China’s Brain Warfare Program: “The Darkest Thing I’ve Ever Come Across” | Annie Jacobsen

So you mentioned the rule sets are different between the DOD or the military and the CIA or ground branch.

I think it's called ground department now or something.

And that's – are you referring to like Title 10 versus Title 50? Can you explain that to people contextually? And it's also

interesting to know that like ground branch had only been – was mentioned, I think, once or twice in public, one of which was by a lovely person called Drew Dwyer, who's a source for me in my book, who died on his couch of a drug overdose the day we were to meet for another interview.

We've done a lot of them, you know, tragic story there, but he had mentioned it and maybe one other place.

And so all of my sources, when I was reporting Surprise Kilvanish, they did not refer, they leave out certain references to things.

But then it became OSINT.

So that's what we're talking about here is how something goes from like deeply classified to being open source to then being talked about.

And so I believe as a journalist, this is all important.

And it stems from this principle.

Everyone's aware of Eisenhower's farewell speech that he talks about, beware of the military-industrial complex.

And this is a real thing that we should all, we, the citizenry, should all be aware of.

That's what we're talking about.

The military-industrial complex.

What is an arms race versus what is national security? But the second part of Eisenhower's farewell speech is profoundly important to me and a reason that I believe so many incredibly highly placed sources like former SecDefs will talk to me.

Because I tell them, as I'm telling you, that my goal as a journalist, as an author, is the second part of Eisenhower's speech, which says, an alert and knowledgeable citizenry balances out the military-industrial complex.

And it's so important that people know what may be going on, what is going on, use their brain to figure it out, read things to figure it out, think about it, discuss it, and therefore move society, move democracy in a more transparent direction.

Yeah, and I think you do really important work.

And I don't think you're an alarmist.

I don't think that you try to get people to panic.

I think that you didn't fucking invent nuclear weapons or biological weapons.

You're just telling us that they exist.

And that in and of itself is... cause for panic maybe but anyway okay you said a lot of different things but

oh let me finish the one concept just I did want to say about ground branches that uh it's not well known and that there are actually three perhaps more are actually more but three known branches of special activities division now special activities center which is ground branch and again different name division fine air branch and maritime branch And then there's also another one which deals with weapons and like emerging technologies that I'm not as clear about yet.

Is that different than science and technology?

So you mentioned the rule sets are different between the DOD or the military and the CIA or ground branch.

I think it's called ground department now or something.

And that's – are you referring to like Title 10 versus Title 50? Can you explain that to people contextually? And it's also

interesting to know that like ground branch had only been – was mentioned, I think, once or twice in public, one of which was by a lovely person called Drew Dwyer, who's a source for me in my book, who died on his couch of a drug overdose the day we were to meet for another interview.

We've done a lot of them, you know, tragic story there, but he had mentioned it and maybe one other place.

And so all of my sources, when I was reporting Surprise Kilvanish, they did not refer, they leave out certain references to things.

But then it became OSINT.

So that's what we're talking about here is how something goes from like deeply classified to being open source to then being talked about.

And so I believe as a journalist, this is all important.

And it stems from this principle.

Everyone's aware of Eisenhower's farewell speech that he talks about, beware of the military-industrial complex.

And this is a real thing that we should all, we, the citizenry, should all be aware of.

That's what we're talking about.

The military-industrial complex.

What is an arms race versus what is national security? But the second part of Eisenhower's farewell speech is profoundly important to me and a reason that I believe so many incredibly highly placed sources like former SecDefs will talk to me.

Because I tell them, as I'm telling you, that my goal as a journalist, as an author, is the second part of Eisenhower's speech, which says, an alert and knowledgeable citizenry balances out the military-industrial complex.

And it's so important that people know what may be going on, what is going on, use their brain to figure it out, read things to figure it out, think about it, discuss it, and therefore move society, move democracy in a more transparent direction.

Yeah, and I think you do really important work.

And I don't think you're an alarmist.

I don't think that you try to get people to panic.

I think that you didn't fucking invent nuclear weapons or biological weapons.

You're just telling us that they exist.

And that in and of itself is... cause for panic maybe but anyway okay you said a lot of different things but

oh let me finish the one concept just I did want to say about ground branches that uh it's not well known and that there are actually three perhaps more are actually more but three known branches of special activities division now special activities center which is ground branch and again different name division fine air branch and maritime branch And then there's also another one which deals with weapons and like emerging technologies that I'm not as clear about yet.

Is that different than science and technology?