
Guy Sims Fitch, a Fake Writer Invented by the US Government - lermontov
http://paleofuture.gizmodo.com/meet-guy-sims-fitch-a-fake-writer-invented-by-the-us-g-1787060769
======
jwtadvice
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.

~~~
unexistance
* 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.

~~~
cryoshon
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.

~~~
acqq
Thanks for the quote! Barbara Honegger writes:

[https://www.quora.com/Did-William-Casey-CIA-Director-
really-...](https://www.quora.com/Did-William-Casey-CIA-Director-really-say-
Well-know-our-disinformation-program-is-complete-when-everything-the-American-
public-believes-is-false)

"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...](http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--
8OufMYrC--/rvbsrgrseidxhnmogbee.jpg)

------
Gustomaximus
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.

------
eth0up
The good old days:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird)

------
TazeTSchnitzel
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!

------
bedros
a fictional story of gay syrian girl prosecuted by syrian government, a
similar propaganda to demonize syrian government and promote US imperialist
foreign policy

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Gay_Girl_In_Damascus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Gay_Girl_In_Damascus)

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

~~~
PhasmaFelis
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...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/a-gay-girl-in-damascus-
comes-clean/2011/06/12/AGkyH0RH_story.html)

Other sources mention Georgia (the nation) and Istanbul, Turkey, where he was
apparently vacationing: [http://www.afterellen.com/movies/444337-gay-girl-
damascus-am...](http://www.afterellen.com/movies/444337-gay-girl-damascus-
amina-profile-story-two-straight-men-pretending-lesbians-online) He apparently
liked to visit the Middle East, having taken photos of Syria (that he passed
off as "Amina's") on a previous trip.

McMaster is a miserable lying asshole who did enormous harm, but promoting gay
rights (however incompetently) is not "US imperialist foreign policy." Dozens
of nations embraced gay rights laws long before the US did, and dozens still
have better ones than we do. It is not--unfortunately--our doing that the
world is slowly crawling out of the gutter of homophobia.

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

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

~~~
PhasmaFelis
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?

~~~
R_haterade
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.

------
bksenior
Is this the inspiration for "Sidd Finch?"

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

~~~
justratsinacoat
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...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Defense_Authorization_Act_for_Fiscal_Year_2013#Smith-
Mundt_Modernization_Act_of_2012)

~~~
anigbrowl
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...](http://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-
releases?ID=b5294991-c86f-4b13-8708-83db770d7740)

~~~
jwtadvice
This is correct.

But what's pointed out is that it _only_ protects citizens. It clarifies, as
there was a deadlock in the Senate over the issue before it, that non-citizens
(other persons) or those no longer recognized as citizens (i.e. lost due to
joining a foreign army or suspected of national security violations such as
terrorism) _do not have these protections_.

The Constitution of course evaluates _people_ as having these rights. It's a
bit of a silly game to try to pretend that The Constitution is relevant today
as it was written hundreds of years ago - but these differences are crucial.
The placement of the boundary of habeus corpus - for all of the recent
experimentation the United States has been doing with it - has been clarified
by Lee-Feinstein as short of a protection for people and only a protection
that extends to certain people under certain circumstances.

~~~
dv_dt
So, a person who is a citizen, could have their citizenship revoked for being
a terrorist (by some definition) and then be detained indefinitely? Am I
reading your, and the parent, comment correctly?

~~~
jwtadvice
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...](http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2015/01/14/paris-lessons-us-must-
revoke-citizenship-americans-who-join-isis-al-qaeda.html)

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).

~~~
pbhjpbhj
>”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.

