{"id":230124,"date":"2023-02-27T12:00:34","date_gmt":"2023-02-27T12:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=230124"},"modified":"2023-02-22T09:01:45","modified_gmt":"2023-02-22T09:01:45","slug":"how-social-networks-became-a-subsidiary-of-the-fbi-and-cia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2023\/02\/how-social-networks-became-a-subsidiary-of-the-fbi-and-cia\/","title":{"rendered":"How Social Networks Became a \u2018Subsidiary\u2019 of the FBI and CIA"},"content":{"rendered":"
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THE BIG STORY: The Twitter Files have lifted the lid on a secret alliance between Silicon Valley, intelligence agencies and the political establishment.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

20 Feb 2023 – <\/em>The US Congress last tried to grapple with what the country\u2019s ballooning security services were up to nearly half a century ago.<\/p>\n

In 1975, the Church Committee managed to take a fleeting, if far from complete, snapshot<\/a> of the netherworld in which agencies such as the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) and National Security Agency (NSA) operate.<\/p>\n

In the aftermath of the Watergate<\/a> scandal, the congressional committee and other related investigations found that the country\u2019s intelligence services had sweeping surveillance powers and were involved in a raft of illegal or unconstitutional acts.<\/p>\n

They were covertly subverting and assassinating foreign leaders. They had coopted hundreds of journalists and many media outlets around the world to promote<\/a> false narratives. They spied on and infiltrated political and civil rights groups. And they manipulated the public discourse to protect and expand their powers.<\/p>\n

Senator Frank Church himself warned<\/a> that the might of the intelligence community could at any moment \u201cbe turned around on the American people, and no American would have any privacy left, such is the capability to monitor everything\u2026 There would be no place to hide.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since then, the technological possibilities to invade privacy have dramatically increased<\/a>, and the reach of the intelligence agencies, especially after 9\/11<\/a>, has moved on in ways Church could never have foreseen.<\/p>\n

This is why establishing a new Church Committee is long overdue. And finally, in the most controversial of circumstances and for the most partisan of reasons, some sort of revival may finally be about to happen.<\/p>\n

A protracted battle last month within the Republican Party to elect Kevin McCarthy<\/a> as the new speaker of the House of Representatives forced him to cave to the demands of his party\u2019s right wing. Not least, he agreed<\/a> to set up a committee on what is being called the \u201cweaponisation\u201d<\/a>\u00a0of the federal government.<\/p>\n

It held its first meeting last week.\u00a0The panel said<\/a> its task would be to look at \u201cthe politicization of the FBI and DOJ and attacks on American civil liberties\u201d.<\/p>\n

Earlier, in a speech to the House on the new committee, Republican Representative Dan Bishop said<\/a> it was time to cut out the \u201crot\u201d in the federal government: \u201cWe\u2019re putting the deep state on notice. We\u2019re coming for you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Democrats are already decrying the committee as a tool that will be wielded in the interests of Donald Trump<\/a> and his supporters, saying the Republican right wants to discredit<\/a> the security services and suggest malfeasance in the treatment of the former president.<\/p>\n

Snowballing powers<\/strong><\/h3>\n

But while the committee will almost certainly end up being used to settle political scores, it may still manage to shed light on some of the terrifying new powers the security services have accrued since the Church Committee\u2019s report.<\/p>\n

The degree to which those powers have snowballed should be obvious to all. Documents leaked by whistleblower Edward Snowden a decade ago showed<\/a> illegal mass surveillance at home and abroad by the NSA. And Julian Assange\u2019s transparency organisation Wikileaks published dossiers<\/a> not only revealing US war crimes in Iraq<\/a> and Afghanistan<\/a>, but a huge global hacking programme by the CIA.<\/p>\n

Notably, in what may be a sign of the power of the security agencies to inflict retribution on those challenging their might, both Assange and Snowden have suffered dire consequences.<\/p>\n

Snowden has been forced into exile in Russia, one of the few jurisdictions where he cannot be extradited<\/a> to the US and locked away. Assange has been jailed as US authorities seek his extradition<\/a>, so he can be disappeared into a maximum-security prison for the rest of his life.<\/p>\n

Now, in an unlikely turn of events, a billionaire has opened another window on covert manipulations by the security services \u2013 on this occasion in relation to social media platforms and the US electoral process. The key players this time are the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), set up by former President George W Bush\u2019s administration in the wake of the 9\/11 attacks.<\/p>\n

After he bought the social network Twitter last year, Elon Musk gave a handful of independent journalists access to its corporate archives. In a continuing series of investigations named the Twitter Files<\/a>, published as long threads on the platform, these journalists have been making sense of what was going on under Twitter\u2019s previous owners.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/em><\/p>\n

The bottom line is that, after Trump\u2019s election, US security agencies \u2013 aided by political pressure, especially from the Democratic Party \u2013 aggressively wormed their way into Twitter\u2019s decision-making processes. Other major social media platforms appear to have made similar arrangements.<\/p>\n

A \u2018nothingburger\u2019?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The Twitter Files suggest a rapidly emerging but hidden partnership between state intelligence services, Silicon Valley, and traditional media, to manipulate the national conversation in the US \u2013 as well as much of the rest of the world.<\/p>\n

The parties in this alliance justify to each other their meddling in US politics \u2013 concealed from public view \u2013 as a necessary response to the rapid rise of a new populism<\/a>. Trump and his supporters had come to dominate the Republican Party, and a populist left headed by Senator Bernie Sanders had made limited inroads into the Democratic Party.<\/p>\n

Social media attracted particular concern from the security services because it was seen as the vehicle that had unleashed this wave of popular discontent. According to a report<\/a>\u00a0in the Intercept, one FBI official remarked last year that \u201csubversive information on social media could undermine support for the US government\u201d.<\/p>\n

The national security state, it seems, viewed an alliance with the Big Tech private sector as an opportunity to protect the old guard of politics, particularly in the Democratic Party. Figures such as President Joe Biden and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi were seen as a safe pair of hands, positioned to preserve the legitimacy of a turbo-charged, neoliberal capitalism, and the forever wars that have been the lifeblood of the intelligence community.<\/p>\n

This partnership has served all sides well. Silicon Valley has been the career of choice for many liberals who believe that progress is best pursued through technological means that depend on social stability and political consensus<\/a>. Populism and the polarisation it engenders naturally discomfort them.<\/p>\n

And both the security services and more centrist politicians in the Republican and Democratic parties understand that they are in the firing line in populist politics for decades-long failures: a growing polarisation of wealth between rich and poor, a creaking US economy<\/a>, depleted or non-existent welfare services, the ability of the rich to buy political influence, the constant loss of treasure and life in seemingly pointless wars fought in far-off lands, and a media that rarely addresses the concerns of ordinary people.<\/p>\n

Rather than focusing on the real causes of growing anger and anti-establishment sentiment, the security services offered politicians and Silicon Valley a more comforting and convenient narrative. The populists \u2013 on the right and left \u2013 were not articulating a frustration with a failing US political and economic system. They were working to sow social discontent<\/a> to advance the interests of Russia.<\/p>\n

Or as the minutes of a DHS meeting last March recorded<\/a>, the new focus was on curbing \u201csubversive data utilized to drive a wedge between the populace and the government\u201d.<\/p>\n

This strategy reached its zenith with \u201cRussiagate\u201d, years of evidence-free hysteria promoted by the intelligence community and the Democratic Party. The central claim was that Trump was only able to defeat his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election because of collusion with Moscow, and Russian influence operations through social media.<\/p>\n

As in a game of whack-a-mole, any signs of misconduct or criminality by the security services, or systemic failures by the US political class, were now knocked down as \u201cRussian disinformation\u201d.<\/p>\n

Snowden\u2019s exile to Russia \u2013 the only choice left to him \u2013 was used<\/a> to discredit<\/a> his whistleblowing on the NSA. And the disclosures by Assange and Wikileaks of war crimes and lawbreaking by the intelligence community were effectively negated by a supposed collusion with \u201cRussian hackers\u201d in revealing corruption<\/a> in the Democratic Party during the 2016 election.<\/p>\n

In practice, claims of \u201cRussian disinformation\u201d simply served to further polarise US politics.<\/p>\n

The key issues raised by the Twitter Files \u2013 of deep-state collusion with the tech and media industries, election meddling, and narrative manipulation and deflection \u2013 have been subsumed within, and obscured by, political partisanship.<\/p>\n

Interest in the Twitter Files has been largely confined to the right. In knee-jerk fashion, Democrats have mostly dismissed<\/a> the revelations as a \u201cnothingburger\u201d.<\/p>\n

Climate of fear<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Perhaps coincidentally, Musk has found himself transformed since his takeover of Twitter from a darling of liberals \u2013 for his Tesla electric cars \u2013 into a near-pariah. In October, the Biden administration denied reports<\/a> that it was considering a national security review of his businesses in the face<\/a> of Musk\u2019s \u201cincreasingly Russia-friendly stance\u201d. His status as the world\u2019s richest man has rapidly collapsed<\/a> alongside his reputation.<\/p>\n

The irony is that the same security agencies that whipped up the \u201cRussiagate\u201d hysteria are now exposed in the Twitter Files as perpetrating the very interference of which they accused Moscow.<\/p>\n

During the 2016 presidential election, Russia was said to have colluded with Trump and assisted him by weaponising social media to sow discord and manipulate the US electorate. A subsequent official inquiry<\/a> by Robert Mueller failed to stand up those allegations.<\/p>\n

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3. The \u201cTwitter Files\u201d tell an incredible story from inside one of the world\u2019s largest and most influential social media platforms. It is a Frankensteinian tale of a human-built mechanism grown out the control of its designer.<\/p>\n

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 2, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n