https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11687675/Army-spied-lockdown-critics-Sceptics-including-Peter-Hitchens-suspected-watched.html
Army spied on lockdown critics: Sceptics, including our own Peter
Hitchens, long suspected they were under surveillance. Now we've
obtained official records that prove they were right all along
Military operatives were part of an operation that targeted politicians
and high-profile journalists who raised doubts about the official
pandemic response
READ MORE: Critics slam £14.9bn of 'extraordinary waste' on overpriced,
faulty or unused pandemic-era equipment
By GLEN OWEN POLITICAL EDITOR
PUBLISHED: 17:05 EST, 28 January 2023 | UPDATED: 04:38 EST, 29 January 2023
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A shadowy Army unit secretly spied on British citizens who criticised
the Government's Covid lockdown policies, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
Military operatives in the UK's 'information warfare' brigade were part
of a sinister operation that targeted politicians and high-profile
journalists who raised doubts about the official pandemic response.
They compiled dossiers on public figures such as ex-Minister David
Davis, who questioned the modelling behind alarming death toll
predictions, as well as journalists such as Peter Hitchens and Toby
Young. Their dissenting views were then reported back to No 10.
Documents obtained by the civil liberties group Big Brother Watch, and
shared exclusively with this newspaper, exposed the work of Government
cells such as the Counter Disinformation Unit, based in the Department
for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, and the Rapid Response Unit in
the Cabinet Office.
Military operatives in the UK¿s ¿information warfare¿ brigade were part
of a sinister operation that targeted politicians and high-profile
journalists
+4
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Military operatives in the UK's 'information warfare' brigade were part
of a sinister operation that targeted politicians and high-profile
journalists
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But the most secretive is the MoD's 77th Brigade, which deploys
'non-lethal engagement and legitimate non-military levers as a means to
adapt behaviours of adversaries'.
According to a whistleblower who worked for the brigade during the
lockdowns, the unit strayed far beyond its remit of targeting foreign
powers.
They said that British citizens' social media accounts were scrutinised
– a sinister activity that the Ministry of Defence, in public,
repeatedly denied doing.
Papers show the outfits were tasked with countering 'disinformation' and
'harmful narratives... from purported experts', with civil servants and
artificial intelligence deployed to 'scrape' social media for keywords
such as 'ventilators' that would have been of interest.
The information was then used to orchestrate Government responses to
criticisms of policies such as the stay-at-home order, when police were
given power to issue fines and break up gatherings.
It also allowed Ministers to push social media platforms to remove posts
and promote Government-approved lines.
Former Cabinet Minister David Davis, a member of the Privy Council,
said: 'It's outrageous that people questioning the Government's policies
were subject to covert surveillance'
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Former Cabinet Minister David Davis, a member of the Privy Council,
said: 'It's outrageous that people questioning the Government's policies
were subject to covert surveillance'
The Army whistleblower said: 'It is quite obvious that our activities
resulted in the monitoring of the UK population... monitoring the social
media posts of ordinary, scared people. These posts did not contain
information that was untrue or co-ordinated – it was simply fear.'
Last night, former Cabinet Minister Mr Davis, a member of the Privy
Council, said: 'It's outrageous that people questioning the Government's
policies were subject to covert surveillance' – and questioned the waste
of public money.
Mail on Sunday journalist Mr Hitchens was monitored after sharing an
article, based on leaked NHS papers, which claimed data used to publicly
justify lockdown was incomplete. An internal Rapid Response Unit email
said Mr Hitchens wanted to 'further [an] anti-lockdown agenda and
influence the Commons vote'.
Writing today, Mr Hitchens questions if he was 'shadow-banned' over his
criticisms, with his views effectively censored by being downgraded in
search results.
Military operatives compiled dossiers on journalists including the
Mail's Peter Hitchens
Military operatives compiled dossiers on journalists including the
Mail's Peter Hitchens
He says: 'The most astonishing thing about the great Covid panic was how
many attacks the state managed to make on basic freedoms without anyone
much even caring, let alone protesting.
Now is the time to demand a full and powerful investigation into the
dark material Big Brother Watch has bravely uncovered.'
The whistleblower from 77 Brigade, which uses both regular and reserve
troops, said: 'I developed the impression the Government were more
interested in protecting the success of their policies than uncovering
any potential foreign interference, and I regret that I was a part of
it. Frankly, the work I was doing should never have happened.'
The source also suggested that the Government was so focused on
monitoring critics it may have missed genuine Chinese-led prolockdown
campaigns.
Silkie Carlo, of Big Brother Watch, said: 'This is an alarming case of
mission creep, where public money and military power have been misused
to monitor academics, journalists, campaigners and MPs who criticised
the Government, particularly during the pandemic.
'The fact that this political monitoring happened under the guise of
'countering misinformation' highlights how, without serious safeguards,
the concept of 'wrong information' is open to abuse and has become a
blank cheque the Government uses in an attempt to control narratives online.
'Contrary to their stated aims, these Government truth units are
secretive and harmful to our democracy. The Counter Disinformation Unit
should be suspended immediately and subject to a full investigation.'
A Downing Street source last night said the units had scaled back their
work significantly since the end of the lockdowns.
This snooping was wrong, it hangs over my proud Army career like a black
cloud
By Anonymous (Ex-77th brigade officer)
I was serving in the British Army in March 2020 when I was seconded to
77th Brigade, on the basis I would be helping root out foreign state
misinformation on social media.
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.
To skirt the legal difficulties of a military unit monitoring domestic
dissent, the view was that unless a profile explicitly stated their real
name and nationality they could be a foreign agent and were fair game.
But it is quite obvious that our activities resulted in the monitoring
of the UK population… the social media posts of ordinary, scared people.
These posts did not contain information that was untrue or co-ordinated
– it was simply fear.
We learned from the feedback that the Government were very keen on
hearing what the public thought of their Covid response.
I entered this role believing I would be uncovering foreign information
warfare. Instead, I found the banner of disinformation was a guise under
which the British military was being deployed to monitor and flag our
own concerned citizens. There may have actually been social media
campaigns from China to promote lockdown policies but because we were
directed to monitor sentiment towards the success of lockdown, we would
have completely missed them. I had the impression the Government were
more interested in protecting the success of their policies than
uncovering foreign interference, and I regret that I was a part of it.
Recently, I looked over my medals and thought of all I have done in my
career – things I am proud of, in the defence of the people of this
country – except my work on 'disinformation' in 77, which hangs over my
career like a black cloud.
It was about domestic perception, not national security. Frankly, the
work I was doing should never have happened. This domestic monitoring of
citizens seemed not to be driven by a desire to address the public's
concerns, but to identify levers for compliance with controversial
Government policies.
I do not doubt that the activities I participated in were conceived for
good reasons, but they were undemocratic, wrong, and should not be
allowed to happen again.
PETER HITCHENS: How shadowy censors tried to remove my 'unhelpful' Covid
views from YouTube
I have been annoying people for decades. It is my job as a journalist to
do so. And when I look back on my career, I only regret that I did not
annoy more of them. News is what powerful people want to keep out of the
media. Interesting commentary strays outside the mainstream and
challenges conventional wisdom. That is why it so often wears better,
over time, than the standard official opinion.
We'll have to wait and see how the Ukraine war goes, which almost
everyone currently thinks is a good thing. But the near-unanimous view
of the Covid crisis back in 2020 is now beginning to look a bit threadbare.
Did we really do the right thing, squandering all that money we didn't
have on making people stay at home? Now we're deep underwater in
unpayable debt, the currency is shrivelling, multitudes have given up
regular work patterns and a terrifying number of businesses are in
permanent trouble because their customers have melted away. And we
absolutely did not save the NHS. In fact, we made it much, much worse.
A terrifying number of businesses are in permanent trouble because their
customers have melted away
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A terrifying number of businesses are in permanent trouble because their
customers have melted away
I was almost alone in criticising these measures when they began. In
fact, for the first few days I was totally alone – except that The Mail
on Sunday, upholding the proper tradition of a free press – allowed me
to dissent and gave me generous space to do so. That was absolutely
proper. I was responsible for what I said. The newspaper did not have to
agree with me, but it took the civilised view that open debate favours
the truth, or as Milton put it in his great defence of free speech,
Areopagitica: 'Who ever knew Truth put to the worse, in a free and open
encounter?'
Someone had fiddled with the algorithms which guide web searches
After a few weeks, it became clear that not everyone was as enlightened
as The Mail on Sunday.
Invitations from broadcasters, who had previously been friendly and
reasonably generous with their time, stopped arriving, with a few heroic
exceptions such as Mike Graham on Talk Radio.
Various people went on to Twitter and elsewhere to ludicrously accuse me
of 'denying' Covid or of having caused the deaths of people by
expressing doubts about the restrictions, a very nasty slander.
Despite having been vaccinated myself, I was simultaneously denounced as
an 'anti-vaxxer' by Covid zealots, and became the object of fury from
genuine anti-vaxxers who decided madly that I was a traitor even though
I had never adopted their cause (one of these pursued me on to a train
to shout at me, only the other day).
We absolutely did not save the NHS. In fact, we made it much, much worse
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View gallery
We absolutely did not save the NHS. In fact, we made it much, much worse
But the deeper effect was harder to pin down. For it was on the
internet, the most vital forum of all. Here, you can never be sure.
I use Twitter a lot, but are others seeing my tweets? I have no idea,
and will never know whether I was 'shadow-banned' – a form of censorship
in which your impact is reduced but not actually obliterated, so hard to
measure or spot.
But at two points it was clear beyond doubt that something very creepy
was going on. I give quite a few interviews which appear later on
YouTube, sometimes getting more than 100,000 viewers.
In June 2020, I gave an interview about the virus farce to two clever
young men, Konstantin Kisin and Francis Foster, who run a popular web
broadcast called TRIGGERnometry. I said what I have been saying here –
that the crashing of the economy and the stifling of personal liberty
were utterly out of proportion to the danger from Covid-19. I gave
evidence for my view and quoted eminent experts. I do not think I said
anything that was false or abusive. But, within a couple of hours of
launching the interview, Konstantin and Francis noticed a very strange
thing. It was almost impossible to find, even if you knew where to look.
Usually, their programme quickly garners large numbers of viewers, and
it had done so on a previous occasion when I'd been interviewed by them
on another matter.
I am pretty sure (but cannot prove) I was the victim of shadow-banning.
Someone had fiddled with the computer algorithms, which guide the
searches everyone makes on the World Wide Web. A lot of people kindly
protested. And as mysteriously as it had been applied, the ban
evaporated, albeit too late. The audience for the interview was
irretrievably reduced. That's not all – on January 25, 2021, YouTube
posted a version of a conversation I had had with Mike Graham on Talk
Radio. But 75 seconds of the original broadcast were missing.
A few weeks before, YouTube had suspended the entire Talk Radio station
from its output. The ban was ended after a major public fuss. I have
never really got to the bottom of what happened to my censored words,
but I think I can say that someone deliberately cut them because they
did not like the opinions I was expressing.
I mention these things because we now have an even more worrying
connection. The report from Big Brother Watch probably only touches the
surface of what Government agencies were up to during the closedown of
the country. We know they were at one stage interested in what I was up
to, but I suspect there was a lot more than this that we will never find.
Suppression can flourish like bindweed if it is not cut back
But the key is Whitehall's special access to the giant internet
companies, which, of course, include YouTube and Twitter. These shadowy
monitors clearly had hotlines to the web monsters, which allowed them to
'flag' things they did not like. Did someone whose salary was paid by
you and me, with the special powers given to government, dislike what I
said? Was someone else afraid that the popularity of TRIGGERnometry
would give me and my unwelcome views a new, wider audience? I can only
guess, and so can you.
But the circumstantial evidence is strong. And I believe that this is
the way censorship will reappear among us, as governments grow less
tolerant of opposition.
To me, the most astonishing thing about the great Covid panic was how
many attacks the state managed to make on basic freedoms without anyone
much even caring. This was partly because of the fear the Government had
deliberately spread (as SAGE minutes reveal).
So now is the time to demand a full and powerful investigation into the
dark material which Big Brother Watch has bravely uncovered – and to
stand against the tendency towards censorship and suppression which
flourishes like bindweed if it is not ruthlessly cut back.
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