The Eggheads and the Disinformation Board

Don't let the dunks distract you: Never trust the Department of Homeland Security

Adlai Stevenson, the original egghead.

The ignominious end to DHS’s recently announced Disinformation Governance Board quickly became a culture war kerfuffle. The love of dunking on musical-theater nerd Nina Jankowicz, and the typically awful profile of the board’s death from the blinkered Taylor Lorenz, was too much for the right to resist.

But we have something more important here than a culture fight: we have a lying federal government. The argument made by the feds to defend the board’s creation makes no sense, and the choice of Jankowicz to lead it undermines their alleged reasons for creating it in the first place.

Perhaps just as concerning is the fact that the civil libertarians of the left have lost ground since the Bush era. We’ve learned that the eggheads will never turn down an opportunity to expand the technocracy, even if it means embracing the DHS. They now defend a federal department created by George W. Bush that quickly began to destroy American privacy, stifle civil liberties, and burn through buckets of money in the name of national security.

The DHS is a stain on the American republic-empire, set up to make us all less safe and less free. It took less than 20 years for progressives to embrace it whole-heartedly.

Let’s talk about the disinformation board’s stated goals.

A day after DHS announced the board, an AP story gave us the rundown:

The Department of Homeland Security is stepping up an effort to counter disinformation coming from Russia as well as misleading information that human smugglers circulate to target migrants hoping to travel to the U.S.-Mexico border.

“The spread of disinformation can affect border security, Americans’ safety during disasters, and public trust in our democratic institutions,” the department said in a statement Wednesday. It declined The Associated Press’ request for an interview.

A newly formed Disinformation Governance Board announced Wednesday will immediately begin focusing on misinformation aimed at migrants, a problem that has helped to fuel sudden surges at the U.S. southern border in recent years. Human smugglers often spread misinformation around border policies to drum up business.

…

The new board also will monitor and prepare for Russian disinformation threats as this year’s midterm elections near and the Kremlin continues an aggressive disinformation campaign around the war in Ukraine. Russia has repeatedly waged misinformation campaigns aimed at U.S. audiences to further divisions around election time and spread conspiracy theories around U.S. COVID-19 vaccines.

Two problems emerge here:

1) Jankowicz, as far as I can tell, has not done any work focused on Mexico or human smuggling. Is Russian disinformation really a bigger problem for America than its immigration system?

The desperate straits that drive many people to enter America illegally, either to escape violence or crushing poverty, will probably not be dissuaded by a technocratic education campaign to undermine disinformation. But that idea does sound like something one would read in a white paper proposal.

2) We already have a federal office that wastes money fretting about Russian disinformation. The State Department has had a Global Engagement Center since 2016. It originally focused on the Islamic State, and both President Obama and Rob Portman, the U.S. Senator from Ohio, take credit for its creation.

The GEC’s mission is to “lead, synchronize, and coordinate efforts of the federal government in countering foreign state and foreign non-state propaganda and disinformation efforts.” It’s not hurting for money or support, either. President Biden proposed doubling the center’s funding in 2021 to $138 million; the spirit of bipartisanship can be found in Portman bragging of his support for that funding boost in a 2020 committee hearing.

So why duplicate the work?

The technocratic approach to these problems tends to be “trust us, we’re good for it” and “creating another committee/board/office will give us a great solution.” That mindset makes it very easy to dismiss concerns about letting the government define “disinformation” and “misinformation.” Nor should we worry about chilling free speech, or letting the federal government be the arbiter of acceptable debate.

The experts will figure it out, and we know we can trust the experts because they have PhDs and are very articulate.

“Fake news” was the accusation of the demagogue. “Disinformation” is the respectable, Scientific understanding of the problem.

Even if we can find a definition of disinformation that garners broad public acceptance, let’s not lose sight of the fact that the disinformation is coming from inside the house—Americans are better at misinforming one another than Russians are.

Let’s not forget the past, either: The DHS doesn’t deserve to be trusted here. Few federal agencies do.

We’re barely 5 years removed from the IRS apologizing to conservative groups for specifically targeting them for their political views. IRS officials mistreated groups who sought tax-exempt status, covered up the misconduct, and misled Congress about it. It was so bad that the IRS, in writing, apologized! There was also, post-9/11, the irresistible urge of the feds to spy on Muslims. Literally yesterday, the Niskanen Center sued a bevy of federal agencies for records to see the extent of unlawful surveillance they did on people who opposed a fossil fuel project in Oregon.

We’ve learned two things from the last 20 years: 1) the feds love to violate civil liberties and 2) they will do it under Republican and Democratic administrations, against Americans of all political stripes.

Yet some people have become so desensitized to that ever-present threat that they argue the mockery/failure of the disinformation board was nothing but unfair, coordinated right-wing attacks (aww, so sad :(. That was my emotional support federal project).

Will Oremus of The Washington Post was typical in his defense of the board. He did not touch on what the board or DHS actually does. Instead, he faulted the government’s “bungled” PR plan and blamed conservative media for “blowing it out of proportion.” How dare Fox News dedicate so much time covering it!

A disinformation board is ripe for partisan abuse—much like the other boards, offices, and centers in our federal agencies. But skepticism of government power isn’t much in vogue anymore, on the left or the right.

Let’s not give the bastards more ways to set our money on fire and harass other Americans.

For what it’s worth, I don’t mind Jankowicz. I’ve followed her writing on Ukraine and eastern Europe for a few years now and learned a few things (for a while, she even politely followed me back on Twitter). The problem isn’t her specifically, though she represents a sort of highly educated, technocratic liberal that’s rife in the bureaucracy. The problem is this utopian belief in government to fix all problems.

It’s very convenient to dodge criticism by going full Taylor Lorenz and pretending any disagreement is some flavor of bigotry or attacking a victim. Or by shifting the goalposts with a “Republicans pounce” angle. Don’t buy it. Shutter the DHS and turn its HQ into affordable housing.