• by Tom Siebert , Op-Ed Contributor, March 5, 2018

There has been a lot of talk about “crisis actors” and “false flags” in the weeks following the latest school shooting. There would probably be a lot more chatter if YouTube, Twitter, Medium and other digital platforms hadn't gone on a blitzkrieg purge of anyone who dares mention either term.

Some things, it appears, are still unspeakable, even when placed in historical context.

It would be easier to swallow this allegedly righteous censorship if the news sources we're supposed to be looking to for guidance weren't actually providing misinformation about what these terms mean — and capitalizing on traumatized children to score political points.

“The NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt,” for example, when accusing Russian bots of promoting claims that the shooting was a “False Flag,” defined the term as “an event that conspiracy theorists believe never really happened.”

That is fundamentally wrong and hugely irresponsible reporting.

As Wikipedia, the Oxford Dictionary and a white paper from the U.S. Army War College explain, a “False Flag” is “a political or military act orchestrated in such a way that it appears to have been carried out by a party that is not in fact responsible.”

It's a naval term, referring to ships that would fly a “false flag” to appear benevolent, then get close and attack.

The Reichstag Fire, where the Nazis burned down Germany's Parliament building and blamed the Communists, is one example of a false flag. So is the nonexistent attack on U.S. Navy vessels in the Gulf of Tonkin that accelerated U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. And all evidence suggests the 1999 apartment bombings that turbocharged Vladimir Putin's stranglehold on Russia's political system was a false flag to unite the country behind him as he escalated hostilities against Chechnya.  

On the “crisis actor” front, the coverage has been fundamentally dishonest on both sides. If you can find the much-censored footage of David Hogg being “coached” by CNN before his interview, what you'll see is a rattled kid being guided by the CNN interviewer who, at one point instructs Hogg: “Say, ’I don't know how to put this in perspective.’”

To Hogg’s credit, he grimaces and refuses to follow the suggestion. He goes on to tell his version of events, not parrot the words as coached by the CNN staffer. In a small way, that's heroic, and I applaud him. But the question then becomes: Why is this footage being wiped? Is it to cover for Hogg? Or for CNN?

Moreover, how responsible is it for media to be thrusting these kids into the spotlight after such a traumatic event? Look at this interview with Madeleine Wolford, another student being accused of crisis acting and “duper's delight.” She and her mom spend a good portion of this interview smiling and laughing, with the girl wiping away tears that don't exist at its end.

Now, is it more likely that the girl is “crisis acting”? Or that she's on the verge of a nervous breakdown? These are not adults -- they just went through a horrible tragedy. Are they “crisis acting,” or are they just a generation that has been raised on media and now “acting” how they presume people act after a tragedy because they've seen it on TV and YouTube?

That's how, under intense emotional pressure, we get students acting inappropriately before an “Ellen” appearance, who are cruelly mocked for being too festive. Or a CBS reporter grinning like a maniac in a group photo days after the shooting, revealing an unsettlingly festive atmosphere over her exclusive.

By thrusting these kids into the spotlight, it inoculates gun control arguments from criticism because the kids are viewed as unassailable, due to what they just endured. But even if I agree with some of these gun control arguments, it's an intellectually dishonest and supremely irresponsible tactic to pursue them for ratings and ideologic persuasion.

Thus, it bothers me when there appears to be a full-court press to silence alternative voices in lieu of rigid adherence to corporate news sources that can conclusively be proven dishonest and irresponsible.

Particularly when there is no shortage of loose ends, unsettling interviews and shady subplots to the Florida shooting that nobody in the mainstream media shows any sign of pursuing.

Why, for example, were the school’s security cameras allegedly on a 20-minute delay? Who made that decision and why? What purpose did it serve? Was it a longstanding glitch and had anyone expressed concern that was never addressed? Who is responsible for this critical security error? How long had it been in effect?

What about the unnamed Uber driver who took the shooter to school that day? She claims he was carrying a large case that must have contained the AR-15, but in this "Good Morning America" interview, teacher Stacey Lippel says the shooter was equipped in full body armor. Would all that have fit in a single case? What are the cops carrying out of the school in this video, so heavy it takes three guys to lug it?

Are we going to learn who this Uber driver is? Will she appear in court to testify? Isn't she a critical source who should be revealed?

Was there an “active shooter” drill scheduled to occur that day? History teacher Ernest Rospierski told the Associated Press there was. (Let's see how long YouTube allows that interview to stick.) Starting at 1:30 in this video compilation (apologies for the hyperbolic video titles, but all these interviews have been scrubbed from YouTube), a series of students tell local Broward County news reporters and CNN they had been informed there would be an active drill that day, while others claim there was more than one shooter on the scene.

Whether these claims are true or not, scrubbing them all across the internet and nuking the accounts of the people who post them only creates the suspicion that the authorities have got something to hide. The answer is not to scrub this material. It's to explain the reality of what happened and defeat misinformation with facts.

Unless, of course, the facts aren't safe for some authorities to have revealed. What about all the calls, claims and concerns about the shooter? The number of warnings about him — including one from the shooter himself and another anonymous call from, oddly, Massachusetts — to law enforcement is well over two dozen, yet nothing was done.

Might it have something to do with “the Broward County School Board and District Superintendent, enter[ing] into a political agreement with Broward County Law enforcement officials to stop arresting students for crimes, to 'improve their statistics' and gain state and federal grant money for improvements therein,” as this anonymous — but linking to official documents and reports — Twitter account claims?

I won't recap the Twitter thread, but strongly recommend you read it. But that's an extreme anonymous claim (although apparently the Uber driver can get away with it), despite all the verifying links, so I did some research on my own.

The numbers speak for themselves. If you go to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement web site's page for Broward County, then download the Excel file for Juvenile Arrests by Gender and Offense (1998 forward), you’ll see a significant drop in arrests from 2010 to 2017, from 8,999 arrests to 3,644 (with nearly 11K in 2008).

So let me ask you: Does Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel inspire confidence as a guy who could cut juvenile crime by 60% in seven years? Or as a guy who might, you know, fake it?

As for all the claims of false flags and such, here's a final thought: At the very least, what we've seen from the Broward County Sheriff's Department is egregious behavior that makes a “wrongful death” suit from victims' parents against the department and county seemingly a no-brainer.

if no lawsuits occur, it's reasonable to ask why not.