Picture it. You’re online, ensconced in a muscled avatar, hacking your way through a World of Warcraft quest. A burly blacksmith appears on screen, and instead of brandishing a blunderbuss, turns to you and whispers: “.” This might be your first clue that whoever is operating the blacksmith suit has things other than digital conquest on the brain.
In 2013, we learned that the Department of Defense, the CIA, British intelligence, and the NSA had engaged in (“MMI”) of role-playing games like Second Life and World of Warcraft, spying on the war making, guild building, and gold farming of our night elves and pandarian brewmasters. But perhaps the most surprising aspect of the MMI disclosure is the degree to which the government sees these cyberworlds as unclaimed turf in its war for mass psychological influence.
Psychological Operations or “PsyOps”—recently rebranded by the Defense Department as “MISO,” Military Information Support Operations—might strike you as a Cold War relic. But even though the Iron Curtain gave way to a decentralized digital communications network, our government continues to try to influence the “” of foreign audiences. Lest you believe the era of is over, the year’s disclosures by Edward Snowden reveal just the opposite—that military messaging is very much . And in the virtual realms of Second Life and World of Warcraft, MISO is heating up.
In December, ProPublica and The New York Times web-published a and a redacted, undated “” by defense contractor , revealing massive government infiltration of games and social networks. The memo warns that gaming platforms can be a “radicalizing medium” for terrorist recruiters, and to avoid losing the high-stakes game of cyber-influence, the SAIC primer advises that:
- An “in-game presence” would allow intelligence agencies to identify “important propaganda efforts” and work with the game producers to “eliminate harmful or misleading information from the game space.” [All italics added]
- Agents in avatar can exploit “optimal message placement areas” online to place “counterpropaganda” messages of their own.
- Agents can even build relationships with influential avatars or guilds “to facilitate ‘viral’ message spread or in-game dialogue for propaganda purposes.”
- Most concerning, the military contracts its propaganda out to private firms, sometimes operating under “,” sometimes using misattribution or stolen identities to obscure its source.
On the sunny side of the Iron Curtain, Americans were protected from government propaganda by the Cold War-era Smith-Mundt Act, which banned the State Department from releasing its anti-Soviet propaganda to American audiences. By all accounts, the Act banned domestic military propaganda, too—a separation of politics and defense considered a feature of a healthy democracy.
Last year, Congress Smith-Mundt’s dated restraints, which were almost exclusively effective at for State Department programming under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). As we said then, a ban on Americans’ access to the States’ overseas broadcasts is both “highly paternalistic and a nightmare for government transparency.” But the concerns that gave rise to Smith-Mundt—written at the Cold War’s inception, while the Stasi was consolidating in East Germany—remain just as salient. An influential public radio broadcaster is light years away from the covert monitoring of our private lives and the infiltration of our relationships by secret police that the MMI documents insinuate.
We don’t know how repeal of the State Department’s domestic broadcast restrictions has affected the military. And with forces increasingly deploying to cyberspace, the idea that the Pentagon is confining its propaganda activities to non-American users seems, frankly, laughable. For example, one of the DOD’s containment plans was to use British spelling and diction on some of its regional “good news” sites—“just to make sure that it is understood to ever target American citizens or American readers.” And
We agree with the Government Accountability Office when it said in its of Defense propaganda that “MISO activities have the potential to undermine the credibility of the United States.” Taking note of the report, Congress the $22 million Trans Regional Web Initiative, the placed by the DOD to sway “target” ( ) audiences. But taking down the (vaguely) attributed MISO won’t stop the unattributed MISO from going up.
Without the policies and procedures guiding the Defense Department’s MISO and other information activities, Americans who read, congregate, network, and play online may become the unwitting —o —of covert propaganda by their own military, or by contractors outside of the military’s chain of command. That’s why the ACLU has filed a FOIA request, demanding that the Department of Defense and the NSA explain the rules of engagement for using propaganda against Americans—whether they’re at home, abroad, or somewhere on Second Life.
Learn More About the Issues on This Page
-
Press ReleaseDec 2024
Free Speech
National Security
ACLU and Partners Urge Supreme Court to Block TikTok BanACLU and Partners Urge Supreme Court to Block TikTok Ban
WASHINGTON — Today, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University filed an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to block the enforcement of a law that would effectively ban people in America from using TikTok as soon as January 19, 2025. Earlier this month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit rejected TikTok’s challenge to the law. TikTok has asked the Supreme Court for a temporary injunction to prevent the app from being banned while the court considers whether to take the case, saying that unless the justices intervene, the law will “shutter one of America’s most popular speech platforms the day before a presidential inauguration.” “The Constitution imposes an extraordinarily high bar on this kind of mass censorship,”said Patrick Toomey, deputy director of ACLU’s National Security Project. “The Supreme Court should take up this important case and protect the rights of millions of Americans to freely express themselves and engage with others around the world.” The brief argues that the D.C. Circuit failed to fully address the law’s profound implications for the First Amendment rights of the 170 million Americans who use TikTok. While the lower court’s decision correctly recognized that the statute triggers First Amendment scrutiny, it barely addressed users’ First Amendment interests in speaking, sharing, and receiving information on the platform. The court also perplexingly attempted to cast the government’s ban on TikTok as a vindication of users’ First Amendment rights, which it is not. The rights groups also explain that the law was intended to suppress certain content and viewpoints that many legislators believe could be amplified on TikTok, including the risk of foreign “propaganda.” But under the First Amendment, the government must meet a very high bar to restrict speech based on concerns about its “motivating ideology” or “perspective,” and the government has not come close to meeting that bar here. “The government should not be able to restrict speech, especially to the extent here, based on guessing about the mere possibility of uncertain future harm,” said David Greene, civil liberties director at EFF. “The Supreme Court should put the TikTok ban on hold while it considers the DC Circuit’s erroneous ruling.” Finally, the brief underscores that the government can’t impose this type of sweeping ban unless it’s necessary to prevent extremely serious and imminent harm to national security. But the government has not provided evidence of impending harm, or evidence that banning TikTok is the only available way to address its concerns. As the brief explains, the D.C. Circuit improperly treated the government’s invocation of “national security” as a trump card and failed to hold the government to its burden. “Restricting citizens’ access to foreign media is a practice that has long been associated with repressive regimes, and we should be very wary of letting the practice take root here,” said Jameel Jaffer, executive director at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. “It would do lasting damage to the First Amendment and our democracy if the Supreme Court let this ban go into effect even temporarily.” You can find the brief online here: https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/24/24A587/335380/20241217144322392_24A587%20TikTok%20v%20Garland%20Amicus%20Brief%20pdfa.pdf -
Press ReleaseDec 2024
National Security
Religious Liberty
ACLU Statement on New White House Strategy to Counter IslamophobiaACLU Statement on New White House Strategy to Counter Islamophobia
WASHINGTON – The Biden administration today released the first-ever national strategy to counter Islamophobia and related forms of bias and discrimination, including hate against Arab, Sikh, and South Asian Americans. In advance of the strategy, American Civil Liberties Union and its partners had urged the administration to overhaul government programs that reflect anti-Muslim discrimination. In particular, we have called for urgent action to constrain governmental agencies from continuing to exercise their authorities and technology to wrongly surveil and investigate, watchlist, and question and detain Muslims at the border, as well as deny immigration benefits to people from Muslim-majority countries. While the White House raised expectations that many of these issues would be addressed, the final strategy ended up falling far short. The following is a statement from Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU’s National Security Project: “While this strategy acknowledges discrimination and its harms, it does little to end them and is a squandered opportunity. For decades, American officials have invoked national security to pass laws and implement programs that disproportionately harm Muslims and people perceived to be Muslim. A serious anti-discrimination strategy would concretely address multiple bias-infused government practices that deny our communities equal participation in civic life and our democracy, like federal watchlisting, surveillance, and investigation. We’re profoundly frustrated that the administration didn’t take even the basic, overdue step of recognizing that anti-Muslim discrimination is uniquely normalized and embedded in government policies.” -
VirginiaDec 2024
National Security
Trabelsi v. Crawford, et al. – Lawsuit Challenging Unlawful Detention and Inhumane Treatment of Acquitted ManTrabelsi v. Crawford, et al. – Lawsuit Challenging Unlawful Detention and Inhumane Treatment of Acquitted Man
Our client, Nizar Trabelsi, is in the United States against his will. The federal government brought him here from Belgium more than a decade ago and charged him with terrorism-related crimes. At trial, the government’s case failed: a federal jury found Mr. Trabelsi not guilty. But instead of allowing Mr. Trabelsi to return to Belgium after his acquittal, the United States placed him in highly restrictive immigration detention and began an ongoing effort to force him to Tunisia, where he was born and where he will very likely be tortured. Mr. Trabelsi’s detention violates the Constitution, immigration law, and the extradition treaty between the United States and Belgium. Through this lawsuit, he seeks to return to Belgium, and he demands an immediate improvement of his detention conditions. -
Press ReleaseDec 2024
National Security
Immigrants' Rights
Federal Judge Rejects Acquitted Man’s Argument That His Immigration Detention Is UnlawfulFederal Judge Rejects Acquitted Man’s Argument That His Immigration Detention Is Unlawful
ALEXANDRIA, Va. — This week, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia ruled that the court does not have jurisdiction to decide whether the government can continue to detain Nizar Trabelsi, a Tunisian national who was brought to the United States against his will for prosecution and was cleared of all charges last year. The ruling means the United States will be able to continue to detain Mr. Trabelsi while it attempts to deport him to Tunisia, where he was born and where, as an immigration judge ruled earlier this year, he will likely face torture. The court also concluded that even if it did have jurisdiction over Mr. Trabelsi’s case, his claims challenging the government’s detention of him would fail. “Reviewing claims that the government is holding someone unlawfully is at the core of the judicial function, and we’re heartbroken for our client that the court got this so wrong,” said Brett Max Kaufman, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Center for Democracy. “The government’s arguments in defense of Mr. Trabelsi’s detention makes a hash of the Constitution, immigration laws, and its own extradition treaty.” In 2013, the United States forcibly extradited Mr. Trabelsi from Belgium to face criminal charges in the United States. In July 2023, after almost 10 years of highly restrictive pretrial detention, a federal jury cleared Mr. Trabelsi of all charges. But instead of releasing Mr. Trabelsi or returning him to Belgium, the U.S. transferred him to immigration detention, wrongly treating him as an applicant for admission and placing him in the deportation process. Over the years, the Belgian government has issued multiple formal diplomatic requests asking the U.S. to facilitate his return, but the U.S. has refused to send him back. Mr. Trabelsi filed a lawsuit challenging the government's authority to detain him. He also sought immediate improvements to his detention conditions. Those claims were not part of the court’s ruling today, and will continue to be litigated on a separate track. “Mr. Trabelsi only wants to return to Belgium after being illegally extradited to the United States, held for ten years, and then acquitted by a jury of any crimes,” said Nicole Hallett, clinical professor of law and director of the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic at the University of Chicago Law School. “He cannot be held indefinitely and we will continue to fight to make sure that justice ultimately prevails.” Mr. Trabelsi is represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, the University of Chicago Law School’s Immigrants’ Rights Clinic, the ACLU of Virginia, and Professor Jonathan Hafetz of Seton Hall Law School. The complaint in Trabelsi v. Crawford was filed against Jeffrey Crawford, warden of the Farmville Detention Center where Mr. Trabelsi is being held; Liana Castano, ICE field office director for the Washington Field Office; Alejandro Mayorkas, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security; and Merrick Garland, U.S. attorney general.