On Lawfare, Suzanne Spaulding and Harvey Rishikof warn of Russia’s attacks on our most precious institution – the Justice system:
In the summer of 2016, a Facebook group called “Secure Borders” began fanning the flames of rumors that a young girl had been raped at knifepoint by Syrian refugees in Twin Falls, Idaho. The group accused government officials, including the prosecutor and judge in the case, of conspiring to protect the immigrant community by covering-up the true nature of the crime. Secure Borders attempted to organize a rally, demanding, among other things, that “[a]ll government officials, who are covering up for these criminals, should be fired!” The claims were riddled with falsehoods. There were no Syrian refugees involved, and there was no knife. But because the suspects were minors, privacy laws made it difficult for the court to publish facts that could correct the public narrative.
The “Secure Borders” Facebook group was not the product of outraged Twin Falls residents. It was created by Russian operatives as part of Russia’s ongoing campaign to weaken our institutions of American democracy—in this case, by sowing discord and painting the justice system as an agent of politicians.
It’s tempting to paint President Trump as the lead Russian operative in this effort, isn’t it? But propaganda efforts like this are not new – we experienced them during the Cold War with the Soviet Union. It’s just that the Internet now takes the place of little offset presses and the like as the medium of choice. Spaulding and Rishikof note one of the recommendations of a Reagan-era group that worked on anti-propaganda efforts:
Back in 1983, Dennis Kux, who chaired the Reagan administration’s Active Measures Working Group tasked with countering Soviet propaganda, pointed out that “[t]he best means of rendering the ground less fertile is to ensure that people … are fully aware of attempts to deceive them.” The public needs to be made aware that an adversary is working to exacerbate declining trust in our democratic institutions, including the justice system. Judges and their administrative staffs need to be prepared to respond quickly, and other community voices must be prepared to help set the record straight when misinformation threatens to overwhelm the public discourse.
I think Spaulding and Rishikof may understate the scope of the problem when the speak of “community voices,” because today’s Internet makes community both more fragmented and more global. It’s far more easy to scrape up a good dose of outrage at the target of your ire just by doing a few searches – and that’s only if you’re not on someone’s mail-list for disliking that group.
Speaking of mail, long-time readers know of my hobby of dismembering (metaphorically speaking, of course!) emails which I believe are motivated by a poisonously anti-American ideology. While it may be good fun to rip those hate-filled email to pieces, my real hope is to activate in my readers, particularly those targeted by those emails, a warning system that triggers on those feelings of outrage; that is, if you’re outraged, it may be someone trying to manipulate you. And although nearly all my examples come from conservative friends, outrage knows no ideology. Just read the progressive site The Daily Kos. Justified or not, outrage is a deep, viscous river.
What else can we do? Spaulding and Rishikof mention that the legal system’s tendency to “protect the privacy” of children makes for a weak point:
It is no coincidence that cases swarmed (surrounded) by disinformation often involve children. In addition to providing the shock value that makes stories go viral, court cases concerning minors are bound by privacy restrictions. As a result, prosecutors and police cannot comment on the details of an investigation, allowing rumor, innuendo and conspiracy peddlers to fill in the blanks with theories and their own narratives.
Perhaps it’s time to revisit that philosophy. I don’t pretend to have any deeper recommendations than simply review the matter, but I’m sure sharper minds than mine might suggest useful revisions.
And stay thoughtful out there, folks.
