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Big Brother Puts a
New Twist on the Telescreen
The Center for Cognitive Liberty
& Ethics
In George Orwell’s dystopian novel Nineteen
Eighty-Four, people were under the near- constant surveillance by the Government via
two-way televisions known as Telescreens. On January 13, 2000, reporter Daniel Forbes of
the online magazine Salon.com, published an investigative article exposing the US
Government’s new twist on the telescreen – you watch messages secretly implanted into
your primetime network shows. The Salon article detailed how Drug Czar Barry
McCaffrey’s Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) struck a deal with the
major television networks to embed anti-drug propaganda directly into the scripts of shows
such as Beverly Hills, 90210, ER, and Chicago Hope. Scripts were pre-approved by
the government and, on occasion, even re-written by ONDCP staff. Networks that joined the
Propaganda machine benefited to the tune of some $25 million dollars in 1999.1
On January 18, reacting to public outcry over
such government misbehavior, the ONDCP has issued a new policy that it will no longer
pre-approve scripts or alter them prior to broadcast. However, the ONCDP will continue to
financially credit the networks for the cost of airtime whenever a television show
“voluntarily” presents an anti-drug message.2 Clearly, this is an
ineffectual response. Given that the government has already made it clear what sort of
propaganda pays, pre-approving scripts and altering them is unnecessary.
Like lab monkeys
in a cage, the networks have been taught what they have to do to receive a reward. And,
there’s every reason to think that they’ll just keep on clicking the propaganda
paddle. The only way to end such an invidious manipulation of the media is to end the
financial incentive for implanting the propaganda. In addition, the government and the
networks ought to be punished for what appears to be a violation of a federal law that
requires the disclosure at the time of broadcast of anyone financially influencing or
contributing to programming content.
The Center for Cognitive Liberty
& Ethics detests the
government’s efforts to surreptitiously manipulate the content of prime-time
television and thereby manipulate the minds of viewers. With over 100 million television
households in the US, this recent action by ONCDP was equivalent to slipping a propaganda
pill into the nation’s water supply.
To register our objection to such government
action, the Center for Cognitive Liberty & Ethics has joined in signing the following statement prepared by
the Emergency Coalition Against Propaganda and Censorship:
In a democratic society, the government can only derive its legitimacy from the informed
consent of its citizens. The clandestine manufacture or manipulation of such consent by
public servants poses a grave threat to democracy and civil society. Whether an issue is
popular or controversial, there is no place in a democracy or its civil service for a
Minister of Propaganda or a Censorship Czar.
In 1998 and 1999, an office in the White House undertook to review the scripts and make
suggestions for stories and dialogue in many of America's most popular television shows.
The television networks received important financial concessions in exchange for
conforming these artistic and entertainment works to government cultural and political
preferences. The specific content of these changes is not relevant to the intolerable
offense of covert government intervention in the shaping of artistic and cultural
material. The artists and the public were not told that government reviewers rewrote or
approved the presentations. This is surreptitious government-directed expurgation of
contemporary screenplays. This is completely different from open government funding for
the arts. This is completely different from the right of private citizens to protest
cultural materials they find objectionable. This is censorship. This is the twisting of
art and entertainment into government propaganda.
The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, run by General Barry McCaffrey,
defends this manipulation as simply a public health campaign—akin to programs to
promote seat belt use or blood pressure checks. This is false. Such public health
campaigns are not covert, they are identified as written and funded by a government
agency. The dishonest and cavalier dismissal of reasonable concerns regarding government
manipulation of domestic media betrays a manifest disregard for the cardinal principle of
democracy: freedom of thought and expression.
As human beings, we are only as free as our minds allow us to be—censorship and
propaganda shackle the human spirit. The White House, General McCaffrey, and any other
government agency or well-meaning public servant can never be permitted to regulate what
enters our minds. The exercise of democratic rights depends upon unfettered access to
ideas.
A free political culture cannot exist without freedom of expression. Artistic expression
communicates truths about humanity, society, and the world no less than the communication
of data and scientific research. To convert art and entertainment into propaganda is as
nefarious as the censorship of textbooks, scientific journals, or newspapers and
magazines. Those who secretly censor and corrupt our ability to consume independent
cultural materials usurp our ability to act as informed citizens. Ultimately government
censorship and propaganda pose more pernicious threats to our democratic governance than
any ideology, or any terrorists in distant lands. Terrorists may threaten our lives or the
operations of our economy on a temporary basis, but toleration and acceptance of
government-directed propaganda against our nation's people permanently undermines the
foundation of our democracy and the legitimacy of our government.
Tolerating propaganda and censorship because the government's goal is to send anti-drug
messages which may, in themselves, be approved by large majorities will inevitably lead to
other government-approved messages: family planning, condom use, energy conservation,
firearms ownership, dietary practices. Americans are entitled to make decisions regarding
their morality and intimate matters at the direction of their religious leaders, not under
the influence of government social engineers, whether open or secret. Public attitudes
about controversial political and social questions must never be shaped by government
involvement in the work of artists, entertainers, writers, journalists or other cultural
workers.
Plotting and defending clandestine government social engineering, such as that initiated
by Gen. McCaffrey and the Clinton administration, is an act unworthy of a soldier, a
public servant or a democratic government. Having engaged in covert domestic operations
against the people he has sworn to serve, General McCaffrey has disgraced his uniform and
violated his oath of office.
We the undersigned organizations and individuals oppose government manipulation of public
opinion and vow to defend arts, entertainment, scientific research, news and
communications against such assaults on democracy.
We call for the resignation of General Barry McCaffrey and other
public servants who directed the manipulation or censorship of cultural programming and
independent media.
We call upon President Clinton to disavow propaganda for any domestic purpose, and to
issue an Executive Order forbidding any Federal agency from engaging in propaganda or
censorship.
We call upon the Congress to pass legislation forbidding any Federal expenditure for
propaganda directed at any part of the American people.
People wishing to
sign the statement may do so by e-mailing Sanho Tree at the Institute for Policy Studies
(stree@igc.org) or Eric Sterling at the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation (cjpf@igc.org).
Notes
1 The Salon article is
viewable online at: www.salon.com/news/feature/2000/01/13/drugs/index.html [Accessed: 24
January 2000.]
2 General McCaffrey’s statement is viewable online at:
www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/news/press/2000/011800.html [Accessed: 24 January 2000.]
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