On the Issues

Wednesday, July 27, 2022

High Crimes: From Covert Ops to Cyber Warfare

Essays and Stories: 1978-2022


Political rights are so easily taken for granted – until they’re threatened or curtailed by repressive laws and covert crimes. In the United States, they are usually most vulnerable when people are anxious about some imagined threat. After World War II, for instance, dissent became risky as relations with Russia hardened into the paranoia of Cold War I. Hysteria about subversion led quickly to state and congressional investigations of “Un-American activities.” In 1951, a Supreme Court decision led to the imprisonment of eleven Communist leaders. It wasn’t for any overt acts threatening national security, but instead just for trying to organize a political party and teach Marxism. 


Today the threats to liberty are no less imminent.


Freedom on the Rocks


Repressing Un-American Activities

Conspiracies Unlimited

The FBI-Census Pipeline

Blowback: When Secret Plans Go Bad



Invisible War: William Pierce and MKULTRA


Part 1: Unwitting

Part 2: Naming Names

Part 3: Unwanted Voices

Part 4: Chung’s War

Part 5: Mastering Minds

Part 6: The Doctor from Mk-Ultra

Part 7: Bad Medicine

Part 8: End Games


Scare Tactics: The Berster Case




Fire Sale Earth


Secret Wars

Secrets R US 

Contras, Drugs and Money

Outsourcing Defense



Truth Decay


Total Exposure

Messing with Our Minds

Deadly Experiments

Blurring Reality

How Perception Management Wrecked Reality 

(or, Rendezvous with Uncertainty)

Battling Truth Decay

Cyber War