Black Ops go digital: how NATO operatives deploy military grade psyops to transform private citizens into public enemies

Written By: Sayer Ji, Founder

When global intelligence networks deploy military-grade psychological operations against private citizens through carefully constructed cut-outs, we’ve entered a new era of state power – and Sayer Ji’s case exposes the blueprint.

When a private citizen becomes the target of coordinated psychological operations by their own government, it’s disturbing. When that targeting involves synchronized actions between U.S. and UK intelligence agencies, it’s chilling. But when global military organizations like NATO single out individual Americans for information warfare campaigns, deploying front groups and weaponized media to destroy their reputations and silence their voices – that represents an unprecedented escalation in the war on dissent. This is exactly what happened to Sayer Ji, founder of GreenMedInfo, and others who dared to question dominant narratives around public health.

Through a trail of leaked documents, whistleblower revelations, and carefully traced connections, we can now map out how this operation functions – from the highest levels of military intelligence down to the targeted harassment of individual citizens. At the center of this story is a leaked 2024 memo from the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) explicitly referencing “black operations” against public figures like Robert F. Kennedy Jr – a chilling display of the lengths they’ll go to neutralize their targets.  This same organization previously placed Ji on its notorious “Disinformation Dozen” list – a designation that would serve as a pretext for coordinated deplatforming, character assassination, and reputation destruction.

Part I: Anatomy of a Modern Black Ops Hit Job

The term “black ops” evokes images of covert government actions conducted far from public view. In military and intelligence communities, black operations involve extreme secrecy, deception, and occasionally illegality. The CCDH memo reveals that these tactics are now aimed at public health advocates in the U.S., suggesting an aggressive campaign to eliminate dissenting voices. Far from being limited to merely countering misinformation, CCDH‘s “black ops” approach includes coordinated media smears, economic isolation, and digital censorship. This escalation reflects a new level of institutionalized power directed at civilian targets, often bypassing constitutional safeguards.

View the leaked internal memo from CCDH here.

Black operations, by their very nature, operate outside the normal scope of transparency and legality. They rely on plausible deniability, allowing government and intelligence agencies to execute operations that would otherwise face legal and public scrutiny. For private individuals like Sayer Ji, being targeted by black operations is akin to being deemed an enemy combatant – only the battlefield is the digital and media landscape, and the weapons are reputation destruction and censorship.

Part II: Weaponizing Media – Charles Kriel’s Dis/Informed Documentary

Dis/Informed: A NATO Born Black Ops Info-Weapon Against Civilian Dissent

Charles Kriel’s 2024 documentary, Dis/Informed, serves as a prime example of what can be described as a “black ops” info-weapon, strategically crafted to suppress dissenting voices within the health freedom community and beyond. With Kriel’s deep ties to NATO’s Strategic Communications (StratCom) division, this film is more than a documentary; it embodies the principles of psychological and information warfare, applied to civilian discourse. Through NATO-aligned frameworks that recast speech as “digital warfare,” Dis/Informed systematically targets individuals like Sayer Ji, portraying them as existential threats to public safety–a narrative historically reserved for state adversaries.

The film itself frames dissenters in the health space as dangerous purveyors of “disinformation,” transforming those who question official health narratives into perceived security risks. The language used to describe the film reflects this objective:

“Dis/Informed is a deep-dive into conspiracy mentality and why we are so vulnerable to disinformation. Directors Viken and Kriel go in search of why women’s spaces online are being radicalised, and how the pandemic has made us all vulnerable to believing comforting lies over harsh truth.”

By using the term “radicalised” to describe online spaces, Kriel equates health advocates with extremist threats, conditioning audiences to associate dissent with subversive, destabilizing forces that must be controlled.

NATO’s StratCom and the “Tanks with Tweets” Doctrine

Kriel’s close involvement with NATO’s StratCom division–where psychological and information operations are interwoven into modern military strategy–reveals how military doctrines are now being applied to civilian contexts. Known informally as the “tanks with tweets” doctrine, this approach regards social media as a battlefield and online dissent as a form of enemy communication.

Within this framework, public health messages that deviate from official narratives are treated not as part of a free and open discourse, but as adversarial content requiring suppression.

Dis/Informed thus functions as a tool of information warfare, embodying NATO’s objectives of narrative control by shaping public perception to view health freedom advocates as dangerous subversives. This reorientation of military-grade information tactics onto civilians represents an extraordinary escalation of government overreach, pushing the boundaries of ethical and legal standards. By framing dissent as an existential threat, Kriel’s work facilitates a shift where suppression of critical voices becomes a justified response, rather than a violation of civil liberties.

The Role of Sympodium and NATO’s Strategic Influence on Civilian Narratives

Kriel’s recent appointment as Senior Fellow at the Sympodium Institute of Strategic Communications further underscores the strategic function of Dis/Informed as a state-aligned “info-weapon.” Sympodium, a UK-based think tank closely aligned with NATO and specializing in strategic communication with geopolitical dimensions, serves as a bridge for applying military-grade information operations within civilian spaces. Kriel’s role at Sympodium represents more than professional recognition; it cements his position within a network focused on extending state and military influence into public dialogue under the guise of “public safety.”

Through his media and advisory roles, Kriel is part of a broader framework that legitimizes the targeting of dissenters by aligning them with security threats. The alignment between Dis/Informed’s narrative and NATO’s StratCom doctrine reveals a deliberate effort to normalize the classification of dissent as a danger to stability, transforming critical civilian voices into perceived enemies of the state.

Part III: The Architects of Influence

Damien Collins, CCDH, and the Legislative Push for Censorship

The integration of Dis/Informed into this larger influence campaign is not limited to media alone–it has direct legislative implications. Kriel’s advisory role on the UK’s Online Safety Bill was instrumental in shaping a legislative framework that could enforce platform compliance with state-mandated censorship initiatives.

Damien Collins, MP, chaired the Committee overseeing the bill and has maintained a revolving-door relationship with the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), where he acts as both an ally and UK board member. This connection with CCDH aligns Collins deeply with its agenda, as CCDH has actively promoted the suppression of “harmful disinformation” while targeting figures like Sayer Ji on its infamous “Disinformation Dozen” list.

Through his advisory role, Kriel helped draft broad definitions around “disinformation” and “vulnerability,” which Collins then leveraged to push for a sweeping bill that compels platforms to monitor and remove speech deemed harmful by state standards. This collaboration with CCDH embeds a form of digital control into UK legislation, creating a pathway for legal action against those who question dominant narratives. The partnership between Collins and Kriel highlights how state-aligned influence groups like CCDH are embedded within legislative efforts to silence dissent, normalizing censorship under the guise of protecting “vulnerable audiences.”

A Self-Styled Crusader: Kriel’s Boastful Claims of “Taking Down Cambridge Analytica”

Kriel’s alignment with CCDH’s objectives is further bolstered by his self-promoted claim of dismantling Cambridge Analytica, a company notorious for data manipulation and election interference. He takes full credit for this takedown, presenting himself as a hero in the realm of digital ethics, while downplaying or omitting the contributions of others. This self-aggrandizing narrative reinforces his status as an authority on disinformation, positioning him to wield influence over narratives while undermining individuals who challenge powerful interests.

[Note: unlike Dr. Kriel who put ome of our children in his ‘documentary’ we will respectfully honor the privacy of his family]

Imran Ahmed’s Rhetoric: Framing Public Health Advocates as Villains

Imran Ahmed, CEO of the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), plays a pivotal role in the documentary Dis/Informed, where he employs incendiary language to demonize public health advocates. In a 2021 podcast with journalist Matt Binder, Ahmed accused figures like Sayer Ji of “profiting from causing death” and described them as individuals with a “psychological need…to cause pain and to cause chaos.” Such characterizations aim to dehumanize and socially isolate these targets, framing them as morally reprehensible and justifying extreme measures against them.

Ahmed’s rhetoric aligns with CCDH’s broader strategy of targeting dissenting voices. The organization has been involved in campaigns against individuals and groups it deems as spreading misinformation or hate speech. For instance, in January 2020, CCDH campaigned against far-right commentator Katie Hopkins and left-wing politician George Galloway, lobbying “Big Tech” companies to remove them from major social media platforms.  Additionally, CCDH’s “Stop Funding Misinformation” campaign has persuaded numerous brands to cease advertising on websites it accuses of spreading fake news.

Funded through at least 17 opaque sources, including dark money networks like the Schwab Charitable Fund, CCDH acts with the resources and support of an intelligence operation. Ahmed’s partnership with figures like Charles Kriel and Nina Jankowicz shows a close alignment with intelligence objectives.

By framing public health advocates as existential threats, Ahmed’s statements contribute to a narrative that legitimizes censorship and punitive actions against dissenting voices, and provides the justification for intelligence-backed tactics like psychological operations and economic isolation. This approach not only undermines open discourse but also sets a precedent for targeting individuals who challenge prevailing narratives, raising concerns about the erosion of free speech and the potential for abuse of power in the name of combating misinformation.

The Role of Nina Jankowicz and CIR: An International Censorship Network

Adding further weight to the media campaign against dissenters is Nina Jankowicz, former head of the U.S. Disinformation Governance Board and a registered foreign agent for the UK’s Centre for Information Resilience (CIR), where Charles Kriel also holds a prominent role. Jankowicz’s 11/19/2022 FARA registration reflects her involvement with an organization funded by the UK government’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, the U.S. State Department, USAID, and Australia’s Department for Foreign Affairs and Trade. CIR claims that these funds support “projects related to investigating human rights abuses, war crimes, and disinformation.”

The inclusion of U.S. funding indicates that operations like those of CIR effectively launder First Amendment suppression through international collaborations, bypassing constitutional protections by outsourcing censorship functions to foreign entities. Jankowicz’s role with CIR connects her directly to the same NATO-linked influence network working to target dissenting voices on platforms like GreenMedInfo. Her involvement, alongside figures like Kriel, reveals an orchestrated effort to circumvent U.S. laws on free speech by operating within a global intelligence network that treats American citizens as adversarial targets.

Jankowicz’s position as a foreign agent while advising on U.S. policy issues related to misinformation highlights a conflict of interest and a troubling trend: foreign influence, through organizations like CCDH and CIR, is now actively shaping the boundaries of permissible speech in the United States. This international nexus of funding and influence effectively weaponizes foreign policy tools to suppress domestic dissent, setting a dangerous precedent for circumventing U.S. citizens’ rights.

This alignment between the UK and U.S. agencies allows intelligence-backed organizations like CIR and CCDH to wield significant power, presenting an unsettling example of how global intelligence networks now operate with shared goals and mutual support. For private citizens like Sayer Ji, this represents a form of state-sponsored suppression that operates outside traditional constitutional limits, indicating the erosion of foundational democratic rights.

© November 7th 2024 GreenMedInfo LLC. This work is reproduced and distributed with the permission of GreenMedInfo LLC. Want to learn more from GreenMedInfo? Sign up for the newsletter here www.greenmedinfo.com/greenmed/newsletter.