US Gov: Ritter, give us your passport. Now give us your electronics
Detonating FARA to silence criticism
Published: 2024-08-11
By targetting Scott Ritter with FARA, the US government may further a process of undermining one of its own most significant foreign influence operations mechanisms.
FBI Raids Ritter’s House
Every government makes mistakes. The US government is no exception. Due to its influence, its policies are placed under heavy scrutiny. Its policies are often based on poor information. This situation is not entirely accidental.
An example of this was described in a discussion between Prof. Seyed Mohammed Marandi and Larry Johnson on Counter Currents. The "experts" in the US who provide information on Iran are often people who have little idea about what is actually happening in Iran, from a civil society perspective, or how its government actually operates. Nonetheless, slanted, partisan analysis is rewarded by Think Thanks which support the policy outcomes which their donors wish to promote. The reverse is also true, quality analysis which does not support desired policy outcomes results in loss of employment for the analysts in these US foreign policy driving Think Tanks.
This example, of policies on Iran, is not unique. Indeed, the lobbying process in the US produces this type of outcome. It, in turn, is supported by the media complex which slants reporting to colour events towards opinions aligned with announced government policy. The coverage of the first two years of the war in Ukraine should have, by now, made this obvious to everybody. Various industries in the US, with the Military Industrial Complex (or "Defence Industrial Base" as its sometimes called) being a good example, benefit from government policies when the government spends tax-payer dollars on buying their products to implement its policies.
A useful summary of the system was coined by Ray McGovern and extended by this newsletter. It is MICCIMATT: the Military Intelligence Corporate Congressional Industrial Media Academic Think Tank system.
Protected Speech
The recent execution of a search warrant by the FBI on the home of Scott Ritter, a US citizen, journalist, commentator, former UN weapons inspector and Marine, highlights that law enforcement also have a role in this system. Mr. Ritter is a prominent speaker who has identified poor foundations of US government policy. Indeed, sometimes those policies have been based on pure fabrication, which was the case for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Mr. Ritter knew of the lies (the WMD scam) and came to prominence informing government officials and then the public off the mendacious policy basis.
Since, he has continued to inform his fellow US citizens of repeated errors in US government policy. The errors have sometimes been the basis, using poor data or understanding on which to base a policy. At other times he has highlighted erroneous projected outcomes of a policy by exposing facts which contradict US government stated objectives
This behaviour is patriotic. He is trying to alert government officers to the errors in their ways, and also inform his co-citizens of the errors which he believes his government is making.
All of this is what the US Supreme Court terms "protected speech". There is not and can never be, unless the US Constitution is changed, a legal reason to prohibit this speech, in any circumstance. It is flat out unconstitutional and illegal according to the US Supreme Court.
US government officers know this. This is not the purpose of the raid. It is to entwine Mr. Ritter in legal processes based on other potential contraventions of law. This process is colloquially known as “lawfare”.
Holding Media to Account
When some goons, tasked by the US State Department, turned up at JFK airport to take Ritter's passport from him, this newsletter put some effort into watching the media to see how the event, of a prominent, ex-Marine, government critic being prevented traveling internationally by the US government, was covered in the legacy media. The summary is that IT WAS NOT.
The US corporate media were deafeningly silent on this removal of personal liberty from a prominent citizen. This, again is not surprising. The list of intelligent critics of the US government which the legacy media refuses to cover is long: Noam Chomsky, Ted Postol, Ray McGovern, anyone who asks about nanothermite in New York City on 9/11, Medea Benjamin, Daniel Sheehan, etc..
The US legacy media has again failed to inform its customers of the threats which their government has issued against Mr. Ritter.
Because of this silence by the US corporate media, independent media must act. This inconsequential newsletter is running this article as its contribution.
Blackout
Google search is the dominant search engine with the highest penetration of access to English language news. It is also aligned with the US government (it was probably funded by the CIA's investment arm, In-Q-Tel, and there are many other links between it and the US government, not least the revelations by Edward Snowden). So, it is not a neutral tool for measuring news, but it is the most influential search engine.
The following search was run to gauge English language media response to the FBI raid on Mr. Ritter:
Datetime: 2024-08-11 10:30 AEST (to nearest 5 minutes)
Search: scott ritter fbi raid
Limited by: Last week
Run from: southeastern Australia
The first 5 results, in the order given by Google search, by publisher name are:
World Socialist Website
Consortium News
WNYT News Channel 13
Fox News
Anadolu Ajansi
The rest are: New York Post, The Free Press Journal, News Nation, NEWS10 ABC, Spectrum News, Free Beacon, Al Mayadeen English, NEWS10 ABC, WRGB, KEYE, spotlightnews.com, Times Union, and Danny Haiphong.
Notable omissions: BBC, NYT, Washington Post, LA Times, MSNBC, CNN, Reuters, CBS, etc. etc. This does not mean that these organisation have not covered the event, but that even if they have, Google search is not returning results. Its a media blackout either way. Please see Sources below for some alternate media coverage of the FBI raid, and Mr. Ritter's statements.
Flattening FARA
The treatment of Mr. Ritter by the corporate English language media and his government echoes that dumped on Mr. Julian Assange: silence and abuse, respectively. There is a term which accurately characterizes this behaviour by the US government via its Federal Bureau of Investigations: a Police State.
Taking Ritter's passport was not enough to threaten him into silence. The next move was to steal his communications equipment and other items from his home. As Ritter pointed out, the actions taken were not normal for the charges filed which supports the conclusion that enforcing FARA is not the objective.
Ritter is a principled man, which is one of the reasons he is so prominent. His friends have stated that he is unlikely to be silenced by this latest government repression. He stated that he believes in the 1st amendment, and will continue to use it.
One could say he is a brave US Marine. One could also observe that the US government is so cowardly that it will not address the criticism he offers, but instead is using its state power to attempt to silence him.
The invocation of the FARA (Foreign Agent Registration Act) as a basis for the raid is hypocritical. An entire network of people work for American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) which advocates for Israeli interests at the highest levels in the US government and is not required to register. The US government should be careful. An intelligent legal team may, in an appeals process, be able to unwind this hypocrisy and threaten Israeli influence in the US government.
Mr. Larry Johnson in his discussion with Prof. Marandi noted some sage advice for Ritter. He needs a lawyer and a public contributions facility, to fund the legal process which is likely to soon begin. It will be interesting to see if the dying media can ignore a court process in which the hypocrisy of the US government's application of FARA is exposed. Other inconsistencies, like US and EU funded NGOs running protests in the streets of Tblisi, Georgia, to intimidate its government against passing the same laws could be mentioned. That process, of legislating FARA type statues is continuing, notably in eastern Europe.
Governments which are repeatedly pressured by the US through its agencies like the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a self-described public extension of the CIA, are following the US lead in enacting FARA laws. These force public declaration of foreign funding of NGOs which allow public understanding of foreign influence. Should the US government continue to attack Mr. Ritter, and any other patriotic journalists criticizing US policy via threats of FARA, it may find that its foreign influence operations themselves become threatened.
One should be careful which fights one picks and with whom one picks them.
or support this work via Buy Me A Coffee or Patreon.
Sources
There Is Something Rotten in Washington, Philip Giraldi, The Unz Review, 2024-08-08
CN Condemns FBI Raid on CN Columnist's Home, Joe Lauria, Consortium News, 2024-08-09
Washington Further Escalates Its War On Dissent, Caitlin Johnstone, Caitlin's Newsletter, 2024-08-10
Frank Morano Interviews Scott Ritter On Why The FBI Raided His Home, Ritter on WABC, Natylie's Place: Understanding Russia, 2024-08-11
Georgia approves controversial 'foreign agent' law, sparking more protests, BBC, 2024-05-14
Hungary passes contested laws against foreign influence, EURACTIV, 2023-12-23
Slovakia chided for ‘chilling effect’ of changes to NGO, public media laws, Tom Nicholson, Politico, 2024-05-14
Meet In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s Venture Capital Firm (2011), James Corbett, Corbett Report, 2024-03-09 (republished from 2011)
Scott Ritter: US Government Seizes His Passport, YesXorNo, 2024-06-04
contains a week of media observation to conclude that there was no effective legacy media coverage of Ritter’s passport confiscation.
Scott Ritter: Character Assassination and Lawfare, YesXorNo, 2024-06-05
Safety By Love & Understanding, YesXorNo, 2024-04-20
More on Scott Ritter, Ukraine and Israel and My Conversation with an Iranian Professor, Prof. Seyed Mohammad Marandi with Larry Johnson, Counter Currents, 2024-08-10
Iran and Israel on the Cusp of War w⧸ Mohammad Marandi [w9-HrAONvbo]
A Video Response to the FBI Raid on Scott Ritter's House, Scott Ritter, Scott Ritter Extra, 2024-08-09
FBI Raids Scott Ritter [rXcrSmGQ-oM], Scott Ritter, Consortium News, 2024-08-10
NB: Thanks to Consortium News for converting the video and uploading it to their youtube channel so that it could be embedded here.
Copyleft: CC0
