In 1969 “Strategem: Deception and Surprise in War” by Barton Whaley, at the Center for International Studies MIT, offered this historical insight on page 17:

Disinformation was originally a World War I term, having been first applied to the Disinformation Service of the German General Staff. The Russian Bolshevik Cheka adopted the term (as dezinformatsiya) and the technique in the early 1920’s, and it has been in use by the Soviet state security (OGPU, NKVD, KGB, etc.) and military intelligence (GRU) services ever since. Current Soviet Russian intelligence parlance uses this term in a sense so broad that U.S. Government translators sometimes translate it as “deception,” although the Russians are careful to distinguish it from physical camouflage (maskirovka). The term, as borrowed from the Russian, is now also common in U.S. intelligence parlance, but is used in a less comprehensive sense.

Meanwhile… Merriam-Webster says this:

false information deliberately and often covertly spread (as by the planting of rumors) in order to influence public opinion or obscure the truth. […]

Etymology: dis- + information, after Russian dezinformácija

Note: Russian dezinformácija and the adjective derivative dezinformaciónnyj can be found in Soviet military science journals published during the 1930’s. The Malaja Sovetskaja Ènciklopedija (1930-38) defines the word as “information known to be false that is surreptitiously passed to an enemy” (“dezinformacija, t.e., zavedomo lživaja informacija podkidyvaemaja protivniku”; vol. 3, p. 585). The verb dezinformírovat’ “to knowingly misinform” is attested earlier, no later than 1925, and may have been the basis for the noun. In more recent decades claims have been made about the origin of the word that are dubious and cannot be substantiated. […] First Known Use: 1939, in the meaning defined above

And, as an example of why that matters, Cyber Defense Review (quoting Merriam-Webster) then says this:

The word disinformation did not appear in English dictionaries until the 1980s. Its origins, however, can be traced back as early as the 1920s when Russia began using the word in connection with a special disinformation office whose purpose was to disseminate “false information with the intention to deceive public opinion.”

“The word disinformation did not appear in English dictionaries until the 1980s…“?

Hold that thought. With this dubious claim in mind, given we know that WWI Germans methods were copied by the Soviets, a most interesting version of all comes from a LSE blog post by Manchester University scholars.

Contrary to claims that the term disinformation entered English via Russian, conceived deceptively to sound like a word derived from a West European language to camouflage its Soviet origin, it had been in use in English from the turn of the twentieth century. For example, US press outlets accused their rivals of disinformation back in the 1880s and a British MP accused local authorities of using disinformation to justify their improper implementation of a parliamentary bill in 1901.

While not inventing the term ‘disinformation’, the Soviet authorities did pioneer its rather unusual usage. In 1923, the Bolshevik Party Politburo approved the establishment of the Disinformation Bureau (Dezinformburo) within the Soviet security service. The initiative, including its title, was suggested by an officer with close ties to German-speaking European Marxist revolutionaries (and this connection probably explains the Russian transliteration of the term in Russian from the German, rather than the English, spelling.)

Russians copied the Germans who copied the… British and Americans.

Or not? Could the origins of disinformation be disinformation itself?! Let’s pull this thread a bit more and see if we can find the ugly sweater it came from.

It’s plausible there was a potential knowledge transfer from German WWI intelligence practices to early Soviet operations, even if there doesn’t seem to be any formal “Disinformation Service” within the German General Staff structure (as claimed by Whaley).

German military intelligence during WWI ran under the Abteilung IIIb (formerly Sektion IIIb, established 1889, achieving departmental status June 1915). Colonel Walter Nicolai led it from 1913-1918, which is crucial to tracing origins. His comprehensive intelligence service conducted foreign espionage, counterintelligence, media censorship, and propaganda coordination, which included disinformation. The German War Press Office (Kriegspresseamt) was established in October 1915 to coordinate civilian agencies like the Military Section of the Foreign Office (established July 1916), which clearly focused on disinformation.

In the case of Germany, the press maintained a triumphalist approach, suppressing stories about the military disasters of the summer of 1918 and running uninterrupted editorials that victory was near. Throughout the war, troops who had just suffered massive losses of men and territory were dismayed to read optimistic accounts of battles unrecognizable to those that had participated in them. As the saying went, in portraying wars in the press, truth was the first casualty.

For as much as that sounds like coordinated efforts ran under the federal state, multiple German agencies worked at cross-purposes, lacking effective centralization until late in the war. Distributed and legacy structural problems limited effectiveness of information operations compared to Allied efforts (especially President Wilson’s Office of Propaganda, driven by his America First platform rooted in the KKK well-honed methods of racist disinformation).

Notably Nicolai’s own wartime diaries and correspondence, recently published after being strategically hidden in Moscow’s archives since 1945, do not seem to have the exact word desinformation.

His post-war memoir “Nachrichtendienst, Presse und Volksstimmung im Weltkrieg” (1920) also doesn’t seem to use the word when describing the propaganda run by “Aufklärung” (intelligence) and “Nachrichtendienst” (intelligence services).

I’ve written before about the “dumb as rocks” German agent networks that infiltrated America, especially San Francisco (preparedness day bombing, heavily laced by federal disinformation). The evidence is unmistakable that Wilson’s administration restarting the KKK and sympathetic to Germany in WWI, was fundamentally on the side of German espionage as a means of ruthlessly suppressing domestic American dissent. This undermines any and all claims that Wilson’s wartime propaganda and surveillance were security measures, as he established them primarily as tools of racist political control that established dangerous precedents for future administrations. Calculated use of fabricated external threats to justify real domestic repression has since become a mainstay of American government communications during conflicts.

The targeting was systematic and coordinated by groups operating clandestinely as domestic paramilitary terrorists under President Wilson’s hand. Federal prosecutors routinely argued that opposing the war equated to aiding Germany without requiring evidence of actual German connections, while Wilson himself was aligned with German objectives. The administration setup “hyphenated Americans” rhetoric to justify surveillance of non-whites and political leaders while actual German agents continued unimpeded operations through established diplomatic channels.

Wilson was using explicitly nativist rhetoric while simultaneously enabling foreign spy operations, linked to domestic terror paramilitary groups, crushing domestic opposition. His “America First” campaigns makes “hyphenated Americans” targeting (e.g. calling non-whites Asian American, Black American to emphasize being born non-white prevents America being First) even more sinister in context.

Wilson’s 1915 selective enforcement (like Trump and ICE today ignoring actual foreign spies while crushing American political opposition through paramilitary terror campaigns) provides crucial context for understanding how propaganda techniques were really developed and refined.

We can easily see how Wilson’s 1917 official government-run propaganda apparatus could directly influence the 1923 Soviet Dezinformburo through the German-speaking Marxist networks (the same ones Wilson used to terrorize America). This makes knowledge transfer much more plausible than Whaley’s phantom “Disinformation Service”, which lacks any evidence.

The entire WWI propaganda period is best understood not as developing intelligence for national defense but rather pioneering techniques for domestic political control.

• 1914-1917: German operations under Nicolai
• 1917: Wilson’s CPI established
• 1918-1923: Post-war period with German-Marxist networks
• 1923: Soviet Dezinformburo creation

The Mata Hari case is perhaps the best documented example of Nicolai’s methods, where agent H-21 was deliberately exposed to French authorities through radio messages transmitted in codes the Germans knew had been broken, a sophisticated termination operation designed to protect German intelligence methods. For what it’s worth, this is the kind of historical knowledge that gives crucial context for the 1980s CIA disinformation operation that blew up Soviet gas pipelines.

“In order to disrupt the Soviet gas supply, its hard currency earnings from the West, and the internal Russian economy, the pipeline software that was to run the pumps, turbines, and valves was programmed to go haywire, after a decent interval, to reset pump speeds and valve settings to produce pressures far beyond those acceptable to pipeline joints and welds,” [Thomas C. Reed, a former Air Force secretary who was serving in the National Security Council at the time] writes. “The result was the most monumental non-nuclear explosion and fire ever seen from space,” he recalls, adding that U.S. satellites picked up the explosion. Reed said in an interview that the blast occurred in the summer of 1982. […] In January 1982, Weiss said he proposed to Casey a program to slip the Soviets technology that would work for a while, then fail. Reed said the CIA “would add ‘extra ingredients’ to the software and hardware on the KGB’s shopping list.”

The sophisticated deception operation of agent H-21 was to protect real capabilities while feeding the enemy (at home or elsewhere) information that serves strategic political purposes. From 1917 paper and radio deception to 1982 software sabotage the technology changed, and yet American operatives maintained the same fundamental principles.

Perhaps now we see the real reason English dictionaries in the 1980s would publish a claim that Soviets invented “disinformation”. This was likely yet another CIA disinformation operation itself.

During the height of the Cold War, when American intelligence agencies were perfecting the art of feeding false narratives into academic and media channels, what better way to obscure the true American origins of modern propaganda techniques than to credit them to the enemy?

The irony is sickly sweet: the CIA, having inherited and refined Wilson’s domestic control methods and Nicolai’s sophisticated deception techniques, then deployed those same methods to rewrite the historical record. By the 1980s, American intelligence had become so adept at manipulating information flows that they could plant false etymologies in authoritative reference works, ensuring that future researchers would trace “disinformation” back to Soviet Russia rather than to America’s own pioneering propaganda apparatus.

The fact that a false origin story has persisted unchallenged for decades demonstrates just how effective these techniques are—the ultimate disinformation campaign was convincing the world that America learned disinformation from the Soviets, when in reality the Soviets had learned it from techniques pioneered and perfected by German spies deployed to suppress political dissent under “America First”.

We’re not just talking about historical artifacts when we do crucial history, but at the foundations of techniques being actively deployed today. The progression from Wilson’s “America First” domestic terror campaigns through Cold War disinformation to current “America First” domestic terror campaigns shows the proper through-line that explains the true meaning of present-day disinformation.

Here’s some great news from Tulsa.

Everyone at the descendant reunion was honoring and remembering the horrific events that happened May 31st and June 1st, 1921, when an angry white mob burned down Greenwood, killing people and destroying homes and families. Fast forward to today, June 1st, 2025, a new glimmer of hope towards justice.

“Our effort is not to assign blame. It’s not simply to dig up the past, but this is about bringing closure to families,” Mayor Nichols said.

Mayor Nichols is making a historic announcement in his Road to Repair, addressing the systematic impacts of the Massacre. $105 million that will be privately raised for a trust fund that is going towards housing, homeownership, cultural preservation, and a legacy fund to help the generations to come, and the release of historical records to the public.

“This is about reconciliation. It is about repair. It’s about renewal, and it’s about righteousness. Make no mistake, this is not a question about your politics. This is a question of your faith and about finding our way back to each other,” Mayor Nichols said.

Release of historical records is particularly noteworthy. In 1921 there was national news and condemnation of the KKK violence in Tulsa. And yet somehow they still were able to erase or suppress the records so heavily that mass unmarked graves are still being uncovered.

Prohibition is a perfect parallel to explain the abuse of drugs that Elon Musk denies while displaying all the evidence he is lying – a really important example of how power dynamics work with American drug laws.

During Prohibition (1920-1933), wealthy white Americans openly flouted alcohol bans at private parties, exclusive speakeasies, and country clubs while working-class people faced harsh criminal penalties for the same behavior. The wealthy had their private cellars, diplomatic connections for importing liquor, and social networks that protected them from enforcement. Meanwhile, the poor were harshly targeted (especially certain immigrants and minorities) such that disproportionate arrests and imprisonment became a norm.

The unjust American pattern of “laws for thee, but not for me” reveals how drug prohibition has always been about social control more than public health.

Alcohol bans in America were merely a political tool of the KKK that directly targeted the industry of Blacks (bourbon) and Catholics (German breweries and Irish whiskey) and falsely depicted non-white male voters as a threat to society. Over 3,000 distilleries, many of them successful small businesses being setup and run by emancipated American Blacks (e.g. Nearest Green had to hide his skill, distilling under his white janitor’s name “Jack Daniel”, to avoid being lynched), were abruptly criminalized to block prosperity that had started rising in non-white communities. Nixon’s administration later admitted openly that while they couldn’t outright say they wanted to criminalize being Black, they found it easy to adopt the racist prohibition pattern and declare a “war” on drugs as racist proxy.

The wealth extracted from skills and hard work of marginalized communities, not to mention their for-profit incarceration, is used to purchase the very legal immunity that those communities are denied.

The elites in America even undermine healthcare so only they can afford the private doctors to prescribe “medical” versions of substances, the high-powered lawyers and bribes if caught, and operate in social circles where a thin veneer discretion is maintained.

A “get out of jail” card satirized by the game Monopoly was based on real life. The reality it mocked has only become more brazen over time. Today, elites communicate in coded language about their performance enhancement, creativity, or medical treatment – while others using the same substances are harshly criminalized by a militarized for-profit private incarceration system.

Joe Rogan broadcasts a diet of the ultimate evolution of unjust privilege – the ability to openly violate laws while denying it, maintaining positions of power, and facing zero accountability. It’s psychological dominance made manifest as entertainment for white supremacists. The cruelty has become entertainment, and the entertainment proof of power.

What we are seeing is the display of their sense of invincibility that comes with extreme racist wealth and power – the belief that normal rules simply don’t apply because of their skin. Whether it’s British colonial administrators profiting from opium while condemning its use, Prohibition-era elites toasting with champagne while supporting temperance publicly, or modern tech billionaires guzzling psychedelics and blowing smoke while their companies maintain “drug-free workplace” policies.

It’s the same dynamic: those who make or influence the rules feel entitled to break them, often while advocating for harsh enforcement against others. The substances become symbols of their elevated status – they can access what’s forbidden to ordinary people, reinforcing their sense of being above the law and above consequence.

This kind of behavior signals Elon Musk has been so insulated by wealth and power his whole life that he never learned the reality that his actions have consequences.

Abuse of drugs with encoded denial messaging is the whole point: complete weaponization of hypocrisy is meant to serve as a form of proof for the racial and class domination obsessed.

One missed form in 2015—submitted late as the couple grieved a stillbirth—is now grounds for abrupt family destruction in America. Immigration officials encouraged Kasper Eriksen’s naturalisation for years, never mentioning any missing documents until they sprung a trap at his citizenship ceremony and put him in shackles.

Two hours into what Eriksen believed would be his final immigration appointment after fifteen years of meetings—the moment he would formally become an American citizen—a U.S. Marshal entered the Memphis office to wrap his arms and legs in chains.

The hard working welder, a faithful father of four with another child due in August, instantly was transformed by ICE from a prospective citizen to “detainee” before he could comprehend what was happening. His wife left their meeting alone. Their children still ask when daddy can come home from “the most horrible hotel they could have ever imagined.”

Why? This scene illuminates something terrifyingly familiar: the resurrection of American paramilitary violence for profit.

Where Andrew Jackson’s armed agents enforced ethnic cleansing and slavery expansion, and the KKK used night raids to terrorize families into economic submission, ICE now operates as a corporate-funded paramilitary force using identical tactics. We are witnessing the rise of the Corporate KKK.

The Paramilitary Continuity

Jackson’s military enforcers ignored Supreme Court rulings and viciously undermined American Native rights while using federal surveillance and armed violence to block abolition efforts. The KKK, brought back into force under President Wilson, continued this tradition through night raids, family separation, and systematic terror to maintain white economic dominance. ICE represents the latest iteration: armed agents conducting dawn raids, separating families at gunpoint, operating militarized detention camps—all to feed corporate profit streams.

The through-line is unmistakable: federal power deployed to separate families for economic gain. Jackson’s soldiers stormed Native homes at dinner time to drag families from their homes at gunpoint into concentration camps and then death marches. The methods have evolved—from dawn military raids and extralegal terror, to bureaucratic detention during legal process—but the result remains constant.

Jackson’s “gag rule” prevented Congress from discussing abolition while his surveillance apparatus monitored and suppressed resistance. The KKK operated with local law enforcement complicity to crush organizing against white supremacy. ICE operates with federal authority to suppress humanitarian concerns while maximizing detention for corporate benefit.

The timing of Eriksen’s detention reveals this paramilitary nature. Immigration officials told him that under the previous administration, his situation “would have probably been different.” This wasn’t bureaucratic procedure—it was armed enforcement following new orders to maximize corporate profits through family separation.

The Militarization of Corporate Profit

Follow the money. GEO Group maxed out Trump campaign contributions before his victory sent their stock up 50%. Congressional quotas guarantee 34,000 filled detention beds daily—creating a production target that transforms enforcement into a profit-driven quota system. CoreCivic, GEO’s main competitor, saw similar stock surges. Together they control 73% of immigration detention beds. When Trump promised mass deportations, Wall Street understood: family separation pays dividends.

This is unregulated militarized capitalism. Armed agents must fill beds to meet corporate contracts, turning family separation into a production quota enforced at gunpoint.

Research confirms the paramilitary logic. Detained immigrants without criminal records are growing three times faster than those with convictions—because law-abiding migrants attending scheduled appointments are easier military targets. ICE acknowledges arresting whoever is “easiest to snatch up.” This is textbook paramilitary strategy: terrorize the compliant to maximize operational efficiency.

Eriksen and 48,000 others aren’t criminals—they’re inventory in a corporate campaign that requires constant armed replenishment.

The Terror Apparatus

ICE’s danger lies not in its brutality—which matches historical precedents—but in its bureaucratic camouflage. Agents process paperwork and follow protocols while feeding a detention system designed to maximize corporate revenue. The moral diffusion is complete: individual compliance enables systematic cruelty.

The immigration officials who detained Eriksen expressed “remorse” while calling in armed federal agents. The case manager spent two hours before concluding his “hands were tied”—then watched U.S. Marshals chain a father in front of his pregnant wife. This isn’t bureaucratic procedure; it’s paramilitary terror with a customer service veneer. Officials can sleep at night because they followed procedure. Shareholders profit because the procedure maximizes detention. Only the families suffer the full weight of what this system actually does.

Such systematized terror makes resistance exponentially more difficult. Jackson’s opponents could target military policies. KKK opponents could identify specific terror cells. ICE operates through dispersed paramilitary networks funded by corporate contracts—making the violence both legally protected and financially incentivized.

Corporate KKK

We have created something historically familiar yet uniquely dangerous: terror with quarterly earnings. Private contractors profit from public cruelty while federal authority provides legal cover. It’s the KKK with corporate lawyers and congressional appropriations.

The armed agents who destroyed the Eriksen family will continue the latest American terror campaign model until we eliminate both the paramilitary structure and the corporate profit motive. This requires not just rethinking private detention contracts, but recognizing that ICE serves private incarceration interests under federal cover.

Jackson’s paramilitary campaigns eventually met organized resistance that exploded into Civil War. KKK terror faced armed self-defense and federal intervention during Reconstruction. Our current Corporate KKK faces only market constraints and legal fog. The moral stakes could not be higher: we are allowing expansion of legally sanctioned paramilitary terror. When Eriksen’s U.S. Marshal wrapped those chains around his arms, shareholders probably measured the moments with quarterly projections.

Moral Clarity

Speak truth about a paramilitary organization masquerading as immigration enforcement. Call corporate terror by its name when it’s dressed in federal uniforms rather than white hoods. The time for couched politeness has passed. When the head of ICE says “I’m sorry if people are offended by them wearing masks…” in a story about trying to achieve 3,000 arrests a day, he invokes the federally backed rise of hooded costumed paramilitary forces under President Wilson:

Eriksen’s children ask when daddy comes home from his “horrible hotel” because they’re learning in America that corporate profits override family unity or safety. Until we recognize detention quotas as what they are—a business model built on human separation—more families will discover that citizenship ceremonies can become arrest warrants, and justice can be a commodity sold to the highest bidder. The machinery is profitable, and apparently legal. That’s exactly what makes it so dangerous, and exactly why it must be dismantled before cruelty with inhumane “efficiency” becomes the only measure of justice left in America.