Interactive Internet Activities (IIA); The U.S. Governments Nomenclature for “Fake News.”
October 26, 2017 Patrick Bergy Election Integrity, Social Media Warfare, The Swamp
The Military Has A Name For “Fake News,” And It’s Called ‘Interactive Internet Activities’ (IIA)
By Patrick Bergy
Oct. 26, 2017
Tampa, Florida – Since virtually days after the U.S. Presidential election, when the Clinton campaign covertly released the now infamous British “Dossier” on Donald Trump, all you hear in the news is how the Russian’s were trying to alter the outcome of the U.S. Presidential election. We now know it was a multi-million dollar “fake news” work of IIA fiction by the Clinton campaign to bring down, or weaken, a democratically elected U.S. President, while destroying any hope of better U.S. relations with Russia.
The military uses Interactive Internet Activities, or IIA, as the Psychological Operations nomenclature for a tactical social media warfare program like this (left.) IIA can also both covertly and overtly support other PSYOP components, such as Information Operations (IO) and Computer Network Operations (CNO.) Many countries do it, most have their own name for it. I use IIA, because when I was contracted by the U.S. Government from 2007 – 2010 to pioneer this technology, this was what we called it.
The image on the right is of Patrick Bergy at the 4th Psychological Operations Group, Psychological Operations Task Force in Baghdad, Iraq, where I provided IIA contract support for from 2007-2008.
We were basically tasked with moving Psychological Operations (PSYOP) from airplane dropped leaflets, to tactically targeting social networks, blogs, and online news feeds. It was truly a challenge, as the Department of Defense was strictly prohibited from EVER targeting or influencing American citizens. Other such government agencies with three letter acronyms did not have such restrictions.
It was 2007, and the true potential of Information Operations using social media was just being understood. Apple had just announced the release of their “iPhone,” and the smartphone revolution had begun. Personally, I had been using the HP iPac smartphone since around 2001, but it was mostly a market for nerds until Apple made it “cool.”
Having pioneered this weapon you know as social media “fake news,” I was able to recognize when other countries or organizations were using it to tactically target and influence. It took me all of a few seconds to recognize it was being use by whom I believe was either North Korea or Russia (Ukraine) to influence social chaos during the Michael Brown riots, and I published this in my blog online in 2014 when I was working on a Defense Department contract in South Korea. I warned about IIA being used to alter the outcome of the 2016 U.S. Presidential election – in 2015. I also believe I recognized it being used in March, 2017, by the British intelligence agency, GCHQ, using a “journalist” known as Louise Mensch, to harm President Trump.
I spotted Louise on Twitter by her use of IIA nomenclatures. She used terms that someone not trained in IIA wouldn’t know, and I quickly made her connection with the British intelligence agency, GCHQ from there. I responded to one of her tweets, asking how she knew so much about IIA, when seemingly nobody else online had any clue. She responded to me in typical Tory Twitter Trash fashion, calling me “Hitler,” or “Putin.” I can’t remember for sure, as she calls anyone who threatens her narrative that. I responded with the fact I didn’t think such attacks were warranted, having served in uniform in Afghanistan alongside British soldiers. At that point even her supporters said she was out of line, but she continued with hateful remarks, rather than addressing my question.
I felt somewhat vindicated today when I saw a WikiLeaks posting of an email between Louise Mensch and the Clinton campaign back in 2016.
I like this idea (Louise is a former Conservative British MP. Very smart.) Begin forwarded message:
From: Louise Mensch
Subject: Hillary ad
Dear Michael, As you will know from Arnold I am a committed Republican (or would be if I had the vote this year). But I worry no end about Donald Trump becoming our President… much rather have your girl Hillary. Anyway, the politician in me thinks Lena Dunham and Gloria Steinem are nails on a chalkboard to the average American woman AND I think Hillary is not capitalizing on the yearning that we have to see a woman as President properly.
Her competence and intelligence are beyond doubt, her problem is warmth. If I may, here is an ad I would love to see run; OUR TIME A succession of mostly young women, a few old women, one with a baby daughter, multiracial and multi-occupation, to include a nurse and a woman in uniform of some kind where permitted… one after the other, smiling and looking to camera and saying ‘It’s our time.’ and the last woman says, ‘It’s our time. I’m with her.’ fade to banner credit ‘Hillary 2016’ —- That would be inspirational, aspirational, and the kind of riff you really need on ‘Yes we can’.
Best, Louise
— Louise Mensch +1 917 821 1757
My suspicions were further confirmed by this tweet (below) from Louise.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe she carries a GCHQ employee card, or if she did at one time, she is such a nut-job they would have cut ties with her sometime back. Best guess is they merely contract her services, and use her to “launder” illegally collected intelligence they want made public, as is a common between intelligence agencies and “journalists.”
This is how IIA works. You put together content, whether it’s faking what is happening at a protest to incite violence and rioting, or a dossier with just enough believable information that the media can use to run it based on “unnamed sources.” You then have “journalists” like Louise Mensch on your payroll disseminate the fake content, either to news websites your organization created to “launder” this type of fake content – often times looking like, or even being, legitimate news organizations.
It is not uncommon to two or more “journalists” on the programs payroll to collaborate on dissemination of the fake content. Louise is not your average British Tory Twitter trash. Prior to her time in the British government, she was a roadie for the rock band, Metallica, and authored articles teaching young girls how to sleep with bands. Knowing that, she regularly appears on U.S. mainstream news media to spew her uniquely bat-shat crazy brand of anti-Trump hate. If you look closely, you will see the shows she is primarily given such an international anti-Trump platform on, are shows in which the hosts were also outed in WikiLeak’s release of journalists that collaborated with the DNC, and the Clinton campaign. This helps to support my earlier claims of journalists collaborating, often under paid, IIA contracts.
I estimate an IIA PSYOP program like what the DNC and Clinton campaign ran with the fake British dossier, likely cost around $6-$8 million to produce. It is some coincidence that news reports now show the Clinton campaign paid the same law firm that acted by proxy for the Clinton’s, was paid around $10 million.
Can I prove any of this, no. That is the problem when your dealing with a tactical IIA program. The covert nature of the program leaves little or no evidence if done correctly, and with that kind of money, you can bet they were some of the best. If you know what your looking for, like me, you can at best see “tells” that help you piece the puzzle together, but knowing what I did for the military, there isn’t an intelligence agency on the planet that would ever see any breadcrumbs that I didn’t want them to find as part of the PSYOP. The worst thing is, I’m not sure any of this would even be illegal?
In my book, ‘Victim of the Swamp: How the “Deep State” Destroyed the 40-Year-Old Private,’ I go into IIA in much greater detail, without ever violating the sacred trust of my Top Secret clearance. I am able to do this because by IIA’s very nature, the content is public, and thus unclassified. Additionally, the applications we developed for the military were kept by the company I was hired by to develop it, and they offer this tactical, military grade PSYOP application commercially, to the public. What I can’t discuss is what, if anything, we ever did with it, or the actual dissemination process itself.
Being one of the few IIA applications available to the public, and the close ties to the companies owners and John McCain, whom I put at the top of my suspect list as someone the Clinton campaign would have coordinated with, it wouldn’t surprise me if a later version of my original design wasn’t used by the Clinton campaign to pull this off.
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