Analysts Are Quitting the State Department’s Anti-Propaganda Team

September 12, 2017

http:// www.defenseone.com/technology/2017/09/analysts-are-quitting-state-departments-anti-propaganda-team/140936/ https:// archive.is/siF9C

The Global Engagement Center is struggling to keep up with its missions: countering ISIS recruitment and Russian disinformation.

… The State Department would not say how many data analysts remain at the Center, but one former senior official described the three team members as “the whole enchilada” and added “things are bad.”

… The Center’s CTO Nash Borges departed on Friday … Two other members of the analytics team quit at “around the same time” and departed on Friday

… Last year, the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act gave the GEC an additional mission: fighting “foreign propaganda and disinformation directed against United States national security interests and proactively advance fact-based narratives that support United States allies and interests.” The Act, which became law in December, allowed the Global Engagement Center to ask the Pentagon for $40 million, bringing its total 2017 spending to about $80 million. About $60 million of that was to be used to counter Russian influence operations; about $19 million was aimed at ISIS.