Ministry of Truth Exposed: Covid Inquiry Buried 20 Months of Evidence on Government Spying on Critics

A major witness statement recently published by the UK COVID-19 Inquiry has blown the lid off one of the darkest aspects of the pandemic response: a secretive government surveillance machine that targeted critics of lockdowns, vaccine mandates, and passports.

Drawing on extensive FOI requests, subject access reports, whistleblower testimony and internal documents, Silkie Carlo’s statement reveals how the Counter Disinformation Unit (CDU), Rapid Response Unit (RRU) and the 77th Brigade (a British Army unit focused on information operations and psychological warfare) targeted elected MPs, scientists, journalists, human rights advocates, and ordinary citizens.

Carlo, Director of Big Brother Watch, submitted the evidence on 19 November 2024. Yet the Inquiry only published it on 30 June 2026. A delay of nearly 20 months. Even more shocking, her statement was neither referenced nor included in Baroness Hallett’s Module 4 report on vaccines and therapeutics (published in April 2026). When challenged, the Inquiry called it an “administrative oversight.” Carlo has accused them of deliberately “burying” the evidence to maintain the illusion of accountability.

Logically AI: The Controversial Contractor at the Heart of the Surveillance

At the heart of the revelations in Silkie Carlo’s witness statement lies the UK government’s use of the British firm Logically (an AI-assisted disinformation monitoring company), which secured millions in taxpayer-funded contracts, including over £1.2 million from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) to support the Counter Disinformation Unit’s covert monitoring operations aimed at building “a comprehensive picture of potentially harmful misinformation and disinformation.”

The company produced regular “Covid Mis/Disinformation” reports that monitored and recorded lawful speech. Carlo’s statement highlights how Logically’s reports captured Big Brother Watch staff criticising COVID vaccine passports and mandatory certification. One example involved a talkRADIO interview clip and a parliamentary petition, both entirely lawful advocacy.

Carlo writes:

“It is an abuse of ‘counter disinformation’ remit for a private company to secretly monitor, record and report to government officials mainstream, lawful and accurate political dissent from recognised human rights advocates, or indeed anyone, under the guise of tackling ‘disinformation’.”

The RRU and 77th Brigade: Behavioural Nudging Meets Military Surveillance

Carlo’s witness statement further exposes the role of the Rapid Response Unit (RRU), which operated out of the Cabinet Office and worked hand-in-glove with contractors to coordinate the flagging of content to social media platforms while running behavioural influence operations targeting “vaccine hesitancy.”

Internal emails show officials pressuring newspapers not for factual inaccuracies, but for potential effects on “compliance.” Journalist Julia Hartley-Brewer was wrongly branded a “vaccine sceptic” in an RRU report shared internationally.

Military involvement through the 77th Brigade was particularly alarming. The unit, which conducts information operations, publicly supported Covid-19 counter-misinformation efforts following an announcement by General Sir Nick Carter in April 2020. By November 2020, it was revealed to be assisting the RRU on vaccination-related work. After public scrutiny, the Ministry of Defence claimed soldiers were not deployed against UK citizens:

“Defence are supporting the Cabinet Office to tackle disinformation and hostile state narratives which seek to undermine the UK’s reputation. All work is internationally focused, and the military do not and have never conducted any kind of action against British citizens.”

Carlo’s investigation, however, proved otherwise. A 77th Brigade whistleblower described the operation as unskilled and oriented around “the day’s political news and public opinions of the government’s performance.” He recounted how team leaders dictated Twitter keyword searches, often based on that day’s newspapers. Screenshots of tweets expressing domestic dissatisfaction, such as Labour activists criticising inadequate ventilator supplies, were compiled into slide packs and sent to the Cabinet Office. Feedback from the Cabinet Office then directed the next day’s searches, creating a clear political feedback loop.

The whistleblower stated these posts “did not contain information that was untrue or co-ordinated — it was simply fear and domestic dissent.” He further alleged that legal concerns were bypassed through “wilful ignorance,” treating UK-based accounts as potential foreign agents unless they explicitly stated their nationality. FOI documents and a March 2020 presentation confirmed UK citizens were monitored, directly contradicting the Ministry of Defence’s assurances.

Flagging for Backdoor Censorship

These secretive units acted as “trusted flaggers,” escalating content to platforms for removal. X (formerly Twitter) later confirmed that 58% of CDU referrals during the pandemic did not breach its terms of service. Yet the system generated a strong presumption of enforcement.

Carlo states:

“It is my belief, based on research spanning over two years, that the Government carried out a system of de facto secret, extrajudicial censorship of lawful domestic speech… in a manner similar to the way the Government deals with illegal terror content.”

This bypassed judicial oversight and UK human rights protections (Articles 8 and 10 ECHR) by outsourcing censorship to foreign corporations, with vague definitions of “harmful” content and almost no independent oversight.

As Carlo powerfully concludes in her statement:

“Censorship never benefits science, rather, it benefits power… An informed and lawful approach to mis/disinformation must start with an understanding of the importance of freedom of speech both for democracy and public health — such an understanding was missing during the pandemic.”

Broader Context: High-Profile Targets and Political Connections

The surveillance apparatus described in Carlo’s statement extended to high-profile sceptics and commentators critical of official pandemic policies. Logically’s UK head of investigations, Joe Ondrack, provided quotes to multiple major outlets framing Russell Brand as a dangerous spreader of misinformation. This occurred in the same period that Caroline Dinenage (then Chair of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee) wrote to platforms expressing concern about Brand’s ability to “profit” from his content, shortly after the 2023 Sunday Times / Channel 4 Dispatches documentary “Russell Brand: In Plain Sight”.

Her letter to the Director of Government Relations at TikTok can be read below.

Later, in response to constituents who raised concerns about her intervention, Dinenage insisted: “I did not request or suggest that other media sites demonetise Mr Brand.”

An example of her response can be read below.

It is worth pointing out that Dinenage, who served as Digital and Culture Minister during the height of the pandemic (directly overseeing the Counter Disinformation Unit), is married to Lord Mark Lancaster, a former senior British Army officer who served as Deputy Commander of the 77th Brigade. The very unit whose covert domestic surveillance of lockdown and vaccine critics is exposed in Carlo’s statement and Big Brother Watch’s investigations.

The Deeper Pattern Exposed

All of these revelations form part of a much larger story. In my book 3/11 Viral Takeover: On March 11, 2020, a Pandemic was Declared and Our World Changed Forever, I forensically document how the WHO’s pandemic declaration on 3/11 unleashed a coordinated global infrastructure of narrative control, behavioural manipulation, and the systematic silencing of dissent.

The long-delayed publication of Carlo’s statement, and its complete omission from the official Module 4 report, is itself a stark example of the very problem I exposed. From the earliest suppression of lab-leak questions and alternative treatments to the aggressive shielding and promotion of the rapid mRNA “vaccine” rollout and the weaponisation of “misinformation” labels, this was never merely about public health.

It was always about power and control.

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