Posted on 05/03/2017 4:23:02 PM PDT by Sean_Anthony
Will President Trump reinstate the Smith-Mundt Act? If so, this would seem to fly right in the face of claims that Trump is the biggest threat to journalism and democracy itself.
At the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Wednesday, FBI Director James Comey said a number of curious things, but one comment in particular stood out. When asked about Russian influence in the U.S. election and the ability to combat a foreign actor’s misinformation campaign, the Director said, “We need to arm ourselves with good troll armies pushing back.”
Say what?
Under President Obama, the law was changed It struck me as odd, because I thought it was illegal for the FBI to engage in statewide propaganda efforts as outlined in the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948.
We need more geeks in law enforcement to be able to detect threats and act on them.
Instead of an army of FBI trolls putting even more bull$hit on the internet, maybe for once, we need to just try being open and honest.
Like radically honest. I think it’d be kinda cool to have a government that you knew never lied.
The more lies they push, the more everyone learns that you never trust the US govt under any circumstances.
when I first read :troll armies: I thought of the last episode of Homeland, with a huge room full of ‘sockpuppet’ people (I learned a new word!) pushing a target agenda on a thousand websites at once, all displayed on hundreds of overhead screens around them. Is Comey admitting they exist in real life?
They do that kind of stuff, and think they are SO clever and smart. They never stop to consider that they are actually only convincing people that the US Government is pathologically dishonest.
Governments, just like people, are -screwing themselves- when they win a short term objective through dishonesty. The objective fades, but the dishonest reputation remains.
Trolling, the last bastion of a sieged intellectual idiot before resorting to outright assassinations
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