Spy the lie 2: Deceptive responses to the migrant children humanitarian crisis

by Christine Barie

by Kathie MM

Anyone who swears to “tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth” is promising not to commit lies of commission (making ”bald-faced lies”), lies of omissions (leaving out critical facts), or lies of influence (making deceptive statements designed to influence the listener’s judgments regarding truthfulness rather than providing a truthful response). Fact-checking services can be useful for identifying lies of commission but are less likely to identify lies of omission and lies of influence—we’ll help you learn to recognize those forms of deception.

Spy the lie, by former CIA agents Houston, Floyd, and Carcinero, provides some useful examples of deceptive answers people provide when they don’t want to tell the truth. Here are some examples, illustrated by recent answers to human rights questions that officials seem reluctant to answer honestly:

1. A response that fails to answer the question—for example:

Question: “Are children still being separated from their parents at the U.S. border?”

Deceptive answer: “Our goal is always to reunify children and teenagers with a relative or appropriate sponsor.”        

2. Minimizing the level of concern warranted by an issue—for example,

Question: “What about all the negative reports concerning how the migrant children are being treated?”

Deceptive answer: “With regard to family residential centers, the best way to describe them is more like a summer camp.”

3. Going into attack mode—for example:

Question: Can you account for the missing migrant children?

Deceptive answer: Unfortunately, some who ostensibly care about these children refuse to address why they are here: the loopholes in our immigration system. (emphasis added)

Your assignment:  Watch for these forms of deception when viewing responses to challenging questions, while keeping in mind that honest people sometimes show one of these “symptoms of deception” without necessarily being liars.  It’s the pattern, the repetition of deceptive statements, you want to watch out for.

Starting now! Your guide to deception detection!

by Kathie MM

Keep an eyeof Pinnochio’s nose. Cartoon by Christine Barie

Good news! In their New York Times bestseller, Spy the lie, former CIA agents Philip Houston, Michael Floyd, and Susan Carnicero have provided a blueprint for how to detect deception.

Better news! Over the next few weeks, we at Engaging Peace will distill their main guidelines for you, helping you become better prepared for the 2020 election campaigns.  Tax payers paid for their work. Now let’s put their tools to use in pursuit of democratic rather than autocratic principles.

Floyd and his co-agents begin Chapter 1 with a pause-for-reflection quote: “People do not believe lies because they have to, but because they want to.” (Malcolm Muggeridge) (What claims from what politicians do you want to accept as the truth, whether there’s any support for them or not?)

Houston and his fellow spy-detectors warn us: becoming good deception detectors means surmounting major obstacles, including: 1) the common belief that people (at least some people) won’t lie to you; and 2) inescapable biases affecting whether or not you’ll believe a particular person or not.

In a little over a year, many of us will be voting particular people in and out of major political offices. Our votes (or unwillingness to vote) will determine whether those candidates will gain, or hold onto, or lose considerable power over the lives of countless human beings and the environments in which we strive to survive.  Many candidates will tell you the truth about who they are, and what they’ll try to do if elected—and many will lie. How can you tell who’s who (if you really want to know)?

Spy the lie has guidelines for lie detection that we’re going to share with you. You’ll be able to start trying out the guidelines before the first primaries and caucuses of 2020. Videos of Congressional hearings, televised segments of press conferences, the upcoming debates among the Democratic Presidential candidates all can provide material on which to test your mastery of their principles.

Any forums in which individuals are answering questions about themselves, their achievements, their beliefs, and their goals provide information you can learn to analyze for truth or falsehood.

Knowing how to spy the lie is another tool, like  recognizing a mind game when you see one, and confronting efforts to morally disengage you on behalf of the power mongers. Stay tuned and we’ll show you how to do all three before you go to the voting booth.

Pegean says, Don’t for one minute think they’re going to put anything over on me. I know a lie when I see one.

“Omnipresent surveillance:” Dystopian society in our global era, Part 3

Statement for the record by James R. Clapper, Director of National Intelligence [of the United States], to the Senate Armed Services Committee. In the public domain.

by Anthony J. Marsella, PhD

What Government Agencies and Organizations are Involved?


According to Wikipedia,

“The United States Intelligence Community (IC)  is a federation of 17 separate United States government intelligence agencies, that work separately and together to conduct intelligence activities to support the foreign policy and national security of the United States. Member organizations of the IC include intelligence agenciesmilitary intelligence, and civilian intelligence and analysis offices within federal executive departments. The IC is overseen by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) making up the seventeen-member Intelligence Community, which itself is headed by the Director of  National Intelligence (DNI), who reports to the President of the United States.[1][2]”

There are, as documented in this Wikipedia excerpt, an extensive number of “intelligence” gathering and utilization organizations, involving thousands of employees and an unknown, but obviously considerable, amount of money.  All of this in the name of domestic and national security.  There are numerous issues regarding duplication, competition, communication, hierarchies, strengths and weaknesses, and costs among these known groups. There is reason to believe there are also unknown groups that function independently.

There is irony and paradox here! The approved protectors and guardians impose constraints and abuses on citizens in the name of national security; however, in doing so, they impose control and domination.

This is a bewildering anomaly, and one from which there may never be an escape, given the secrecy and depth of penetration of governance and private surveillance groups. Can we really expect military intelligence to give up its roles and its methods, and its ties to weapons manufacturers like Lockheed Martin and others in the war industry? Of course not!

There are powerful connections among Silicon Valley corporations, military weapons manufacturers, and the Defense Department.  They support one another in a “silent” conspiracy of financial relations and ties. Numerous retired military officials and officers go to work for Silicon Valley and weapon industry corporations as consultants and executives. The fix is on!  Will this system harvest what it sows? The fabled Military-Industrial-Congressional-Academic Complex lives . . . at least for now; too many on the take, too few guided by an essential conscience!

Foundations of the National Security State

The USA’s national “security state” and its impositions are possible for a number of reasons:

  • Technological developments (e.g., big data) permit mass surveillance, monitoring, and archiving of information on all citizens;
  • Suppression and condemnation of protests, including harassment, persecution, and prosecution of those speaking out against the national security state;
  • Collaboration and cooperation of a biased and compromised media, which is, arguably, the most important societal check and balance against the abuses, violations, and identification of government and private criminal actions;
  • Location and control of power within a small group of individuals (oligarchy) who by stain of temperament, disposition, position, and financial interests seek to increase, sustain, and protect USA state terrorism policies, actions, and organizational structures;
  • Development of a vast complex of “escape” clauses within our executive, judicial, and congressional systems permitting individuals to lie, distort, misrepresent, and speak with impunity without fear of prosecution. In brief, a privileged and oligarchic “group” is “free” to engage in illegal actions without accountability, transparency, or risk;
  • Lust for power, wealth, position and the domination and control accompanying these impulses. Selfish motives from troubled minds.
  • Use of Congressional acts and secret agreements to justify and protect abuses, including The Patriot Act, The Department of Homeland Security and Fusion Center authorizations, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), and Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF).

Marc Slavo (2019) points out the nefarious cooperatives among countries with mass surveillance systems. He writes:

“Many countries have surveillance systems, but the countries in the Five Eyes, Nine Eyes and 14 Eyes alliances work together to share data on a massive scale, according to a report by Cloud Wards Innocent people are spied on every day. The Five Eyes, Nine Eyes, and 14 Eyes groups are big players in the global surveillance game. Each country involved can carry out surveillance in particular regions and share it with others in the alliance.

The Five Eyes are the U.S., UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The Five Eyes alliance, also known as FVEY, was founded on Aug. 14, 1941, and can be traced back to the WWII period. During the second world war, the exchange of intelligence information between the UK and the U.S. was important, and the partnership continued afterward.

The Nine Eyes alliance consists of the Five Eyes countries, plus Denmark, France, the Netherlands and Norway. Though there’s evidence that the Nine Eyes and 14 Eyes exist, little is known about what they can and can’t do.

The 14 Eyes alliance is made up of the Nine Eyes countries, plus Germany, Belgium, Italy, Spain and Sweden. It’s an extension of the Five Eyes and Nine Eyes alliances, but its actual name is SIGINT.

A recent CIA sponsored Bill, the “Intelligence Authorization Act” (SB: 3153; HB 3194) garnering Congressional support would criminalize whistle blowers and reporters. Imagine, citizens are to be criminalized and punished for engaging in citizen expected responsibilities of complaint.”

Daniel Schuman (July 25, 2019), policy director of DEMAND PROGRESS, writes:

“House Intelligence Committee Chair expansion of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act beyond all reason will effectively muzzle reporting on torture, mass surveillance, and other crimes against the American people — all at the request of the CIA.”

Dagny Taggart (a pseudonym for a seasoned reporter fearful of retaliation), based on Pew Survey, results, writes (2019): “Americans Don’t Trust the Govt, the Media, or Each Other: Fading  Trust is “Sign of Cultural Sickness and National Decline.”

Is this any wonder? Years of corruption, cronyism, and crime by government, private corporations, military, and other societal institutions make “trust” a foolish and unwarranted action.  This is nothing new!

[Note from Kathie MM:The conclusion of this series will be published on EP Friday August 16, with some recommendations for addressing the problems described here. Don’t miss it!]

“Omnipresent surveillance”: Dystopian society in our global era, Part 1.

Sign at the March for Science 2017 in Washington, DC. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license. Author: scattered1 from USA

by Anthony J. Marsella, PhD

Imposing Authoritarian Control, Domination, and Rule: Strategies, Methods, Techniques, Tactics 1

“Man is born free, but he is everywhere in chains.”
— Jean Jacques Rousseau (28 Jun 1712 – 2 Jul 1778), Social Contract, 1762

I. Authoritarian Control, Dominance, Rule: Course of Human History

Fictional accounts of compelling dystopian societies, including, Brave New World, 1984, The Handmaiden’s Tale, Fahrenheit 451, The Matrix, and scores of apocalyptic movies, are proving prescient.

Once confined to popular reading, entertainment, and college seminars, fictional accounts of dystopian societies have assumed a frightening reality as government, military, corporate, and private sectors impose oppressive surveillance strategies, methods, techniques, and tactics on citizens. These impositions are destroying the last semblances of legal and moral individual “privacy,” freedoms, civil rights, and USA Constitution First and Fourth Amendment rights, especially those guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. 2

Citizen fears for personal safety and security are encouraged and promoted by media collaborators with governments, military, and corporate beneficiaries of violence and war; a pervasive sense of peril, danger, and jeopardy is now normal. This sense of fear both sanctions and authorizes authoritarian national security sectors to impose egregious abuses of citizen rights and privileges with oppressive and punitive measures.

Playing upon Western nations fears of  being overrun by invasions, occupations, and exploitations by international migrants, especially from Islamic, Sub-Saharan African, and Central American nations, citizens in many European countries have elected right-wing populist governments determined to implement draconian immigration and refugee policies, limiting or blocking immigration to selective groups and conditions.

USA President Donald Trump announced all “illegal” resident immigrants will be expelled form the USA beginning June 24, 2019, under the auspices of the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) by the Department of Homeland Security. President Trump considers illegal immigrants to be a threat to national security as sources of violence, crime, disease, and competing cultural traditions.

A convincing xenophobia has found its way into minds and hearts of citizens and officials resulting in the emergence of widespread of “hate” cultures and outbursts of gun violence. “Our nation is under attack by dangerous foes seeking our demise and collapse!” This is the thematic cry of those seeking more power, control, and domination of citizen masses, an appeal to fear and heroic nationalism.

Condemnation of violations of citizen privacy and rights, guaranteed in the Fourth Amendment of the USA Constitution, is drawing urgent attention from legal and NGO sources, with little legal consequence. Government, police, military, and corporate and private agencies are supporting numerous laws and regulations legitimizing pervasive surveillance, monitoring, and storage of citizen information for potential prosecution.

Control, Domination, Rule of Citizens: An “Old” Policy and Practice

“Experience has shown that even under the best forms of government, those entrusted with power have in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.”
— Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), Preamble to a Bill for the More General Diffusion of Knowledge, Fall 1778, Papers 2: 526-527.

Control, domination, and rule of citizen thought, behavior, and identity by authorities and ruling classes is the story of human history; it is the logical outcome when States, Nations, Empires, and Colonial Rulers, especially dictatorships, assume disproportional power.

Protests and rebellions are quelled by a variety of oppressive measures, including arrests, imprisonment, torture, as well as murder, beatings, and crowd control tactics. Assassinations and disappearance of rebel leaders is common, as desperate authorities oppress contention.

While inspirational stories of citizen uprisings protesting control, domination, and rule, including the French and American Revolutions, are celebrated each year as sacred holidays, the harsh reality emerging is “omnipresent-mass surveillance.”  Past glories are diminished in the presence of new oppressions.

Never before in history have the vast means of citizen control, domination, and rule been as total and complete as they are now because of the uses and abuses of technology. Romantic notions of citizen heroes leading uprisings against abusive and corrupt governments and authorities are the stuff of past myths. Mass government surveillance and monitoring of citizens and groups has destroyed individual and group privacy and rights. Oppressive conformity, homogenization, and subjugation are now accepted goals for authorities claiming national security needs.

Tragically, continued use of effective media and propaganda has resulted in citizen concurrence and acceptance of oppression and violation of Constitutional rights and privileges.  A tragic paradox!  “Yes, oppress and control me; I need your protection in a dangerous world.” (“Escape From Freedom. . . . . .”)

Control, Domination, Rule . . .  

Governance is needed! This reality cannot be contested!  Contestations of   abuses of power, however, omnipresent in the government-congressional-corporate-military-educational complex is required and essential. As elections approach, why are no candidates willing to risk the tolls of exposing the situation? Where are calls and accusations of encroaching oppression,

A challenge for citizens is the reality “society” often hides, distorts, and represses concerns for freedom. Openness, transparency, participation is required in a democracy. Past presidential candidates have won on a platform of these admirable goals, only to find upon election, they succumb to shadow powers, and conform to traditional agendas using war and violence to achieve unwarranted goals. Who controls the leaders? Hidden governments?

In the USA, most citizens never imagined government would “betray” citizens given the protections of the USA Constitution. Today, however, surveys indicate less than 10% of USA citizens trust the government, and often see the government as biased in favor of special interests via lobbyists.

“Secret State” and “Shadow State” groups of powerful and positioned individuals assumed power and control, betraying their oaths and loyalty in favor of personal agendas keeping them in power.  Much of the “Secret State” individuals are ensconced in Justice Department offices and agencies (i.e., CIA, FBI, DHS, NSA). Crimes and abuses of these groups continue to unfold daily revealing a tragic story of corruption, collusion, and crime.

When societal institutions breakdown and collapse under pressures of corruption, cronyism, special interests, and inadequate funding, citizens are bereft of resources for protection and security. In an open and democratic society, transparency, social responsibility, and voting are keys to citizen awareness and empowerment. What happens, however, when these too are lost to political interests?

Tragically, many “secret state” societies around the world have already destroyed or denied citizen rights, enabling groups with special interests and concerns to exist and to exact their toll. Under these circumstances, citizen wellbeing and welfare yield to special interests and the advancement of control in favor of mega-groups pursuing their own interests.  Citizens are no longer players, and when they attempt to act against control, they are promptly subdued as enemies of the State.

Citizens look to government to protect them, but corrupt governments are too closely linked and connected to secret and known “power” groups, to offer citizen protection. In the process, citizens lose trust in governments and societal institutions; this raises the threshold for both protests and repression.

Within this context of institution collapse, and the rise of special interest and concerns, citizens become identified with certain groups at the cost of a society’s democratic identity and membership. They seek the comfort and security of identity with fringe elements offering simple solutions and identification of obvious enemies among minorities, immigrants, and radical revolution members. Heroes, calling for change, become victims.

Footnote 1:

The term “omnipresent surveillance” is taken from John W. Whitehead’s recent article, “The Omnipresent Surveillance State: Orwell’s 1984 Is No longer Fiction.” Information Clearing House. June 11, 2019. See also Rutherford Institute, Virginia, USA.

Anthony J. Marsella, Ph.D., a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment, is a past president of Psychologists for Social Responsibility, Emeritus Professor of psychology at the University of Hawaii’s Manoa Campus in Honolulu, Hawaii, and past director of the World Health Organization Psychiatric Research.