GCHQ, the government listening post in Cheltenham, Glos, worked with MI5 and MI6 to monitor any communications that differed from the official Covid narrative.
The Daily Telegraph.co.uk – Sept 1, 2023
A government unit accused of seeking to suppress free speech during the pandemic worked with Britain’s intelligence agencies, senior civil servants have confirmed.
Documents submitted to the Covid inquiry and marked “official sensitive” reveal that the “UK intelligence community” has been involved in the Counter-Disinformation Unit (CDU) since it was founded in 2019.
The unit was set up by ministers to tackle disinformation – false information that is deliberately spread – and initially focused on foreign interference in the European elections.
However, in 2020 it turned its attention to the pandemic and collected social media posts by members of the British public.
The intelligence community – which includes MI6, MI5 and GCHQ – continued “working closely” with the CDU “where appropriate” during this time, documents show.
Growing concerns
The disclosures were made in witness statements by two senior civil servants, and come amid growing concerns that the CDU was monitoring the activities of British citizens during the pandemic.
Earlier this year, The Telegraph revealed that the secretive unit had paid an external AI firm to trawl the web for so-called disinformation – but that the firm’s reports had also included legitimate posts criticising lockdown policies.
They included posts by leading scientists such as Dr Alexandre de Figueiredo, a research fellow at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, who opposed a blanket policy of vaccinating all children against Covid.
Documents revealed under data protection laws showed that he was one of several leading researchers and campaigners whose online activities had been collected by the CDU or the AI firm it instructed.
‘UK intelligence community’
There is no suggestion that the UK intelligence agencies were involved in or knew about this practice, or that they should not be involved in any other of the CDU’s activities. The witness statements repeatedly refer to the “UK intelligence community”, but do not specify which or how many of these agencies were involved.
However, the community’s involvement sheds new light on the workings of the CDU – formerly known as the Counter-Disinformation Cell (CDC).
In one of the disclosures to the Covid inquiry, Susannah Storey, director general for digital, technology and telecoms at the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, in which the CDU now sits, said that the Government has a “disinformation board” of around 12 people, which includes members from the “UK intelligence community”.
This board is responsible for “senior level governance of counter-disinformation policy and operational action relating to UK audiences”, her 19-page witness statements state.
It was chaired by Sarah Connolly, the director of security and online harms, whom The Telegraph has previously identified as the head of the CDU.
‘Passing information over’
Ms Connolly has not submitted a public statement to the inquiry, but has previously set out to Parliament how one of the main functions of the CDU is “passing information over” to companies such as Facebook and Twitter to “encourage… the swift takedown of posts”.
The other statement to the inquiry was by Sam Lister, a former Times journalist who is now director general of strategy and operations at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS).
The submissions to the Covid inquiry mark the first time that the Government has publicly acknowledged that the intelligence agencies have been involved in the CDU.
Ms Storey’s statement also sheds new light on the scale of the controversial unit.
As many as 50 staff
The Government has previously refused to disclose the size of the CDU’s operations, on the basis that it would be “prejudicial to the effective conduct of public affairs” but Ms Storey confirmed that during the pandemic, as many as 50 staff were working for the unit.
Between six and 25 of these were “core” staff in the DCMS, which had responsibility for the CDU at that point, while others would be drafted in from elsewhere in government.
“The CDC was virtual and flexible in nature, with DCMS and other departments pulling on their wider resources… as needed.”
A government spokesman said: “The unit operates under ministerial authority and uses publicly available information to tackle the most severe safety, security and disinformation threats, from suggestions that ingesting bleach can cure Covid-19 to Russia’s denial of massacres in Ukraine.
“It does not, and has never, tracked the activity of individuals, and no dossiers exist.”
Funny, but my Covid thesis that Covid was made by Porton Down and exported by MI6, was used by Russian state media. They used about 80%. You wouldn’t expect them to use Skripal and his Porton Down mole.
The Daily Fail did a story on the Russian story based on my thesis. Of course, there’s no real threat to the Nazi deep state, because of the thicko sheeple, and the thickos on this site, who one, couldn’t find any flaws, because it was based on what Putin said, & implied, in his August 2020 Covid cure announcement. And the complete failure of the phoney truth community to adopt my rigorous thesis, and I go further.
I’ve also explained a very easy route to prosecuting the Nazi regime and big pharma, but again, there’s 100% no interest, which confirms my suspicions that nearly all on this site are AI bots, or retired deep state scribblers who come on here to dance around their prejudices.
PJW and his Propagandamatrix site banned me instantly for pointing their flawed nano thermite theories about 9/11, & the constant regurgitation of ancient flawed 9/11 theories. Instant ban, but no surprises from a deep state goon who’s site was linked to Alex Jones. For the life of me, I can’t remember the name of his site, and for that matter, I couldn’t stand Jones’s borish voice. A bit like that other vocal monster, Richie from Boston.
israel and USA prepare to attack iran
http://www.renegadetribune.com/us-israel-to-conduct-joint-drills-simulating-attacks-on-iran/
ZOGUK is now spying on its Serfs???
This must come as an absolute SHOCK… to anyone with no more than two functioning brain-cells!
😂😂🤣
James Bond films always portray some psychopathic organisation working against the interests of everyone else. In reality the psychopathic organisation is the corporate controlled government. 007 and the rest work for the corporate interests to the detriment of everyone else…
Yet, even among government ranks there are those at high levels who sincerely believe they are working in everyone’s interests — if they think at all on deep matters — while paying their mortgage…
On the periphery of my social circle I know of a young “high flying” civil servant who has been involved in some of the highest publicity generating issues of recent years, Suffice to say, despite overcoming thousands of competitors to achieve this position, he is as naïve as anyone else on what really matters. I suspect this might have been part of the “desirable” qualifications he possessed. Case in point, I saw him queuing for a jab two years ago. I know him to be concerned with the same “mortgage etc.” issues of many young people to boot. This blinker vision, I believe, is how I see many academics going about their business.
Iain Davis in his book “Pseudopandemic” uses the nomenclature of “core conspirators”, “informed influencers”, and “informed influencers”. The civil servant I know is clearly an “uninformed influencer”.
I therefore hypothesise that mechanical intelligence and shallowness are qualities looked for in government appointees in order to keep at arm’s length the real motivations for political action.
***
On the DEW Hawaii issue we had someone from the “intelligence community” peddling the mainstream narrative. We may recognise them by always using throwaway monikers they never return to. That the Truthseeker itself has been subject to cyber-attacks, is not the work of those misguided numpties doing yoga on Tower Bridge.
To attempt to stifle debate always means the motivation to preserve the power of the status quo, concomitant with the rewards systems, based on our perverse monetary and fiscal system. The over worldly concern for rewards and power is at odds with the simple recognition and communication of truth that I believe is in harmony with the universe itself. Those who promote interests unamicable to the many for the few are on the wrong side of history.
Ah..the ‘Doughnout.’..
…and aptly named..
..staffed by neck-bearded illiterate graduate imbeciles..ahem..paeked in..two to a cubicle that bear more than a passvng resemblance to the traps in a gay club shit house..
because that’s what the place actually is…. and the way they ‘like it’..
…bossed around by angry frustrated feminist women with halitosis.. who did PPE at uni’….and footlights…
As they ghost comments sections in tag teams demanding links and proof for evident fact ..always in support of regime malfeasance and yapping about ‘nazis’ and ‘conspiracy theorists’…
with lashing of Ad Hominem’s when they run out of the snappy come backs listed in the little photo-copied pamphlet supplied by the old lesbian women in the psychological warfare dept…
l don’t actually understand how these wankers sleep at night.. do you?..l do know however that they should be put to sleep..
For Eternity..via one of those little death pods The Canuck despot advocates..for tooth ache or boredom… or just being a citizen…
By the way.. anyone that takes any thread of the plandemic or Convid psy-op seriously.. on face value or as anything other than a giant Milgram Experiment at this late stage of the game..is actually an imbecile of epic proportion…
and frankly.. beyond reach and help..
This ought to be no surprise. The same thing has been going on in the US who military and agencies are also monitoring and controlling content in North America.
However, is the plutocrats in control of our governments or are governments in control of the plutocrats? There certainly seems to be a symbiotic relationship as revealed through the plandemic.
American bankster whistleblower, John Perkins, in his 2004 publication “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man” described the beast behind all of the stealth in his former work as one of their hit men helping to gobble up assets of lesser nations and to control their governments mainly through bribes, threats in order to “debt rigg” them (my term for it). He worked for a corporation called “Main” which was a front for the IMF and the World Bank (which we know to be arms of the international banking cartel), but Main also fronted for our governments, and major corporations. He called this conglomerate the “corporatocracy”.
If government officials and people of influence in the foreign nations he was dealing with would not agree to their bribes and threats, in would come the US government agencies such as the CIA for their back-ops atrocities which included blackmail, assassinations, coups and even invasions.
Although not said by Perkins, it ought to be well known by now for anyone paying attention since 2004, that this same “corporatocracy” working with or under the “international” banking cartel, which controls trillions in credit, is interlocked with leading multinational corporations in the US and the UK along with their governments and those of a number of other leading Western nations utilizing the same methods to advance their interests.
To destabilize an entire nation for noncompliance with the wishes of the corporatocracy, more sophistication has been required, but no doubt are parcel of the threats of such hitmen organizations. Instead of abandoning these tools or persuasion and conquest it is now the case that they are being used on their own people, and a on a much grander scale when we view the crimes of bankster agent provocateur Soros and frontman Schwab – the “SS” of the same corporatocracy. The same corporatocracy has upscaled their operations for global hegemony over other nations and also to effect absolute control over the the people in their own nations.
I want to join the A.A. & become a disciple of Damien.
@Oliver…Excellent. Profess ‘The Book of the Law’ as the new white religion & convert more whites to the cult.
A.A.
Putin please send a nuke to GCHQ !
and where Rothschild is .
@ FRED B
German wings, Lockerby, MH17, MH370
for exemple were such black operations
by the known agencies .
It would be better if the whole world would end in an infernal dance macabre,with humanimal flesh for dinner,freshly slaughtered, cooked on the embers of their ancestral houses.
That would be the endlosung for this plague afflicting earth.death and famine should reappear,the air inhaled should be poisonous.total destruction=total solution
True godhood means revelling in all others suffering,smite them wherever ye may find them is the truest of all teachings and doctrines of all ages.get a grip folks nobody gives an iota for you or your truth seeking endeavours.most likely you will be killed first when the shit hits the propeller.
Nico X’s fake names are usually based on the name of someone he admires, so “Oliver” could be a reference to Revilo Oliver
Yes….Nico X should be a little more inventive…..
@ Lewis
lts more likely to be Oliver Twist who resoundingly defeated the dastardly ‘jewe’ people trafficker and coin clipper..
Fagin..