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W4 May 20–26, 2016|

Disinformation continued from W1

On May 16, a bipartisan bill called the Countering Infor-mation Warfare Act of 2016 was introduced to the Senate, sponsored by Sen. Rob Port-man (R-Ohio) and co-spon-sored by Sen. Christopher Mur-phy (D-Conn.). It has been read twice and referred to the Com-mittee on Foreign Relations.

It states plainly that foreign governments including Russia and China “use disinformation and other propaganda tools to undermine the national security objectives of the United States and key allies and partners.”

Sen. Portman emphasized the importance of the bill on May 12 at the Atlantic Council, stating: “China spends billions annually on its foreign propa-ganda efforts, while RT, Russia’s state-funded, 24-7 international news channel reportedly spends $400 million annually just on its Washington Bureau alone.”

The damage caused by dis-information cannot be under-stated, and the propaganda tactic is a serious threat to democracy, according to Ron-ald J. Rychlak, a law professor at The University of Mississippi School of Law.

Rychlak co-wrote the book “Disinformation” with Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa, the highest-ranking Soviet bloc intelligence official who ever defected to the West. The two detailed many of the false narratives spread by the Soviets, which today are taken as basic knowledge.

“We are a society that’s based upon free information, upon people trusting the informa-tion they receive and making wise decisions,” and this sys-tem is undermined when for-eign governments intention-ally spread false information to deceive people, Rychlak said, in a phone interview.

“It’s important for people to become aware of this, and in some way we fight back, because you can corrupt an entire sys-tem from seemingly within by providing information like that,” he said.

A Strategy of DeceptionDisinformation is a particu-larly devious form of propa-ganda. One method is to man-ufacture news stories, often with a grain of truth, but with a false conclusion. The other method is to stage events, such as the fake video of the soldier shooting the Quran, and then spread a video or report of the fake event among the targeted population.

The tactic doesn’t end at the creation of a false story, how-ever. As opposed to conven-tional propaganda, which is usually spread by state mouth-pieces, a key goal of disin-formation is to cause foreign experts and news outlets to spread the disinformation on the state’s behalf.

From there, the false stories start to take on a life of their own. As soon as a news outlet or expert picks up the disinfor-mation, the state that created it can then use the false report as a source. It may then have a government official come out to publicly condemn the targeted country, citing the false news report, which incites other news outlets to also pick up the story.

After public sentiment gets riled up, foreign leaders are forced to respond. And with each report and statement, the false source of the disinforma-tion gets buried deeper and deeper. The end goal is to make the false reports be viewed as common knowledge.

Rychlak said that when it

reaches this point, disinfor-mation “becomes part of our culture, part of the assumed knowledge, and this is why dis-information has been such an effective tool for our enemies.”

The Chinese regime has used this tactic to justify many of its human rights abuses.

On Jan. 23, 2001, five peo-ple in China set themselves on fire on Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. The Chinese regime’s state-run news outlets claimed the individuals were practition-ers of Falun Gong. The incident was used by Chinese authori-ties to validate their persecu-tion of the practice, which had started two years earlier, but which had little public support until that time.

The incident was quickly debunked as being staged by Chinese authorities. The Wash-ington Post looked into two of the individuals and reported in February 2001 that nobody had

ever seen them practicing Falun Gong. An award-winning video program, “False Fire,” also found numerous holes in the report—including a part in the video where a Chinese police officer can be seen killing one of the alleged victims with a blow to the back of her head.

Despite the fact that the “self immolation”  was debunked, even today some news outlets still cite the incident and repeat the Chinese regime’s disinfor-mation, which according to the Falun Dafa Information Center was used by Chinese author-ities “as a pretext to sanction the systematic use of violence and extrajudicial imprison-ment against Falun Gong prac-titioners, leading to a surge in deaths due to torture and abuse in custody.”

The Chinese regime has also used disinformation heav-

ily in its operations to under-mine the United States and its global influence. The Dip-lomat reported in December 2015 that the Chinese Commu-nist Party has several systems for these operations, includ-ing a guiding policy under its “Three Warfares” doctrine of legal warfare, psychological warfare, and media warfare, military operations for “soft power” carried out by its Gen-eral Political Department, and operations by spies under its Second Department.

The Three Warfares strategy creates a perception of legiti-macy for the Chinese regime’s land-grab in the South China Sea and other military opera-tions, while trying to discredit military initiatives of other nations.

According to the think tank Project 2049 Institute, the bill’s focus on countering Chinese propaganda would be a first for the United States. It says: “The Pentagon has been aware of China’s expanding infor-mation warfare capabilities for over a decade, yet currently no single U.S. government organi-zation takes on the role of devel-oping a whole-of-government strategy to combat the threat of information warfare.”

The bill states that Russia, on the other hand, has been increasingly using disinforma-tion to pursue “political, eco-nomic, and military objectives in Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, the Balkans, and throughout Central and Eastern Europe.”

The new bill to counter information warfare is aimed particularly at disinforma-tion campaigns that threaten the national security of the United States and its allies, but it would also aim to “protect and promote a free, healthy, and independent press in countries vulnerable to foreign disinformation.”

The War of WordsIf the bill is passed, it would cre-ate a new office under the State Department tasked with iden-tifying foreign disinformation and publicly exposing it.

According to William Tri-plett, however, who is a veteran of the Reagan White House and the American Intelligence Community, the bill may have a difficult time reaching that stage.

The problem, Triplett said, is that anything aimed at expos-ing Chinese disinformation, in particular, is going to ruf-fle the feathers of the numer-ous organizations that receive money from China—whether it be news organizations that run paid inserts of Chinese propaganda (such as the New York Times and Washington Post running inserts of China Daily, the Chinese regime’s main English-language prop-aganda outlet), businesses with financial interests in China, or paid agents of the Chinese regime working in various parts of U.S. society.

Triplett said he sees the bill as something important, but noted it would likely need more mus-cle behind it to break through the resistance.

While Rychlak also agreed that efforts to counter disinfor-mation are important, he also expressed some concerns. The problem for him isn’t whether the bill can be passed, however, but instead the types of prob-lems it may face afterward.

He said that if the U.S. govern-ment were to create an organi-zation assigned to identify and expose foreign disinformation, that organization “will be the first thing our enemies will try to take hold of.”

Rychlak said it would also be risky, since it would establish an office with authority to say which information is true, and which is not.

He added, however, that “If we are to be a republic that rests on the idea of an informed popu-lace making decisions, we need to have at some level the ability to see through, and that’s some-thing most individuals don’t have the resources and ability to do.”

Within 180 days of being passed, the bill would establish a Center for Information Analy-sis and Response, through coor-dination with the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, the Director of National Intel-ligence, the Broadcasting Board of Governors, and other depart-ments and agencies.

The new center would then be tasked with collecting and analyzing information war-fare efforts of foreign govern-ments, and finding ways to work the information into a national strategy. It would have $20 mil-lion to hand out in grants to get help in this work from journal-ists, NGOs, private companies,

and academics.It would also aim to iden-

tify the systems leveraged by other nations in their disinfor-mation campaigns—including front groups under think tanks, potlical parties, and NGOs, and extending to their use of spies assigned to “influence targeted populations and governments.”

While the concept may sound far-fetched, it’s unfortunately close to reality. In June 2010, the FBI arrested 10 spies from the Russian Foreign Intelli-gence Service, who were work-ing to infiltrate U.S. think tanks and NGOs.

The center would work with various departments to “expose and counter” the information operations with its own “fact-based narratives that sup-port United States allies and interests.”

Epoch Times has also exposed several Chinese spy programs designed for influence opera-tions. Michel Juneau-Katsuya, the former Asia-Pacific bureau chief for the Canadian Secu-rity Intelligence Service, told the Epoch Times in June 2015, “The sheer volume of spies that have been deployed, the sheer volume of agents of influence that have been deployed—it’s just absolutely phenomenal. It’s never been seen in the history of the world.”

(Top) Russia’s President Vladimir Putin visits the new studio complex of the state-owned English-language RT television network in Moscow on June 11, 2013.

(Middle) A scene from a video allegedly showing a U.S. soldier firing a Russian rifle at a copy of the Quran. An investigation, however, pointed out that the alleged soldier is wearing the wrong camouflage along with the wrong type of helmet.

(Bottom) A scene from a Chinese state news report allegedly showing Falun Gong practitioners setting themselves on fire at Tienanmen Square, Beijing, in 2001. However, an award-winning video, “False Fire,” found numerous holes in the report—including a scene where a Chinese police officer can be seen killing one of the alleged victims with a blow to the back of her head.

YURI KOCHETKOV/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

SCREENSHOT VIA MAYAESE JOHNSON/YOUTUBE

SCREENSHOT VIA CCTV

Disinformation is a particularly devious form of propaganda.

The sheer volume of spies that have been deployed ... It’s never been seen in the history of the world.Michel Juneau-Katsuya, former chief, Asia-Pacific bureau, Canadian Security Intelligence Service

Using News as a WeaponForeign governments regularly plant fake news stories to damage the United States.

A Senate bill seeks to do something about this.