US Intelligence Creates Secret Weapon to Fight Foreign Disinformation

VIVA – The United States (US) create a Foreign Malign Influence Center (FMIC) ahead of the 2024 US Presidential elections. This center aims to handle foreign threats or disinformation to elections as well as domestic public opinion, according to Director of National Intelligence, Avril Haines during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.

Operating under the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the FMIC has access to all intelligence held or created related to foreign slander or hoaxes, including election security. 

The director of the FMIC, Jeffrey Wichman, was previously the chief analyst of the CIA's Counterintelligence Mission Center. 

For the agency's purposes, 'foreign' means from Russia, Iran, China, North Korea, or 'any other foreign country deemed appropriate by the Center Director'. 

Whereas foreign malign influence is defined as any hostile attempt by, or at the direction of, or on behalf of, or with the substantial support of any of the countries mentioned to influence, covertly or overtly, US government, or state policy, or public opinion in the United States. 

The FMIC was apparently established in September by statutory order but was first made public at Thursday's hearing.

The creation of the agency was also quite controversial as some senators and intelligence officers questioned the need for another agency with the same authority as the Global Engagement Center, a State Department subsidiary tasked with spreading American propaganda against foreign varieties.

Countering 'foreign disinformation' has become something of an obsession for government bureaucrats since Donald Trump's 2016 election, with half a dozen agencies popping up since then. 

In addition to the GEC launched in 2017, the Pentagon quietly launched the Influence and Perception Management Office in the last year, joining the Department of Homeland Security Foreign Influence and Interference Branch, Countering Foreign Influence Task Force, Disinformation Governance Board, and FBI Foreign Influence Task Force.

However, Pentagon contractor RAND Corporation recently admitted Russia's role may be overstated. 

The think tank warned in a study conducted last year that blaming Moscow for all the information Washington dislikes is likely to backfire, urging the Defense Department to reduce the excessive spread of disinformation on social media to Russia.