Integrity Initiative/Leak

 Integrity Initiative/Leak(Leak,  third rail topic‎,  mid level deep event)

Date	5 November 2018 - 29 March 2019
Location	CyberGuerilla
Perpetrators	'Anonymous'
Interest of	Volker Birk
Subpage	•Integrity Initiative/Leak/1 •Integrity Initiative/Leak/2 •Integrity Initiative/Leak/3 •Integrity Initiative/Leak/4 •Integrity Initiative/Leak/5 •Integrity Initiative/Leak/6 •Integrity Initiative/Leak/7
Description	A series of 7 leaks, starting on 5 November 2018, of unknown origin and veracity. After some time, the II disputed the authenticity of some of the documents, but was not clear about which.

The Integrity Initiative Leaks began on 5th November 2018 when a set of documents from the group were posted online by 'Anonymous' at Cyberguerilla. Through March 2019, 7 groups of documents were released. Swiss Propaganda Research termed it "the biggest Secret Service exposure since Edward Snowden" and noted that it was "almost completely ignored by commercially-controlled media". The source of the leak remains unknown, although a March 2019 report by Sky News stated that unnamed "Whitehall sources said it is highly likely that Russia's military intelligence service carried out the hack-and-leak of files".

5 November 2018

Full article: Integrity Initiative/Leak/1

The first Integrity Initiative Leak was on 5th November 2018. This exposed the cellular system of having small groups of apparently independent academics, journalists etc. who could be called upon covertly to echo an opinion. It also revealed that the membership of many of these "clusters" and that this system had been used after their Spanish cluster reported that Pedro Baños was likely to become Director of the Spanish Department of Homeland Security.

Response

On 26 November 2018, the Integrity Initiative admitted that some documents had been hacked, but declined to state whether any particular documents were authentic, leaving the way clear for possible future claims that some were forged.

29 November 2018

Full article: Integrity Initiative/Leak/2

Early in November we published here a large part of the documents relating to the Integrity Initiative project. https://www.cyberguerrilla.org/blog/operation-integrity-initiative-british-informational-war-against-all/ The Integrity Initiative] have confirmed their validity, yet they don’t consider the information relevant. https://www.integrityinitiative.net/articles/statement-russian-media-publication-hacked-ii-documents Meanwhile neither the organization not its sponsors have met out demands and given assurances that the network of clusters will only be used to counter Russia’s disinformation policy. We have also received no reaction from the EU leaders and international organizations although people in many countries showed great concern about the matter.

By 22 February 2019, the post was unavailable.

13 December 2018

Full article: Integrity Initiative/Leak/3

4 January 2019

Full article: Integrity Initiative/Leak/4

We have warned the UK government that it must conduct an honest and transparent investigation into the activity of the Integrity Initiative and the Institute for Statecraft. Yet, today we can only see some awkward excuses and attempts of the politicians to quieten it all down. The outrageously illicit use of the British taxpayers’ money to organize a smear campaign against Jeremy Corbyn and entire Labour party must not remain unpunished! To prevent the conservative ministers from lying to the people from the benches of the UK Parliament we have decided to publish another part of the documents that will help make the investigation more honest and open.

Response

The Integrity Initiative claimed on Twitter that some of the documents leaked in batch #4 were not theirs and had been misrepresented as part of the organisation.

24 January 2019

Full article: Integrity Initiative/Leak/5

8 February 2019

Full article: Integrity Initiative/Leak/6

While the UK Government keeps on defying our demands for an honest and unbiased investigation into the Institute for Statecraft and the Integrity Initiative’s meddling in domestic affairs of sovereign European states, Chris Donnelly’s team awkwardly try to justify their illegal activity paid for by the British taxpayers. The Integrity Initiative’s German cluster held a meeting in Berlin on the 31st of January 2019. A well-known British intelligence officer Harold Elletson and the cluster’s chief Dr Hannes Adomeit co-chaired the event. They again made an effort to divert people’s attention from the organisation’s wrongful activity in the European Union. However their pathetic attempt has been shattered to pieces by irrefutable evidence that we have been and will continue to share with you.

25 March 2019

Full article: Integrity Initiative/Leak/7

Leak #7 revealed the existence of the EXPOSE Network, which requested £9,750,000 over 3 years. The 3 directors were planned to be Chris Donnelly (Institute for Statecraft), Amil Khan (Aktis, Chatham House) and Louis Brooke (Zinc Network).

 

Examples

Page name	Description
Integrity Initiative/Leak/1	The first of many leaks which exposed covertly organised groups of Russophobic academics, journalists, government officers and deep state operatives who strategised about how to alert to people to a purported Russian "threat".
Integrity Initiative/Leak/2	The second Integrity Initiative Leak, 24 days after Integrity Initiative Leak 1.
Integrity Initiative/Leak/3	The 3rd tranche of documents released as part of the Integrity Initiative Leak, on 13 December 2018.
Integrity Initiative/Leak/4	The fourth Integrity Initiative Leak, from early 2019.
Integrity Initiative/Leak/5	Released on the 24 January 2019, the fifth Integrity Initiative Leak.
Integrity Initiative/Leak/6	The 6th Integrity Initiative Leak, posted on 8 February 2019.
Integrity Initiative/Leak/7	The final tranche of Integrity Initiative documents, released in March 2020, which gave an impression of the scale of the multi-million pound operation

 

Related Quotations

Page	Quote	Date
Institute for Statecraft/Secrecy	“Was there a ‘D Notice’ issued by the British government forbidding mainstream media outlets from reporting on the embarrassing leak of this clandestine propaganda operation?”
Integrity Initiative/Leak/1	“The Institute for Statecraft [Integrity Initiative’s parent organisation], an independent charity, was hacked several weeks ago and numerous documents were published and amplified by Kremlin news channels. The Russian state media campaign’s objective is clear. This is yet another example of Russian disinformation intended to confuse audiences and discredit an organisation which is working independently to tackle the threat of disinformation.”	November 12 JL

 

A document sourced from Integrity Initiative/Leak

Title	Type	Subject(s)	Publication date	Author(s)	Description
Document:Notes from colleagues in the Baltic States who are monitoring Russia carefully	Wikispooks Page	Skripal Affair Russia/Propaganda	18 March 2018	Integrity Initiative	A document from the Integrity Initiative Leak which asserts that "A criminal investigation [into the Skripal affair] alone will not throw these essential clues up, and is unlikely to yield sufficient judicial evidence We need to be looking at, and explaining, this attack from a political and military-intelligence perspective. That means educating our audience to understand how Russia sees this world as being at war."

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