United States Expands Counterdisinformation Infrastructure Against Dissent

Jacob Siegel's excerpt from The Information State recounts how the 2016 Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act expanded the State Department's Global Engagement Center and coordinated US agencies and private-sector actors to shape narratives and counter alleged Russian influence. Siegel says this shift framed disinformation as a national-security imperative, enabling surveillance-style targeting that erodes privacy and democratic oversight, illustrated by Michael Lumpkin and the December 2016 Intelligence Community Assessment.