RAF Intelligence Officers Joined in “Spying” on Covid Lockdown Critics
The Mail on Sunday has revealed that RAF intelligence officers collaborated with a covert Whitehall operation that surveilled individuals critical of Covid lockdown policies, including Tory ex-Minister David Davis and Peter Hitchens. Here’s an excerpt:
Official military documents… show that analysts from RAF Wyton in Cambridgeshire helped to scour social media posts by the public.
The MoS revealed in January how the Army’s secretive “information warfare brigade” was tasked with scrutinising online posts – an activity the Ministry of Defence, in public, repeatedly denied doing. …
These Whitehall outfits were tasked with tackling “disinformation” and “harmful narratives” during the pandemic. Their activities have faced fierce criticism after it emerged they also collected legitimate social media posts questioning Government lockdown policies.
Dossiers were compiled on public figures including Tory ex-Minister David Davis, who questioned the modelling behind alarming Covid death toll predictions, and the MoS’s Peter Hitchens. …
Jake Hurfurt, of the campaign group Big Brother Watch, last night branded Whitehall’s use of military personnel as “an attack on freedom of speech” and “behaviour befitting an authoritarian state”. He added: “The revelations that the RAF, as well as the Army, spied on the British people during the pandemic is yet more evidence that the MoD misled the public about the role of its psyops troops in 2020.” …
The papers also show how in 2020 the Government was considering a dramatic expansion of the Counter Disinformation Unit by ordering monitoring of online chatter about Brexit and the NHS.
Worth reading in full.
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“RAF Intelligence Officers Joined in “Spying” on Covid Lockdown Critics”
And this should surprise whom exactly?
Yes, but it’s worth repeating as many times as possible for those who are slow to realise what we were subjected to.
A lot of people will approve of the spying however, because lockdown was necessary and any evil misinformation saying otherwise should be stamped out.
Just another in a long line of cockups
Nice image of the Canberra though.
Once was the fastest aircraft in the sky.
Built at Samlesbury by British engineers.
My father worked on the Canberras out licensed due to the Korean War and built by Short Brothers in Belfast.
Time for a new RAF biopic, I think: “Reach for the Spy.” To be followed by “The Disinformation Busters.”
My Dad was an RAF signaller during World War 2. He’d be outraged to think that nowadays he’d be decoding civilian conversations.
We have become a neo communist state. Govenmruns nearly everything and our speech is monitored a d criticised. How in God’s name did this happen under the tories!?
It is much more comfortable sitting in a warm office in front of a computer monitor, as opposed to going out in the cold air to do exercises or whatever. Reminds me somehow of modern policing. These people have obviously nothing more urgent to do.
A genuine bill of rights similar to the US constitution would make a good replacement for the vague and ill defined Human Rights Act. It would give UK citizens a clear recourse against the government in a less politicised way. I’m no expert but I think that what happened here would breach the 4th amendment protecting against unreasonable searches in the US.