💥We have new docs showing multiple arms of British military have monitored *domestic* social media under the banner of countering “mis/disinformation”
They even factored the “presentational risk” of “spying” & doing “PSYOPS” in UK - but thought it “unlikely” they’d be found out
For the 1st time, docs show it didn’t only involve the information warfare army unit 77 Brigade, but the RAF!
And that they weren’t only spying for the Cabinet Office but also for DCMS (now @SciTechgovuk) Counter Disinformation Unit - & checking for terms of service violations🙄
Many docs we have relate to the pandemic. Focus areas were public health, public order(…) & the “UK’s reputation” 🙄
They show 77 Brigade did things like take notes on Green MP @CarolineLucas & even BBC Question Time (!)
We’ve been working with the Mail on Sunday to report it
@CarolineLucas It’s unclear what involvement the military has in “counter disinfo” now.
But it is crystal clear that the public, + I think parliament, have been lied to about the role of the military in domestic speech spying/policing. The military has been turned inwards - absurdly dangerous
@CarolineLucas We will publish full documents this week.
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NEW UK “COUNTER DISINFORMATION” DOCS 📁
Thanks to @JHurfurt & @Erl3nd for getting these out today.
Have a look through and let us know what you think…
Also - don’t take this nonsense about age-estimating facial recognition as an alternative to IDs at face value.
First, in practice most young people will need to show ID. Face scans can’t tell if you’re a day under/over 16 - and will fail everyone who looks under 21 for caution
They’ll say it’s just a scan, no data stored, etc.
Tell that to users of Tea, a women’s dating advice app that was hacked with thousands of face scans + IDs posted on 4chan (despite “deleted immediately” promises)
Third, why on EARTH would anyone who cares about child safety tell kids to frequently send photos of themselves / switch on webcams, just to browse openly?
Safety is about behaviour. This is risky behaviour. We need to train children to refuse intrusive personal data demands.
This is ABSOLUTELY clueless, dangerous and undemocratic!!
I have trained literally thousands of journalists (many in UK news rooms) and sources, and human rights defenders, in using VPNs for their physical and professional safety.
Putting us in the same league as China, Russia, Iran and North Korea.
Such an insane policy, let alone his whiplash U-turn on this issue, shows Starmer has absolutely no understanding of the issues - clearly no one in government does. Terrifying, when UK democracy is at stake.
And obviously, unregulated VPNs exist. So it won’t “work” any more than the under 16s social media ban will “work”.
Nor will either policy affect only children. It affects all 68 million internet users in the UK.
It is a very serious clamp down on British freedom.
Starmer's plans for a mandatory digital ID would make us all reliant on a digital pass to go about our daily lives, turning us into a checkpoint society that is wholly unBritish.
Digital IDs would do absolutely nothing to deter small boats but would make Britain less free
Starmer's 'Britcard' would create a domestic mass surveillance infrastructure that will likely sprawl from citizenship to benefits, tax, health, possibly internet data and more.
It is completely and utterly UNHINGED that citizens of a democracy now have to show their passports or undergo biometric checks just to eg listen to music on Spotify 🫠🫠🫠
The vast majority of parliament is to blame for this travesty
Reminder of where the Labour “Opposition” was on the Conservatives’ Online Safety Bill - total harmony. The only criticism was that it wasn’t passed fast enough.
Where do ordinary voters go who actually like freedom and don’t want to live in a digital dystopia?
It is completely unprecedented for a Government in any democracy to take our ability to have a private conversation, without the state listening in, away from millions of its own citizens - let alone the world.
It is sinister in the extreme.
This has absolutely nothing to do with crime-fighting. UK spooks have phenomenal legal & technical powers to access the phone data of suspects.
This is mass surveillance - the ability to spy on billions of us, all of the time.
The privacy + security consequences are unthinkable