In the information war, where words are weapons, how do we defend ourselves and free speech?
Useful idiots, plausible deniability, and subversion of the First Amendment
Coming next week, Class 18: A deep dive into Project Good Old USA, a Russian influence campaign that aimed to elect Donald Trump in 2024. In the meantime, catch up on how these malign influence operations work with my Foreign Influence Operations course.
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ALEX’S WEEKLY RANT
“This isn’t about free speech. This a full information war. This is the kind of dilemma we are facing all of the time about how to balance freedom of speech against subversion. … It is probably one of the biggest dilemmas of our epoch.” —Fiona Hill in The Washington Post
Last week, I wrote about a number of legal actions aimed at disrupting Russia’s covert influence operations. Shortly after I published, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken spoke to the press, outlining the threat of such malign activities.
“Accurate information is vital to the health of any democracy. It helps citizens understand the issues and effects – and events that are affecting their lives. It empowers them to engage meaningfully in their communities, their country, the world. When state or non-state actors spread disinformation, material deliberately meant to deceive or divide our public, they attack the very foundations of our free and open society,” he said.
Blinken made clear that RT and other Russian platforms—as well as covert Russian platforms posing as non-Russian platforms—have become wholly integrated in Russia’s intelligence apparatus. They carry out covert influence operations, as well as cyber operations and other activities, including procuring military equipment for the military and for mercenaries. In short, RT and other overt and covert Russian information outlets are playing a key role in Russia’s war against the West.
Yes, Russia is at war with the West.
The main kinetic battlefield may be Ukraine, but the information space is also a battlefield in this same war in which Russia’s overall objective is to destabilize democracy.
In this information battlefield, words are weapons.
This is a difficult concept for Westerners to understand; even harder, I think, for Americans, who rightly value the First Amendment. But there is a difference between free speech, on the one hand, and working on behalf of a foreign intelligence agency running covert operations to exploit a population’s emotions and polarize the citizens in order to destabilize it as part of that foreign country’s war objectives.
Indeed, many of the documents we have seen outlining Russian malign influence activities note the objectives of creating “psychosis” and “destabiliz[ing] the societal situation” by creating false conflicts. This isn’t about saying Russia is good or its war is justified or Ukraine should not be a priority for the West. It’s much bigger. It’s about subverting democracy. When viewed through this lens, questions surrounding freedom of speech become a wee bit more uncomfortable.
The Problem With Useful Idiots
As Marcy Wheeler (@emptywheel on Twitter) recently wrote, we are finally moving beyond the name-and-shame phase to the name-and-disrupt phase of our defense strategy. Those commentators working for Tenet (which I wrote about last week) and repeating literal Kremlin talking points are all stepping back now, claiming they were “victims.” They were shocked—shocked!—to learn they were being paid by Russian intelligence to say exactly what the Kremlin says.
As I wrote, I’m not sure I buy that excuse for each and every commentator, but Marcy makes a good point: “By sanctioning RT, among others, upon release of this indictment, not just the Tenet podcasters, but anyone else in the US knowingly on the RT grift, has to drop their gig immediately.”
As she notes, Scott Ritter—a former UN weapons inspector, convicted pedophile, and regular RT and Sputnik contributor—quite publicly dropped his RT and Sputnik work after the indictment of two RT employees came out and the US government added sanctions, thus making it illegal for any US citizen to do business with them.
But it took this threat of criminality to get Ritter to drop his professional affiliation with Russian state media outlets. Not even having his home searched by the FBI a full month ago made him stop to think, hey wait, maybe peddling Kremlin talking points for $250 a pop isn’t a great idea (yes, he claims he was paid between $250 and $280 per contribution, a far cry from the hundreds of thousands the Tenet influencers were getting).
In essence, these folks are saying they were duped. But the problem with labeling them “useful idiots” is that it provides them with deniability. With a wink and a nod, they can claim there was no way they could have possibly known that the narratives they were being paid to spread that exactly matched those of the Kremlin came from the Kremlin.
Maybe they didn’t know, but they certainly should have, and now, after the RT indictment and the clear statement that such narratives are being pushed by Russian intelligence, they should ask themselves why their talking points so closely mimic those of the Kremlin.
Indeed, despite his professional disengagement from RT and Sputnik, Ritter, for example, has continued to amplify RT and Sputnik content, despite the US government stating very clearly that they are fully integrated with Russian intelligence. That doesn’t make him a useful idiot. He knows what he is doing. But because he claims he is no longer being paid by Russia, he has deniability.
And what of those who continue spreading Russian narratives who aren’t directly affiliated with RT or whose connections back to RT (or any Russian entity) remain, at least for now, covert?
Take Tucker Carlson’s recent romp through Moscow in which he was delighted with the subway and grocery stores, content that Tenet, which was funded by Russian intelligence, amplified, but which Tucker claims was all his own doing. That looks different from journalism or free speech when we acknowledge the information space as a battlefield.
Or take this recent story about former Trump aides working with a slew of Russian proxies to grow a pro-Russia website full of disinformation. Helping shape editorial content are George Papadopoulos—a Trump campaign foreign policy advisor who pleaded guilty to lying about his contacts with Russians; who met with Joseph Mifsud, the missing Maltese professor who is a Russian intelligence agent; and who told an Australian diplomat that Russia was planning to help Trump win in 2016 by releasing dirt on Hillary Clinton in the form of thousands of missing emails—and his wife, Simona Mangiante, who earlier this year interviewed Andrey Derkach, a central node in the Russian intelligence network spreading the lie that the Bidens were doing corrupt business in Ukraine. You can read that whole sorry, sordid tale here.
And yet, none of this illegal, it seems. In fact, Blinken, in speaking to the press about the full melding of Russian media and its intelligence services, made a point of saying, “The United States respects and champions freedom of expression, even when it comes to media outlets that wittingly spread government propaganda, and we’ll continue to lead the world in defending and promoting media freedom.” But, he added, “we will not stand by as RT and other actors carry out covert activities in support of Russia’s nefarious activities…”
Where is that line?
Hillary Clinton floated the idea that some Americans purposely amplifying Russian narratives meant to polarize us should face civil or criminal liability. No, she didn’t mean your average social media user retweeting a pro-Russia story. What she did mean is Americans actively supporting Russian subversion.
But it’s a fine line to walk, one for which finding clear evidence is usually difficult (reminder here that intelligence operations build in plausible deniability for exactly this reason).
On cue, many of the people who appear to be in on the Russian subversion game screamed that legal action such as that suggested by Clinton would be against freedom of speech. Of course, many of those with the biggest megaphones repeating this have curious connections back to Russia, even if we can’t (yet) explicitly state they are funded by Russia. They include Ritter and Aaron Maté, whose Grayzone media outlet has accepted contributions from several RT and Sputnik writers and who once appeared as a briefer at the United Nations on behalf of the Russian government.
How can we defend ourselves on a battlefield where words are weapons but where the war is about protecting democracy, whose foundation was built on free speech? How do we fight an adversary using our First Amendment against us? Fiona Hill is absolutely right: It is one of the biggest dilemmas of our epoch.
THE WEEK’S LINKS
A roundup of things you should be reading
RUSSIAN HYBRID WAR
Getting to “Ouch”: Hybrid Deterrence Against Russia (CEPA)
Fake Kamala hit-and-run story is the work of Russian propaganda group, Microsoft says (Reuters)
‘You Wanted Turmoil. You Got It’: How FSB Officers Chatted, And Plotted, To Sow Discord In The U.S. (RFERL)
Alex Finley is a former officer of the CIA’s Directorate of Operations, where she served in West Africa and Europe. She writes and teaches about terrorism, disinformation / covert influence, and oligarch yachts. Her writing has appeared in Slate, Reductress, Funny or Die, POLITICO, The Center for Public Integrity, and other publications. She has spoken to the BBC, MSNBC, CNN, C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, France24, and numerous other media outlets. She was also invited once to speak at Harvard, which she now tells everyone within the first ten seconds of meeting them. She is the author of the Victor Caro series, satirical novels about the CIA. Before joining the CIA, Alex was a journalist, covering Capitol Hill, the Pentagon, and the Department of Energy. She reported on issues related to national security, intelligence, and homeland security. Did she mention she was invited to speak at Harvard?
Last week I raised the point that there is an 'incitement of violence' exception to the First Amendment free speech, it stemmed from an Ohio case, it's appalling that a sitting Senator of Ohio is targeting his own constituents with false and inflammatory rhetoric. I received a very thoughtful reply that pointed out "where's the undefined line?" and that seems to sum up just about everything we've been witnessing with the recent criminal activities of the former President and our Judicial system, if there isn't a definitive line how can he possibly have crossed it? But he did, IMO, there is definitely a line crossed with this September WH prohibited air space violation;
https://youtu.be/N8bQY02SEBc?si=spW_bh8un8BtTT1z
Do you think the secret nature of some of the information plays a role? It was really helpful for there to be emails from Tenet. But then there are other times that it’s obvious to anyone with a functioning brain cell and… it makes no difference