,
| that serve as primary definers of the news, and that produce flak
| and proper-thinking experts, also play a key role in fixing basic
| principles and the dominant ideologies. We believe that what
| journalists do, what they see as newsworthy, and what they take
| for granted as premises of their work are frequently well
| explained by the incentives, pressures, and constraints
| incorporated into such a structural analysis. These structural
| factors that dominate media operations are not allcontrolling and
| do not always produce simple and homogeneous results.
|
| The media, despite all of its supposed diversity, is really just
| a dialogue between powerful entities, but it strictly avoids
| criticizing or even acknowledging the foundational principles of
| the structures that give it power.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_model
| joe_the_user wrote:
| I don't think you need to choose which of these things to
| "worry about". Instead, I think it's important to mention that
| direct CIA interference is just the most obvious part of the
| system of propaganda and if such interference ceased, the
| propaganda problem would remain.
|
| And more broadly, the press has traditionally served US
| interests because it's an institution of US society and shares
| interests with other US institutions. The idea that there could
| be a purely unbiased press itself something of an American
| invention - historically, the press has always had a place in
| on political spectrum.
|
| That not saying the propagandistic quality of the modern press
| isn't to worry. It's gone a bit from an argument for our side
| to a manipulation for our side. How bad that still depends on
| how bad you think the given sides are. The standard argument
| during the Cold War was "however bad we might act, the other
| side is worse, so we need to effective". Now, one can find some
| equivalent if you to defend the situation.
| boredumb wrote:
| Mock (yeah) ing (yeah) bird (yeah)
|
| Yeah, yeah
|
| Mockingbird
| galgot wrote:
| This is old, but still quite interesting, John Stockwell gives
| some examples: https://youtu.be/NK1tfkESPVY
| NaturalPhallacy wrote:
| Relevant: https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/07/14/u-s-repeals-
| propaganda-...
| champagnois wrote:
| The intelligence agencies exist to advance some view of what our
| civilization should be.
|
| If you are not an anarchist or some other form of misguided
| extremist, then you probably agree with the goal or intentions of
| the state's IC apparratus even if you find a given mission or
| action of the IC to be strange when looked at and analyzed out of
| context.
|
| What I mean to say here is that there is a grand strategy at
| play, but you may, in your lives and in your careers, encounter a
| single out-of-context action of such agencies and you will be
| left feeling their actions were odd, but your feelings on the
| matter are a result of lacking context and that context is,
| unfortunately, only disclosed on a need-to-know basis.
|
| So, to those not involved in a goven operation, yes, the agencies
| will seem to be distorting reality all of the time... Use your
| brain and ask yourself the motive -- there is definitely a
| context in all scenarios that explains things pretty well and
| your elected leaders have signed off on that context after
| hearing the sales pitch of some analyst turned manager in the
| agency.
|
| TL;DR have faith in the actions of our nation's clandestine
| services. They are working to our benefit and their lives are on
| the line.
| danieldevries wrote:
| What does 'faith' in clandestine services mean? The CIA is so
| powerful (above the law) and secretive that we just have to
| trust them? With a undisclosed black budget of $50B? more?
|
| Naive and extremely dangerous imo.
| champagnois wrote:
| There is a higher power in the form of civillian elected
| government that manage the framework within which the IC
| members are allowed to operate.
|
| Information is partitioned away from the public so as to
| partition it away from the watchful eyes of foreign spies.
| There is no other way to do it.
|
| Intelligence services are a key element of our national
| strategic footing and our ability to keep our totalitarian
| adversaries contained.
|
| If you have a better solution where our IC could be both
| transparent AND effective, put it forward guy.
| danieldevries wrote:
| There has probably been little oversight or no oversight of
| the CIA since the Church committee in 70s. Fumbling the 911
| attacks, selling war to the public in 2003, decades long
| direct foreign intervention in 20th century, etc. They are
| ineffective at best, and downright criminal at worst.
| champagnois wrote:
| The interventions in the time from 2003-2021 were
| interesting and seemed to have some effect on changing
| the cultures of the middle east. It is still too early to
| tell.
|
| American elected officials are who started the war, the
| intelligence agencies are just one of their many tools.
|
| The 911 attacks were a foreign attack on our soil. The
| intelligence agencies helped us track down and ultimately
| bring justice to the individual most responsible. Hoorah.
| dman wrote:
| Are you in a position to confirm or deny that you work for an
| intelligence agency?
| champagnois wrote:
| Consider me just a well-traveled, well-informed, well-meaning
| individual of reasonable intelligence who cares about my
| family and civilization.
|
| You should be worrying about the foreign agents and the
| incredibly sophisticated plans they are executing on our soil
| and on social media.
|
| If you care about your family or your civilization, you
| should be doing your part to help the big picture in what
| ever way you can. It matters. Help your community members
| live healthier, more meaningful lives. Help people stay away
| from social media and focused on making themselves and the
| world better with micro improvements, day by day.
| atentaten wrote:
| How are our clandestine agencies covertly or overtly
| helping us live healthier, meaningful, social-media-free
| lives?
| champagnois wrote:
| Who do you think made TOR? or SE Linux? or uncovers plots
| to import fentanyl to our shores and lace it into simple
| products to harm our citizens? Or leverages the dark web
| and social media platforms to monitor and disrupt foreign
| networks?
|
| Stay off of social media is my suggestion. Social media
| is basically a weapon.
| 323454 wrote:
| I agree with the prescription to stay off weaponized
| social propaganda platforms and focus on your local
| community, but I don't see how you can ask people to
| blindly trust the CIA. Too many misdeeds to count.
|
| - Fabricating justification for war (Vietnam, Iraq) -
| Fabricating evidence of treason by a sitting President
| (Trump-Russia) - Overthrowing democratically elected
| governments (e.g. Iran) - Starting civil wars (e.g.
| Nicaragua) - Assassinating thousands of people, often
| with collateral killing of innocents - And drugs drugs
| drugs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_CIA_d
| rug_traffi...
|
| Ultimately, do we live in a better world thanks to the
| CIA? From where I sit, I'd need a lot of convincing to
| believe that.
| h2odragon wrote:
| This is still only for the foreign stuff tho, right? For Domestic
| Propaganda they consult the FBI.
|
| I can certainly see a reporter having no issue with hearing about
| things the government would like to know before doing a trip
| someplace, that they want to know might be newsworthy itself. Not
| disclosing the connection is where the ethical alligators lie.
| imwillofficial wrote:
| This is the intention, but history has shown this to be false.
| bediger4000 wrote:
| If we take Bernstein at his word (and there's no reason not to),
| basically all the US media has secretly cooperated with the CIA.
| Is there any reason to think this isn't going on right now? I
| mean, google "ken dilanian cia" for a good time. Then think:
| Dilanian is still a working journalist.
|
| How is this congruent with a free press? Surely this willingness
| to cooperate with a spy agency that has done some very bad things
| over the years spills over to other areas. Am I supposed to
| believe that all these media cover current politics objectively,
| if they've enthusiastically cooperated with the CIA in the past?
| gadders wrote:
| It is going on right now.
|
| "And the answer is obvious: they all serve as mouthpieces for
| the same propagandists and disinformation agents of the CIA,
| FBI and other security state agencies. In this capacity, they
| dutifully write down and vouch for what they are told by those
| agencies to publish without any investigative scrutiny or
| confirmation. The most amazing part of it all is that when they
| try to malign independent journalists for not doing "real
| reporting" -- real reporting like these corporate outlets do --
| this is what they mean by real reporting: getting a call from
| the CIA or FBI and being told what to say. And that is why they
| so often mislead and deceive the public with blatant
| disinformation in unison."
|
| https://greenwald.substack.com/p/corporate-news-outlets-agai...
| beebeepka wrote:
| I just wonder what kind of person downvotes comments such as
| this one. Because I can't think of a single honest reason to
| do so.
| adolph wrote:
| > Am I supposed to believe that all these media cover current
| politics objectively, if they've enthusiastically cooperated
| with the CIA in the past?
|
| Yes, that would be the point. Maybe more to the point: if you
| don't believe, you should believe the CIA has the power to make
| belief in other people. Moreover if you express non-belief you
| will be labeled a conspiracy theorist by society and shunned.
| Aperocky wrote:
| > Am I supposed to believe that all these media cover current
| politics objectively
|
| LOL I don't need this article to tell me that, it's so
| blatantly obvious.
| bediger4000 wrote:
| Yeah, me too, really. The media have a fairly conservative
| bias, despite all the Republican claims of "liberal bias".
| I thought this conservative bias came from media trying to
| keep Republicans from claiming "liberal bias", but now I'm
| wondering if the CIA has something to do with it.
| colpabar wrote:
| > The media have a fairly conservative bias
|
| Can you explain what you mean by this, with some
| examples?
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| Assuming you consider the antiwar stance "liberal," the
| clearest example of this I've seen is a study of the
| media stories leading up to the Iraq War. 71% of US
| sources were pro-war, 26% "neutral," and 3% antiwar. When
| "both sides" were presented, it was pro-war vs pro
| preparing more for the war.
|
| https://fair.org/extra/amplifying-officials-squelching-
| disse...
| specialist wrote:
| Corporate media has an _establishment_ bias.
|
| On balance, NY Times leans neither conservative nor
| progressive.
|
| But they are wholly committed defenders of the status
| quo. And if the status quo is Liberal, Neoliberal, War on
| Terror, or whatever, then so is NY Times.
|
| Most other medias fall within the Overton Window
| (boundaries for acceptible discourse) as defined by NY
| Times. Including explicitly partisan outlets like GOP.tv,
| OANN, breitbart, etc.
|
| --
|
| Social media, on the other hand, has a troll bias. And
| given the quirks of human psyche, a bias towards fear and
| outrage, social media is best exploited by right wing
| actors.
|
| Not that left wing actors don't try. It's just not as
| effective, so left wing story lines have terrible
| traction.
| mountainb wrote:
| The NOC structure gives the CIA a lot of flexibility
| internationally. You also have to realize that international
| anarchy is not just a buzzword, but is reality. When operating
| in weak states, cooperation with the CIA or taking NOC status
| is the cheapest source of security that you can get.
|
| The CIA also benefits from workarounds to its statutory
| limitations established by the CIA Act of 1949. It can do this
| through intermediaries. It can also grant individuals NOC
| status who are working internationally for a US corporation. As
| you might imagine, this provides a ton of flexibility. Most
| NOCs are not necessarily doing James Bond things, but they are
| forking over reports and other information to the CIA to help
| that agency to generate reports.
|
| The 'free press' is actually even worse than what you think,
| because so much of foreign reporting is just framed directly by
| the State Department's wires, press releases, and coverage. You
| don't even need to have Johnny N.Y. Times as an agent: just
| naturally they are ideologically sympathetic to what the State
| Department wants everyone to think by education, socialization,
| and active consumption of State Department propaganda. Johnny
| NYT then reads lots of State Department material, adds his own
| literary flair when he goes to report abroad, and then
| distributes it to the American retail news consumer market.
| This conveniently evades all the statutory limitations on
| domestic government propaganda.
|
| Journalists are already automatically suspected of being
| foreign spies, so they don't really make the best spies. An
| investor, attorney, or consultant is a much better informant
| because their information is going to be a lot better and much
| more relevant for US government purposes. You already have the
| entire press by default, so why bother putting them on the
| payroll? They will already do it for free and without being
| told what they have to do. Even then most know that if they are
| of particular service to the USG, they can get a sinecure later
| off of their servility while in the private sector.
| craigc wrote:
| I'm glad people are finally catching on to this. The CIA has
| their tentacles in pretty much all aspects of society, and it
| has been that way for years. They have even admitted this
| openly:
|
| https://twitter.com/CIA/status/1034866941587087360
|
| > CIA officers work as scientists, support staff, engineers,
| economists, linguists, mathematicians, secretaries,
| accountants, inventors, cartographers, architects,
| psychologists, police officers, editors, graphic designers,
| auto mechanics, historians, museum curators, & more!
|
| Curiously absent from that list is journalists...
| aerostable_slug wrote:
| The Clandestine Service has had prohibitions against working
| under journalistic cover in the past. This is because it's
| thought that free access by journalists to trouble spots
| beats the possibility of tainting the profession in the eyes
| of the world (in other words: press access is a bigger net
| win).
|
| It has been violated from time to time, but at least it's
| talked about. To my knowledge, the only absolute bar is
| anything at all to do with the Peace Corps. It would be a
| Very Bad Thing if people start to think those nice kids
| digging wells and handing out rice might be intelligence
| officers.
| [deleted]
| anextio wrote:
| This logic didn't stop them from running a fake vaccination
| program in Pakistan to try to find Osama. It directly led
| to a significant rise in vaccine refusal in the region.
|
| https://www.vox.com/first-person/22256595/vaccine-covid-
| paki...
|
| So I find it unlikely that they internally enforce
| prohibitions against meddling with anything at all.
| mhh__ wrote:
| The CIA employs linguists!?
|
| All of the things you've listed sound pretty reasonable for
| basically any huge gov agency
| gpm wrote:
| > The CIA employs linguists!?
|
| Not sure why this is a surprise? They're in the business of
| understanding information from all over the world, in all
| languages... and are undoubtedly interested in things like
| "this accent means this person came from this part of the
| country" too.
| mhh__ wrote:
| Sarcasm. I hoped it was obvious from the second
| paragraph.
| gpm wrote:
| Oops, sorry.
|
| I read it as "well this one is surprisingly, but the list
| is generally reasonable". My bad.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| That tweet isn't an admission of the type you are claiming.
| (it's a list of things people on the overt CIA payroll do as
| their overt jobs at CIA, not a list of industries into which
| CIA employees work surreptitiously or in which the CIA
| recruits assets.)
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| i'm glad you said that because i read the parent comment
| and thought how could that list have been so miscontrued.
| adamiscool8 wrote:
| Is there any reason to believe the CIA wouldn't have covert
| assets surreptitiously working in all those same roles,
| either domestically or abroad?
| craigc wrote:
| Or maybe it is a mixture of both? Are you sure they don't
| have covert people in all the very same positions? Does the
| CIA have its own internal museums, mapmaking companies,
| architecture firms? What buildings do their architects
| design?
|
| Employing an internal economist might be able to give you
| an idea of financial things going on in the world, but
| employing an economist who writes for a prominent media
| company or is on TV allows you to shape how the public
| THINKS about economics and financial markets which is much
| more powerful.
|
| Perhaps the tweet is not an open admission of this, but it
| doesn't take a lot of effort to connect the dots.
| [deleted]
| pwned1 wrote:
| Considering that the former Director of National Intelligence,
| who committed perjury before congress, is a regular CNN
| contributor and go-to guy for commentary, I think the answer is
| pretty clear.
| Victerius wrote:
| You should read his book, Facts and Fears. No perjury was
| committed. The question was incorrectly phrased and a lot of
| context was left out.
| exogenousdata wrote:
| Michael Flynn plead guilty to the charges. He signed the
| statement of offense[0] with his personal lawyer. Simply
| because Mr Flynn chose to write a book of fiction
| afterwards does not change the fact that he admitted his
| guilt to the courts under penalty of perjury.
|
| "The preceding statement is a summary, made for the purpose
| of providing the Court with a factual basis for my guilty
| plea to the charge against me. It does not include all of
| the facts known to me regarding this offense. I make this
| statement knowingly and voluntarily and because I am, in
| fact, guilty of the crime charged. No threats have been
| made to me nor am I under the influence of anything that
| could impede my ability to understand this Statement of the
| Offense fully.
|
| I have read every word of this Statement of the Offense, or
| have had it read to me. Pursuant to Federal Rule of
| Criminal Procedure 11, after consulting with my attorneys,
| I agree and stipulate to this Statement of the Offense, and
| declare under penalty of perjury that it is true and
| correct."
|
| [0] - https://www.justice.gov/file/1015126/download
| pwned1 wrote:
| We're talking about Clapper, not Flynn.
| TeeMassive wrote:
| Flynn was entrapped and his family threatened: https://yo
| utu.be/svYdF4UvJf0?list=PLSwm32hsWAtRdktdmBtZCy406...
| unclebucknasty wrote:
| Was he also entrapped into running around the country
| taking QAnon oaths?
|
| Was he entrapped into calling for a Myanmar-style coup in
| the U.S.?
|
| Was he entrapped into plotting the kidnapping of a
| Turkish dissident in contravention of official U.S.
| policy?
|
| Was he entrapped into failing to register his work on
| behalf of a foreign government?
|
| Was he entrapped into neglecting to disclose contacts
| with Russian officials?
|
| Was he entrapped into meeting with Putin and accepting
| tens of thousands of dollars from Russian state media?
|
| Stuff just keeps happening to poor Mike and, to top it
| all off, the mean ol' FBI went out of their way to entrap
| him for no good reason (it was on YouTube, so it must be
| true).
| selimthegrim wrote:
| I guess he got entrapped into calling for one religion
| too.
| pwned1 wrote:
| One only needs to read his indictment to see that they
| didn't point to any specific false statements by him.
| TeeMassive wrote:
| Most of the things you said were either things he didn't
| got indicted for or not even crimes to begin with. I get
| it that you do not like Flynn, that's fine, but the
| politicization of the FBI and the DOJ is something that
| should worry anyone that cares about rule of law and not
| wanting to live under a despotic regime.
|
| The actions of the judge are also very problematic in
| itself. Fighting a motion to dismiss using ex parte
| material? Common.
|
| He was arrested due to an informal FBI meeting, without
| any lawyer, based on very technical questions that he
| tried to answer (because the meeting appeared to be work
| related) the best he could without the documents the FBI
| was referring to.
|
| When it comes to the Flynn case, the evil really is in
| the details. Click-bait titles and angry tweets are not
| good source of information when it comes to complicated
| judicial sagas.
| sneak wrote:
| Please don't make false claims. You can argue that he
| should have lied (for whatever reason) under oath, but you
| cannot argue that he didn't lie under oath.
| TeeMassive wrote:
| Considering the context, that's not exactly what
| happened: https://youtu.be/svYdF4UvJf0?list=PLSwm32hsWAtR
| dktdmBtZCy406...
| cool_dude85 wrote:
| Wait, he says in his book that he didn't commit perjury?
| Well, that lets him off the hook then.
| Zigurd wrote:
| "No perjury was committed." is true if you believe he was
| bound to lie under the circumstances. Is there a law that
| says so, or that says such a lie does not constitute
| perjury?
| joconde wrote:
| Well what does the law says if someone under oath gets
| asked for classified information they aren't allowed to
| disclose, and saying that it's classified would itself
| disclose a secret? Maybe there just wasn't a clearly good
| answer.
| adolph wrote:
| Or we can refer to Wikipedia in which Clapper's excuse is
| (paraphrases) "I forgot" and "they weren't supposed to ask
| about something classified" to which Wyden replied "he got
| the questions in advance so he could tell us not to ask
| about classified stuff."
|
| _Wyden then asked Clapper, "Does the NSA collect any type
| of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of
| Americans?" He responded, "No, sir." Wyden asked, "It does
| not?" and Clapper said, "Not wittingly. There are cases
| where they could inadvertently, perhaps, collect, but not
| wittingly."_
|
| [...]
|
| _In Clapper 's 2018 memoir, he provides a fuller
| explanation of the incident:_
|
| _...because the NSA program under Section 215 was highly
| classified, Senator Wyden wouldn 't or shouldn't have been
| asking questions that required classified answers on
| camera....my error had been forgetting about Section 215,
| but even if I had remembered it, there still would have
| been no acceptable, unclassified way for me to answer the
| question in an open hearing. Even my saying, "We'll have to
| wait for the closed, classified session to discuss this,"
| would have given something away. ...I ought to have sent a
| classified letter to Senator Wyden explaining my thoughts
| when I'd answered and that I misunderstood what he was
| actually asking me about. Yes, I made a mistake - a big one
| - when I responded, but I did not lie. I answered with
| truth in what I understood the context of the question to
| be._
|
| _On June 11, U.S. Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) accused Clapper
| of not giving a "straight answer," noting that Clapper's
| office had been provided with the question a day in advance
| of the hearing and was given the opportunity following
| Clapper's testimony to amend his response._
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Clapper
| orangepurple wrote:
| > I answered with truth in what I understood the context
| of the question to be.
|
| I love this quote. I can listen to someone ask me a
| question, discard what was asked and pretend I was asked
| another question, then reply to my own imagination.
|
| These people are sociopaths
| netizen-936824 wrote:
| I think you would be considered more of a sociopath when
| you can't consider just _how incredibly different_ human
| perceptions can be
| ALittleLight wrote:
| Clapper wasn't asked a vague question and he didn't
| answer ambiguously. There is no room for "how incredibly
| different human perceptions can be". Clapper was asked a
| direct question in sworn testimony before Congress and
| brazenly lied. Repeatedly.
|
| That Clapper faced no real consequences for his perjury
| and his part in violating the Constitution and the rights
| and privacy of all Americans simply shows how little
| power Congress and the American people have over the
| villains and criminals in the intelligence services.
| pphysch wrote:
| > Is there any reason to think this isn't going on right now?
|
| The alliance between the corporate media and the intelligence
| community could not be any clearer.
|
| Looking past the endless barrage of yellow journalism in the
| traditional press, let's take a close look at Twitter.
|
| Last year, Twitter manually added tags to accounts deemed
| "foreign state media". Mysteriously, accounts like Radio Free
| Asia and Radio Free Europe, which are CIA cutouts directly
| funded by the US government, do not get such tags [1]. Look up
| RT, CGTN, etc for examples of this tag in action.
|
| Also last year, independent journalists dropped a bombshell
| report [2] on leaked documents detailing an anti-Russian
| disinformation operation that involves Reuters, BBC, and other
| "independent" news media groups.
|
| If you try to post [2] on Twitter, your post will be
| permanently marked with a visual warning banner about "hacked
| materials". AFAIK it is currently the only link that generates
| this response from Twitter. Ironically, this virtually
| guarantees its credibility, rather than simply dismissing it to
| the trash heap of crazy Qanon theories, etc.
|
| Finally, over the past few years Twitter has been officially
| releasing information on "disinformation" operations that occur
| on Twitter. Most recently, Twitter endorsed a report from the
| """independent""" (read: entirely funded by weapons
| manufacturers and Western governments) think tank ASPI which
| alleged to uncover a massive Chinese disinformation operation.
| I won't comment on the veracity of that report and encourage
| you to read it yourself and judge the quality of their
| "scientific" method. Regardless, it shows a clear alliance
| between Twitter and these special interests in the intelligence
| community.
|
| The related blog post from Twitter [3] is more worrying,
| because it suggests that your account can be removed if it
| engages at all with what is deemed to be a "disinformation
| campaign". Which might include liking or retweeting an
| apolitical tweet from an account marked "foreign state media",
| etc.
|
| [1] - https://twitter.com/RadioFreeAsia?s=20
|
| [2] - https://thegrayzone.com/2021/02/20/reuters-bbc-uk-
| foreign-of...
|
| [3] -
| https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2021/disclosin...
| arthur_sav wrote:
| > media cover current politics objectively
|
| Any person with half a brain knows that corporate media are
| just propaganda machines with political agendas at this point.
| complianceowl wrote:
| So true. Thankfully, I've found refuge in social media
| companies; Twitter, Facebook, Instagram? Pfffff! Beacons of
| free speech and truth bro.
| arthur_sav wrote:
| Social media is a medium, not the source. Following the
| work of independent journalists, in whatever medium you
| choose to consume, is the best approach atm.
| dude187 wrote:
| Well, previously that was the case, but that's why they
| started committing biased censorship. Now it isn't
| jedmeyers wrote:
| I'll give you one more: is there any reason to think CIA hasn't
| infiltrated HN comments right now?
| cbHXBY1D wrote:
| Not sure about HN but there's plenty of evidence of
| intelligence agencies using Reddit to craft public opinion.
|
| Look at the demonization of the US's geopolitical rivals and
| the stories that get pushed. For example, questioning the
| Russian bounties story for a while would get you responses of
| "Russian bot". We know now the Russian bounties story was
| weak from the start:
| https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-
| security/remember-...
|
| Repeat ad nauseam for other geopolitical rivals.
| paganel wrote:
| I don't see them interested in nerds and in nerd-culture, to
| be honest, eventually maybe there are some FBI or Secret
| Service lurkers in here, definitely some past or present NSA
| employees/collaborators.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| On Bernstein's reliability here: in December 1977--January
| 1976, the House Intelligence Committee held hearings on this
| subject which strongly support Bernstein's claims through
| direct testimony of CIA officials and officers involved. Those
| were published in 1978, and are now available at the Internet
| Archive:
|
| https://archive.org/details/CIAMedia1978Hearings/page/n3/mod...
|
| The _New York Times_ ran a six-part series by John Crewdson
| concurrent with the hearings, based in large part on them
| though also independent research and interviews by the _Times_.
| I 've compiled that series here:
|
| https://joindiaspora.com/posts/cdec9a80ce3b0139a0df002590d8e...
|
| "The CIA's 3-Decade Effort to Mold the World's Views"
| (1977-12-25) https://www.nytimes.com/1977/12/25/archives/the-
| cias-3decade...
|
| "Worldwide Propaganda Network Built by the C.I.A." (1977-12-26)
| https://www.nytimes.com/1977/12/26/archives/worldwide-propag...
|
| "C.I.A. Established Many Links To Journalists in U.S. and
| Abroad" (1977-12-27)
| https://www.nytimes.com/1977/12/27/archives/cia-established-...
|
| "Colby Acknowledges U.S. Press Picked Up Bogus C.I.A. Accounts"
| (1977-12-28) https://www.nytimes.com/1977/12/28/archives/colby-
| acknowledg...
|
| "U.S. Correspondents Give Views on C.I.A." (1977-12-29)
| https://www.nytimes.com/1977/12/29/archives/us-correspondent...
|
| "Ex-Envoy Says Risk of Exposure Negated C.I.A. Propaganda
| Value" (1977-12-30)
| https://www.nytimes.com/1977/12/30/archives/exenvoy-says-ris...
|
| The total set runs about 50 pages formatted as PDF (ask me how
| I know). Markdown / HTML / ePub / PDF are available.
|
| As to current practices, the CIA have pinky sworn they totally
| wouldn't....
| oxymoran wrote:
| Wow, never heard of this dilanian guy but he is still at it and
| it's directly related to the cia: https://news.yahoo.com/cia-
| chief-warns-russians-consequences...
|
| Interestingly enough, I did google for fun and I also
| DuckDuckGo'd. interesting differences. All the google results
| were articles from 2014 when the intercept broke the news.
| DuckDuckGo has much more current info, including the yahoo link
| I found.
| [deleted]
| theknocker wrote:
| It's not congruent with a free press and it undermines
| democracy. Otherwise they wouldn't be doing it.
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| >Am I supposed to believe that all these media cover current
| politics objectively
|
| I cannot begin to comprehend how anyone can consume the current
| political coverage and still believe it's objective. Also, of
| course not, nobody has ever suggested such a thing.
| bediger4000 wrote:
| Yeah, the current political coverage really seems pro-Trump
| and anti-Biden. Biden's job creation is pitiful at 210K,
| where Trump's 200K was most excellent.
|
| Super obvious general pro-Trump bias obvious. Also, every
| issue is given a conservative frame, which is really weird. I
| think that arises from conservatives screaming "liberal bias"
| for 40 years, and the media bending over backwards to try to
| placate conservatives. Conservatives in turn, have realized
| that they can continue to scream "liberal bias" and get more
| favorable treatment. The media reinforce bad-faith claims of
| "fake news" or "liberal bias".
| colpabar wrote:
| What are you talking about?
| orangepurple wrote:
| Who is claiming a free press?
| jweir wrote:
| Not well known is that the CIA commissioned an animated version
| of Animal Farm.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Farm_(1954_film)
| citilife wrote:
| > If we take Bernstein at his word (and there's no reason not
| to), basically all the US media has secretly cooperated with
| the CIA. Is there any reason to think this isn't going on right
| now? I mean, google "ken dilanian cia" for a good time. Then
| think: Dilanian is still a working journalist.
|
| Look at the number of former CIA, NSA and FBI directors /
| agents working as journalists or as advisors or make regular
| appearance to CNN alone.
|
| There's a whole rabbit hole you can go down. I recommend "The
| Plot Against the President" if you want a good insight as to
| how the news / government collaborate.
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Plot-Against-President-Devin-Nunes/dp...
|
| The portrayal is highly believed by the right, almost entirely
| ignored on the left, so it's worth a watch -- if only to
| understand gap in knowledge.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| plantdude wrote:
| the media operates globally because distribution is important &
| stories come from all over. outside of any sort of conspiracy
| around what the CIA could use the media to do... there are
| obvious operational benefits to working within the media or a
| similarly structured and distributed organization.
|
| the real question isn't did the CIA stop using one type of
| organization or did they find ways to use other types of
| organizations. is the CIA doing the work? are they taking
| advantage of all of the different organizations that oddly have
| some sort of social protection similar to diplomats. whether
| it's NGOs allowed into a country that is just kind of hard to
| get into... or some freelance photographers tagging along with
| a news crew as they report on a country ahead of an invasion.
| maybe it's just the adjust professor teaching abroad as a way
| to monitor certain foreign CS students whose parents are high
| value assets and all of their labs and most definitely the
| final is just a way to get malicious code onto devices they're
| going to bring home.
| justicezyx wrote:
| I see no inherent issue with news agency cooperate with CIA or
| any other 3 letter agency, on projects for the good of the
| society and international community.
|
| The issue, as you probably having in mind, is that media lost
| their independence in finance, political protection, etc. Those
| then gradually corrupted their spirit and mentality. To the
| point that they start to produce contents that are easily
| nidged and manipulated.
|
| The first step of regaining media's strength is to rebuild a
| financial foundation for independent media. They should and
| must remain self-sufficient in support their own organization
| and employees.
|
| I'll be mocked for this, but, it seems to me that only such
| tech right available is crypto and block chain. I see no other
| tech even remotely close.
| rhizome wrote:
| Or breaking up Facebook and Google such that they aren't able
| to commandeer all of the advertising dollars that would be
| required to "rebuild," at least under the currently dominant
| business models (which get further entrenched with every
| banking restriction imposed on independent businesspeople,
| but I digress).
| justicezyx wrote:
| This approach will meet bigger resistance.
|
| The strength of capitalism is competition and freedom of
| innovation. Use new things to replace old things are the
| most constructive approach.
| burnafter291 wrote:
| It's too bad we're not operating under a capitalist
| system, isn't it?
| Clubber wrote:
| So now and again you'll hear a story about an anonymous source
| at some national security agency says this or that. That's
| actually a planted story authorized by said agency. You can
| tell because any time there is an unauthorized leak, you get a
| reaction like you did with Assange, Winner or Snowden.
| TechnoTimeStop wrote:
| Wait so an organization of the free worlds government wants to
| ensure media has context? WOW TOTALLY OVERKILL RIGHT? Better
| get back to murdering 60,000,000 people in China and
| disappearing anyone who disagrees.
| jcranberry wrote:
| >If we take Bernstein at his word (and there's no reason not
| to), basically all the US media has secretly cooperated with
| the CIA. Is there any reason to think this isn't going on right
| now?
|
| There is a reason. Controversy which began in 1973 and spurred
| Congressional investigations and this very article led to the
| CIA to sign a 1977 directive that prohibited them from
| recruiting or impersonating journalists, peace corps, and the
| clergy.
|
| There was a loophole discovered in 1996 that allows the agency
| to waiver that directive in extreme circumstances and must
| notify the president, and a couple others (cant remember).
|
| This prompted a clause in the 1997 authorization act which
| codified into law that the CIA must notify both the house and
| senate intelligence committees and get a written sign-off with
| reasoning why its necessary from either the President or CIA
| director before impersonating or recruiting a journalist.
| the_optimist wrote:
| > must notify both the house and senate intelligence
| committees and get a written sign-off
|
| This is an interesting legal artifact but it doesn't speak to
| appraisal of whether or not this is currently occurring or
| has occurred. In other words, they could simply have pressed
| this loophole with another loophole, or those committed could
| have simply signed off. Absence of evidence remains not
| evidence of absence.
| tchalla wrote:
| > There is a reason. Controversy which began in 1973 and
| spurred Congressional investigations and this very article
| led to the CIA to sign a 1977 directive that prohibited them
| from recruiting or impersonating journalists, peace corps,
| and the clergy.
|
| That doesn't mean they don't influence the media. The next
| time there are a sequence of articles on a particular country
| - you can think about when it plays up.
| realce wrote:
| I'm not trying to go to bat for The Company but all sources
| of information "influence the media" and it's the job of a
| good journalist to get info from every source available to
| them, including intelligence agencies.
|
| The wording of "influence" is just too vague - prohibitions
| need to be specific. The CIA saying they'll deport your
| undocumented housekeeper if you don't print XYZ is one
| thing, them feeding information with "spin" on it to a
| journalist is another entirely.
| desine wrote:
| Gary Webb showed journalists what their choices were, so if the
| CIA wants media influence, they get media influence.
|
| edit: Also Michael Hastings, according to some. Webb was pretty
| blatant.
| fedreserved wrote:
| Gary Webb solidified the cias 2 prong approach in dealing
| with the media.
|
| Silver or lead. Take our money, or publish the truth or get
| suicided by shooting yourself twice in the head with a
| revolver.
| webdoodle wrote:
| The CIA, through it's funding arm In-Q-Tel, bought into early
| [social media data mining
| firms](https://www.businessinsider.com/companies-funded-by-
| cia-2016...) as well.
| dr-detroit wrote:
| ABC news reported that facebook is just a CIA honeypot.
| Nobody cares... Charlie Wilson's War is a loveable Tom Hanks
| movie. People do not care even when something is directly
| harming them.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| See also "A Manhattan Project for Online Identity" (2011), by
| Alex Howard of O'Reilly Media, on the NSTIC (National
| Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace)
|
| http://radar.oreilly.com/2011/05/nstic-analysis-identity-
| pri...
|
| https://www.nist.gov/itl/applied-cybersecurity/tig
| DnDGrognard wrote:
| His boss during Watergate was a mate of Angleton and had been
| kicked out of I believe France
| aww_dang wrote:
| As an example, Anderson Cooper of CNN proudly admits that he
| worked as an intern at the CIA. Do with that what you will.
| There's a prejudice to pejoratively dismiss these things out of
| hand as conspiracy theory. One could easily push back asking
| about naivete, but it isn't worth it.
|
| >"As a college student, I had a number of summer jobs and
| internships, including working at the CIA."
|
| >"Oh, yeah, in case you're interested, after I graduated
| college, I briefly worked as a waiter, but I decided not to
| make a career out of that job either."
|
| See also: "Operation Mockingbird"
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird
|
| https://edition.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/anderson.cooper.360/blo...
| Victerius wrote:
| And Princeton valedictorian and current professor of
| mathematics at Duke Lilian Pierce interned at the National
| Security Agency. Don't read too much into Cooper's very brief
| time at the CIA.
| cool_dude85 wrote:
| Don't know anything about the specific guy, but I wouldn't
| be surprised if there were 3-letter involvement in higher
| ed at some level.
|
| But the broader answer to your point is to consider the
| stakes and possible outcomes of clandestine influence of US
| media and of the Duke math department. It would probably
| very often come in handy to get favorable coverage, spike
| stories, influence hiring, etc. at major outlets, and not
| so often to do the same in the Duke math department.
|
| It's the difference between believing that the CIA is the
| one who knocked my mailbox over last night and believing
| that they were involved in the JFK assassination. Before
| considering evidence, we can provide many plausible reasons
| that the CIA may have wanted to assassinate JFK and few
| that they wanted to knock over my mailbox.
| itsyaboi wrote:
| Slightly tongue in cheek, but that's probably what the CIA
| prefer you think.
| imwillofficial wrote:
| Ah so this other guy worked for a different place so we
| shouldn't look to closely at Cooper. Makes total sense.
| mhh__ wrote:
| What I will do with that is nothing because there is no way
| an intern did anything interesting enough to be worth
| mentioning in this thread.
| tboyd47 wrote:
| Do you know what the hiring process is like for the CIA?
|
| https://www.cia.gov/careers/how-we-hire/hiring-process/
| nextstep wrote:
| The CIA works through a network of contractors and assets
| they cultivate over many years and through many layers of
| intermediaries. There are many levels of involvement beyond
| directly working for the agency.
| daveevad wrote:
| You deserve a promotion if this referral converts.
| burnafter291 wrote:
| I always thought Cooper looked like a spook. Like he was
| grown in a lab to run around in a suit with a badge doing
| "REDACTED" and "CLASSIFIED".
| Consultant32452 wrote:
| It starts in the schools. Public school teachers train the
| children which news sources are "authoritative". And it doesn't
| matter how wrong they are, how much they lie, how bloodthirsty
| they are about any war, people do as they are trained.
|
| It's very common for TV news personalities to have direct ties
| to the intelligence community, and it's no surprise they are
| mouthpieces to the regime.
|
| Here's just one list of 15 former spooks working for the
| "news."
|
| https://dailycaller.com/2019/08/23/cnn-msnbc-15-spooks-mccab...
| handrous wrote:
| > It starts in the schools. Public school teachers train the
| children which news sources are "authoritative".
|
| They basically don't have a choice but to teach them this if
| they don't want to grade a bunch of papers about how the UK
| royal family actually comprises lizard people from the Hollow
| Earth, or the Earth is in fact flat, or that the holocaust or
| moon landing were faked, or any number of more mundane bits
| of bullshit. Yes there's more to source evaluation, but a
| first pass of "is this contrary-to-common-knowledge truth-
| bomb coming from a source generally regarded as credible?"
| _actually is_ a reasonable and helpful first step.
| me_me_me wrote:
| Relevant read:
|
| Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media
|
| Tl;dr Through subtle mechanisms, gov can promote preferred
| media outlets by giving them better/direct/scoops informations
| - resulting in better sales - resulting in better deals for ads
| - resulting in bigger profits.
|
| In turn, people in those media outlets are incentivised to
| shush descending voices/opinions by 'promoting' those into
| sport section or horoscope section.
|
| Its self selecting and self correcting mechanism.
| echelon_musk wrote:
| This is exactly what has happened in the case of The Guardian
| in the UK. See the previous discussion [0] on 'How the UK
| Security Services neutralised The Guardian'. This is such a
| shame because they were perhaps the only paper in the UK with
| enough courage and understanding to cover the Snowden leaks.
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20937555
| adolph wrote:
| > Its self selecting and self correcting mechanism.
|
| Semantically: %/correcting/perpetuating/
|
| Pedantically: %/Its/It's a/
| tempodox wrote:
| You overlooked one: s/descending/dissenting/
| imwillofficial wrote:
| Self correcting fits, as in the feedback mechanisms are
| arrayed in such a way that disobedience is punished without
| outside pressures. Simple loss of access to scoops cascades
| through the process until news company makes less money, so
| dissent would be swiftly taken care of.
| myth_drannon wrote:
| That's one of the accusations of ex-prime minister of Israel
| Netanyahu's corrution trial.
| zionic wrote:
| Perhaps "self corrupting mechanism" is a better term?
| herbstein wrote:
| Manufacturing Consent is such an interesting book. The
| framework of analysis Herman and Chomsky present is general
| enough that it, while approaching almost 40 years old, still
| very accurately seems to describe the current media
| landscape.
|
| Chomsky is a famous left-leaning anarchist, and I find it
| interesting that his analysis isn't "the media is too right-
| wing" or "the media is too left-wing". Instead, his analysis
| is primarily about how power begets power -- even at the
| level of the local paper.
|
| This[0] short 3-minute video does a fine job of letting him
| explain his position on media bias while not really going
| into the nitty gritty details. His books, however, do go into
| the nitty gritty details while still being relatively easy to
| read.
|
| For anyone interested in Chomsky I highly recommend
| "Understanding Power"[1] as the intro to his views on the
| world. It's not as detailed in every topic as many of his
| other books and is primarily conversational in style - owing
| to it being transcribed discussions with audience members
| after he has held a speech.
|
| [0]: https://youtu.be/x60pSXlwmNE
|
| [1]: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/194805.Understanding
| _Pow...
| atentaten wrote:
| The Secret CIA Campaign to Influence Culture: Covert Cultural
| Operations (2000) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdLB5l2wN3o
|
| Watch or read Frances Stonor Saunders for some insights on how
| this works.
| disk0 wrote:
| Some more recent academic work on the CCC recently started
| reading--The CIA and the Congress for Cultural Freedom in the
| Early Cold War: Strange Bedfellows, Routledge [2016]
|
| Partial summary from libgen description:
|
| >This book calls into question the conventional wisdom about
| one of the most controversial episodes in the Cold War, and
| tells the story of the CIA's backing of the Congress for
| Cultural Freedom.
|
| >For nearly two decades of the early Cold War, the CIA secretly
| sponsored some of the world's most feted writers, philosophers,
| and scientists as part of a campaign to stop Communism from
| regaining a foothold in western Europe and Asia. By backing the
| Congress for Cultural Freedom, the CIA subsidized dozens of
| prominent magazines, global congresses, annual seminars, and
| artistic festivals. When this operation--QKOPERA--became public
| in 1967, it ignited one of the most damaging scandals in CIA
| history. Ever since, the prevailing assumption has been that
| the CIA, as the Congress's paymaster, manipulated a generation
| of intellectuals into lending their names to pro-American,
| anti-Communist ideas in exchange for prestigious bylines and
| plentiful grants. Even today, a cloud hangs over the
| reputations of many of the intellectuals associated with the
| Congress.
|
| >This book tells the story of how a small but determined group
| of anti-Communist intellectuals in America and Western Europe
| banded together to fight the Soviet Union's cultural offensive.
| They enlisted one of the CIA's earliest recruits to their cause
| --and they persuaded the CIA to foot their bill with virtually
| no strings attached. The CIA became a bureaucratic behemoth
| with an outsized influence on American foreign policy, but it
| began as a disorganized and unconventional outfit desperate to
| make inroads on all fronts against a foe many believed would
| ignite a nuclear war by 1954. When Michael Josselson, a recruit
| from the CIA's Berlin office, pitched a proposal for what
| became the Congress for Cultural Freedom, senior officials were
| thus willing to gamble $50,000 on the venture. And when the
| Congress proved effective in enlisting some of the twentieth
| century's most prominent intellectuals, senior CIA officials
| championed QKOPERA as the centerpiece of the Agency's efforts
| to woo the non-Communist left.
| blakesterz wrote:
| This is from 1977 "His 25,000-word cover story, published in
| Rolling Stone on October 20, 1977, is reprinted below."
| Wolfenstein98k wrote:
| MSNBC and CNN have the closest (visible) ties to the intelligence
| entities today, with a revolving door between them. Clapper and
| Brennan are big examples, but only two.
|
| Weird thought, so I try not to think too hard about it.
| stopglobalism wrote:
| Operation Mockingbird is an alleged large-scale program of the
| United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) that began in the
| early years of the Cold War and attempted to manipulate news
| media for propaganda purposes.
|
| ... "alleged". .... haha. hahaha. HAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHA
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird
|
| Ask Anderson "Mockingbird" Cooper over at C(IA)N(EWS)N(ETWORK)
| [deleted]
| 1cvmask wrote:
| Good indicative piece in the article:
|
| Among the executives who lent their cooperation to the Agency
| were Williarn Paley of the Columbia Broadcasting System, Henry
| Luce of Tirne Inc., Arthur Hays Sulzberger of the New York Times,
| Barry Bingham Sr. of the LouisviIle Courier-Journal, and James
| Copley of the Copley News Service. Other organizations which
| cooperated with the CIA include the American Broadcasting
| Company, the National Broadcasting Company, the Associated Press,
| United Press International, Reuters, Hearst Newspapers, Scripps-
| Howard, Newsweek magazine, the Mutual Broadcasting System, the
| Miami Herald and the old Saturday Evening Post and New York
| Herald-Tribune.
|
| By far the most valuable of these associations, according to CIA
| officials, have been with the New York Times, CBS and Time Inc.
| [deleted]
| markus_zhang wrote:
| One thing I realized about the media is that there is ALWAYS
| forces behind to manipulate the view. In the best case when
| journalists are simple individuals, their view of the world still
| create sort of biases.
|
| From that perspective, nothing is objective and everything is
| subjective. This might be an extreme view but I do believe it's a
| good mental antidote.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| It seems like you are making two points here. That the view is
| manipulated by forces behind the scenes and that the view is
| subjective. Yes. All humans who write words down taint them
| with their own subjective view. This does not mean that we are
| powerless though. Reporting can be improved by fact checking,
| editing, and other means. We can also use technology to make
| sure that the color of chosen words does not prime the reader.
| This does not imply manipulation or behind the scenes
| manipulation.
|
| My own opinion: Media bias is a boogeyman. If somebody needs to
| be flatly told what is or isn't biased or if some source is
| left or right leaning then they are a dimwit. Even asking for
| unbiased information shows stupidity- it does not exist in an
| absolute sense.
|
| I agree with you that you should start from a frame of mind
| that the media is biased because it is. Embrace it. There seems
| to be a push to therefore reject all news media which is a
| scary thought.
|
| The press is the only private entity specifically mentioned in
| the US Constitution. It is often called the 4th branch of
| government because of the oversight that it provides.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| That's a very interesting article with a lot of relevance for
| today's American media world, which also seems to have a very
| intertwined relationship with the various intelligence agencies
| (16 or so) of the US government.
|
| One case that stands out today is that of the Washington Post and
| its editorial/journalistic direction since it was bought by Jeff
| Bezos for $250 million in August 2013. This was preceded by
| Bezos' AWS getting a $600 million CIA web services contract in
| March 2013. This seems to have resulted in a rather striking
| shift in coverage and editorial opinion at the WaPo.
|
| Prior to this, the Washington Post had published a striking
| expose of the national security state, by reporters Dana Priest
| and William Arkin, entitled "Top Secret America". Here's
| legendary nuclear weapons historian Richard Rhodes reviewing the
| book that came out of that effort in 2011:
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/top-secre...
|
| > ""Top Secret America" originated in a 2010 Washington Post
| series of the same name that set out to enumerate how many
| Americans held top secret clearances -- about 854,000, the Post's
| investigative team found, more than the population of Washington.
| The book is far more ambitious than was the series, however, and
| makes the team's investigations available in detail to those of
| us who live beyond the Beltway..."
|
| Since the change of ownership at the WaPo, with the new owner
| probably interested in the perpetual renewal of that AWS CIA
| contract and expanding such services to all the other intel
| agencies, I can't think of anything even remotely similar being
| published at the Post. Note this doesn't mean WaPo employees have
| gone back to being CIA agents, rather that the editorial board
| has realized that publishing any more such exposes are probably
| not going to help with their future careers at the Post.
|
| Another Church Committee with the power to subpoena all the
| relevant parties under oath about this situation might be a good
| idea, but don't hold your breath.
| rhizome wrote:
| A better idea is breaking up Amazon, splitting off, at the very
| least, AWS and WaPo from the retailer/logistics firm.
| muricula wrote:
| The WaPo isn't owned by Amazon, the WaPo is owned by Bezos,
| who also happens to own Amazon. So I don't think an FTC
| breakup would really work at all.
| walshemj wrote:
| The monopoly of media in the hands of billionaires like Murdoc
| et al is more worrying.
| [deleted]
| Jerry2 wrote:
| In one of the previous threads on the influence of the CIA on the
| media, someone mentioned that there was a documentary about this.
| It's called "On Company Business (1980)" and it features
| interviews with former CIA directors and various officers and
| also with lots of critics [1]. I managed to find a copy of it on
| YouTube and it's absolutely amazing and can't recommend it enough
| if you want to hear about the creation of the CIA and their work
| from principal actors [2]. Among many other things they discuss,
| it details how the CIA infiltrated the media.
|
| It seems to me that the only difference between 40 years ago and
| today is that some TV networks and media companies are not even
| hiding their association with the CIA and hire former CIA
| officers in the open as "analysts" so they can push their agenda.
|
| [1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093265/
|
| [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYrznlDTE_M
| 1cvmask wrote:
| There are some great John Stockwell videos on CSPAN and
| YouTube.
|
| Here is one on fake news and the CIA:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XibCflWxZuA
|
| John Stockwell on the CIA secret wars:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTTVdGOHDqg
| kwertyoowiyop wrote:
| "That which has been is what will be, That which is done is what
| will be done, And there is nothing new under the sun."
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