U.K. ministers are accused of a cover-up as evidence emerges of soldiers spying on domestic critics of the Government’s Covid response. The Mail has the story.
The release of new documents contradict official assertions that a shadowy Army unit had only been monitoring foreign powers.
The Mail on Sunday revealed earlier this year that military operatives in the U.K.’s ‘information warfare’ brigade were part of a sinister scheme to keep a close eye on politicians and high-profile journalists who raised doubts about the pandemic response.
They compiled dossiers on public figures – such as ex-Minister David Davis, who questioned the modelling behind alarming death toll predictions, and the Mail on Sunday columnist Peter Hitchens – and reported their dissenting views back to No. 10. …
When the reports appeared, Ben Wallace, then the Defence Secretary, told the Commons the unit unearthed information on extremist alliances based outside the U.K. and that “its role is not to monitor or counter opinion”.
Worth reading in full.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
Wouldn’t be surprised if these guys weren’t the trolls creeping up and down the Telegraph’s comment sections. They seemed to work shifts, had consistently whitebread names, tended to argue with dismissive cliches and had a strange dedication to their work as tho they were getting paid.
They absolutely were, I was targeted on the DT for sure, I also had oddities re my IP address.
We know what extent this occured from Musks Twitter files, it wasnt just the US, this happened on a global scale.
In an exclusive interview with Big Brother Watch, a whistleblower from the unit stated that the 77th Brigade was “monitoring the UK population” to gauge the public response to the Johnson government’s policies, which often included reports on British people sharing their fears around COVID-19.
The article finishes with “journalists and politicians appear to be treated like the enemy within”. This is blinkered. Anyone will be treated like an enemy within by the UK regime because they don’t work for us and there’s no evidence that they do.
Ah! Conformity! The only true freedom!
I do not comply
‘We were told what was legally allowed – such as ‘scraping’ online platforms for keywords – and what was illegal. This included repeatedly looking at a named UK individual’s account without authorisation, although some people would do that from their own accounts after their shift.
We would take screenshots of tweets from people expressing dissatisfaction with the UK Government’s action against Covid. The project leader would then gather these screenshots and send them to the Cabinet Office. Feedback from the Cabinet Office would direct us over what to look for the next day.’
That is what the ‘whistleblower’ actually said.
Looking at a named individual’s account was briefed as being illegal, but individuals did it using their own email accounts off duty……
‘Feedback from the cabinet office would direct us’ is a curious form of words.
He goes on to say: ‘We learned from the feedback that the Government were very keen on hearing what the public thought of their Covid response.’
That sounds more like a statement of the blindingly obvious than ‘direction’
Nevertheless the more publicity that is given to this potentially illegal behaviour the better.
And a clear exposition of the facts, for example what, if any, investigations have taken place and their findings, is urgently required.
Until that happens, suspicions of state overreach, socialist fascism, will only increase, to the government’s great electoral disadvantage.
What a shambles the totality of the government’s response to a common cold coronavirus has been!
Shambles is not the word that springs to my mind. Employing the army to spy on UK citizens is far from shambolic. It’s just evil. It’s not something you do by accident, in the heat of the moment. There can be no excuse for it, and no forgiveness.
Indeed, if proven, clear totalitarian overreach: socialist fascism.
For me, I await details of any investigation and the findings, particularly whether the apparently illegal searches using private accounts were ever authorised.
Well taking the article at face value, it sounds like the UK military were monitoring communications linked to the covid response, by UK citizens. Whether what they did was illegal or not is a different question, but there can be no excuse or acceptable explanation for using our military in such a fashion.
There is a great deal of malicious overseas funded, overseas state funded, activity, including espionage, occasionally assassination, as we have seen, in this country.
As a consequence of this activity, at least one British citizen has been killed, a police officer badly injured.
Terrorism by UK residents, UK citizens, is a constant internal security threat.
Clearly there is a need for properly authorized surveillance for internal security purposes.
If mission creep has taken place into improper use of surveillance capabilities, that must be investigated and reported.
I have not yet seen any evidence of that, other than hearsay.
Perhaps you have?
The DM article is about monitoring online communication regarding Covid and suggests that this was definitely happening
Suggests indeed, but evidence, which, rightly, we set so much store by on here?
I rather doubt the DM would publish this without having seen convincing evidence
Let’s see if there is a denial from HMG
The evidence is that some servicemen were using their own email accounts to conduct unauthorised investigations in their own time, the results of which, unsolicited, were passed to the cabinet office.
If proven, that activity by servicemen acting in a private capacity off duty, might, potentially, be illegal but, because private and unauthorised, would not reflect on the authorities in any way.
An investigation is required to establish whether those activities were in fact ever authorised and solicited. I say again, I have not seen any such evidence that they were. Neither, clearly, has this site or the Mail on Sunday.
Consequently, for now, there is nothing for HMG to deny.
“The Mail on Sunday revealed earlier this year that military operatives in the U.K.’s ‘information warfare’ brigade were part of a sinister scheme to keep a close eye on politicians and high-profile journalists who raised doubts about the pandemic response.”
Precisely. That has been known since January.
https://twitter.com/BigBrotherWatch/status/1619787895912673280?lang=en
The whistleblower said that the ‘scheme’ was unauthorised, operated by off duty servicemen using their private email accounts.
What we should be told is whether that is correct and whether these unofficial efforts were, in fact, solicited by the cabinet office.
If that is the case, there will be big trouble.
But, as I keep on saying, evidence is required, and has not so far been forthcoming, as far as I am aware, that such activity was either authorised or solicited.
The defence appears to be:
‘Soldiers also filed newspaper articles and tweets made by politicians regarding No 10’s rejection of an international ventilator scheme in March 2020 under the label ‘disinformation which could have a negative effect on the UK’s reputation’.
‘These units used publicly available data, including material shared on social media platforms, to assess UK disinformation trends and narratives.’
‘They did not target individuals or take any action that could impact anyone’s ability to discuss and debate issues freely.’
Technically, if the work was to protect Britain’s international reputation, it could plausibly be argued to fall within the servicemen’s remit.
‘Protecting the nation and its dependent territories will always be our first role.’
But, I agree, the whole affair is a concern and now needs a proper investigation and publicly available report
The stated remit should never have been deemed to apply to “covid”
That is, in my view, entirely correct and should represent one of the findings in any report.
Unfortunately certain types of servicemen, as with other professions, are ambitious, over zealous and, quite possibly, unprincipled.
Within any uniformed branch of state employees, a lack of principle, discipline, can be extremely dangerous; urgently requires identification and remedy.
All true, though I am not especially bothered if some staff overstepped the mark. I am interested in how the legitimate scope of military activity with respect to UK citizens acting inside the UK is defined, and exactly what was sanctioned and known about by senior officers and ministers.
I am bothered by uniformed personnel overstepping the mark, particularly if leaned on by their superiors. It’s a slippery slope….
‘….the intellectual combination of the old military tradition with modern fighting techniques can be regarded as one of the keys to the Wehrmacht’s astounding military successes……in the Third Reich, especially during the war, the soldiers’ submission to a disciplinary system, led to their profound brutalization because they were unpunished for such atrocious actions.’
As for the rest of your comment:
‘“77th Brigade is the new name for the Security Assistance Group. Its continuing role includes:
Providing support, in conjunction with other Government agencies, to efforts to build stability overseas and to wider defence diplomacy and overseas engagement;
Leading on Special Influence Methods, including providing information on activities, key leader engagement, operations security and media engagement;
Military capacity-building at various stages in the cycle of conflict, through mentoring, support and training, including providing training support to Force Elements to enable delivery of security assistance tasks.
There will be 440 military posts in 77th Brigade.”
‘Whilst admitting that the 77th Brigade analyses UK disinformation, the Defence Secretary announced a probe into the whistleblower’s claims about the types of social media posts the secretive army unit flags to government, saying the Brigade “is not to be involved in regulating, policing or even reporting opinion that it may or may not agree with.”
Responding to a call for a review from senior Conservative MP David Davis, whose social media posts had been collated by other government “counter-disinformation” units during the pandemic……Mr Wallace replied, “I have already instructed that we not only look into the story but check that the instructions that I issued after a visit were carried out.’
I very much share your interest in the legitimate scope of military activity with respect to British citizens within this country and would be very interested in what the Ministry of Defence found when it ‘looked into the story’.
I agree about uniformed personnel overstepping but would say it’s a lower priority.
I would question whether any UK military body should be “analysing UK disinformation”.
I doubt anyone “looked into” the story.
Under Military Aid to the Civilian Authorities, counter disinformation is part of the remit of NATO forces, of which our Armed Forces are a part:
‘Why is disinformation so dangerous?
Disinformation tears at the fabric that holds our societies together. It destroys people’s faith in traditional news sources – which, unlike disinformation agents, have ethical standards and legal responsibilities to report the facts, which are often more complex and less satisfying than a simple hostile narrative. It undermines people’s trust in governments and other public institutions. It is usually designed to appeal to our worst impulses, fears and prejudices – pitting neighbour against neighbour, poisoning social groups against each other, validating and inflaming extremism, degrading our feelings of belonging to a community or a country – all in an attempt to divide and conquer a society on the information battlefield.
Disinformation is not always designed to persuade people to believe a specific lie. Sometimes it is designed to confuse and to muddy the waters with contradictory information in order to prevent people from differentiating between fact and fiction. Some people will be swayed by disinformation and help it spread. Others will be frustrated by the flood of lies and completely disengage. Both of these outcomes can be useful to hostile actors seeking to degrade the resilience of a society.’
But the military looking into ‘covid’ ‘disinformation’? That seems to me to be a wholly inappropriate use of scarce internal security resources.
Has anyone ‘looked into’ the story?
Definitely, in my view.
Will they shed any further light on it?
That remains to be seen.
Your optimism is not something I share.
The paragraph on “why disinformation is so dangerous” is an excellent description of the behaviour of almost every large institution globally during “covid”, including HMG.
‘Disinformation’, very much like beauty, appears to be in the eye of the beholder……..
I’m generally a free speech absolutist. I think the default position should be to allow everything and argue your case as to what you see as “disinformation” and let others argue their corner.
I am sure we have many enemies across the globe, but the body that is currently trying to destroy my country and my well being is HMG.
Yes
Needed to be said tof.
“…that the Government were very keen on hearing what the public thought of their Covid response.”
Well of that were their interest, all they needed do was ask – no need to snoop – plenty would have been quite forthright about their ‘thoughts’ on the Covid response and the passel of aerosols responding to it.
I exchanged DMs on twitter with Yeadon during the great panic. I’m absolutely certain those were hacked.
Is “hacked” a polite way of saying “handed over willingly by the company to those dictating the narrative”?
I know for pretty much certain because I was subsequently banned for merely calling Hancock a gimp, hardly treason. Yeadon subsequently had fake tweets inserted in to his time line probably drafted by Hancock etc.
Oops there goes another conspiracy theory turning into conspiracy fact.
77th Brigade, folks.
Don’t forget the MP , a PPUS, heavily involved in so called fact checking which he tried to spin as his own initiative which then abruptly stopped ……he still trots out the safe and effective mantra ….. his initials are unfortunately for him – apt : NoB.