Plausible deniability

Plausible deniability is a term that refers to anything which you can pretend didn't happen in spite of the evidence that it did, because there is enough doubt, or else enough things that can be combined with disinformation, to cause doubt that they can be denied. It is a key aspect of cover ups, and is taught to people who are involved at any level of any secret service (primarily because protecting the population from harmful truths is a large part of what their job is).

Example of plausible deniability in action

A number of people warn police that a terrible crime is about to take place, but police refuse to take it seriously. The crime takes place, the media finds evidence that police could have stopped it, and indeed the people who had made the initial warnings to police talk about how police knew that it was going to happen and refused to take it seriously.

What is the plausible deniability in this case?

Obviously, in this case it is a bad idea for the secret service to claim that it didn't happen. However, one advantage is that the government controls the police force, hence they can deny that the people went to the police in the first place. Unless they kept a copy of the police reports, they can simply claim that it didn't happen. In most cases this will work.

If the people concerned had kept evidence that they had gone to police about it, then what they need to do is to ridicule the people concerned, to damage their credibility. Any mental conditions can be brought to light to claim that they are crazy, any problems in their family, anything like that.

Then they can push for something else. That these people had in fact told some friends a theory about something that might happen, but it was actually a lot different to what really happened, it was never told to police, and there was no way for police to have stopped it.

The key with making the plausible deniability work is to not draw too much attention to it. Don't actually make public speeches (obviously, it is not the job of the secret service to make public speeches anyway) but rather give hints of disinformation that journalists will then pick up on, so that they run a wild goose chase and then people who are trying to investigate it will come up with entirely the wrong conclusions.

Range of plausible deniability

Plausible deniability can range from completely denying that something had happened at all, right through to making out that it happened in a different way.

When plausible deniability fails

There are numerous examples of when plausible deniability fails.

The Australian federal government in 2001 denied that they knew about ASIO's disinformation about the Children overboard scandal, but evidence was produced that proved very conclusively that they did in fact know. In this case, people from inside ASIO chose to go against the government to make the statements.

In the Azaria Chamberlain disappearance, members of the jury that convicted mother Lindy Chamberlain admitted to being pressured to make a cover up, and police who were involved in the prosecution admitted to being pressured to make a conviction.

In the above 2 examples, as with most cases that plausible deniability fails, the next time the government and secret service are much more careful not to fail. All of the controversies in Australia since the Azaria Chamberlain disappearance have been covered up to several times greater degrees than the Azaria Chamberlain disappearance was, with suppression orders in many cases preventing key people from being able to speak about it.

People other than secret service who use plausible deniability

Whilst plausible deniability is a key aspect of the secret service, they are not the only people who use it.

Many businessman frequently use this technique. Plumbers who charge exorbitant amounts to fix something then don't do a thing will use plausible deniability (and the lack of knowledge of plumbing in the customer) to pretend that they had in fact fixed it. Many businessmen do this kind of thing. Removalists who smash objects claim that they were broken in the first place.

Legal disputes have plausible deniability in almost every case. One or both parties could be lying about what has happened, or at least trying to make the other side prove their side.

Various internet smear campaigns can use plausible deniability too. Screen shots are claimed to have been altered with photoshop, e-mails with headers are claimed to have false headers, people's real names are claimed to belong to someone else, and so forth. One example of plausible deniability in action are the various actions of Somey, who, amongst other things, claimed that a set of e-mails including headers and real names and combined with screen shots that state explicitly that Blissyu2 was the owner of Wikipedia Review do not prove a thing and were forged. Somey also claimed that he had not spied on his own member NewYorkBrad, although was later forced to confess after other people involved admitted to it. Whilst it isn't possible to get greater levels of proof in these cases, just the same perennial liars can use plausible deniability, combined with smooth talking, to convince people that things which should be incredibly obviously true are in fact false.