Video

Balloons And Flash Drives: How A Private Organization Is Trying To Incite Rebellion In North Korea

KCNA/via REUTERS

Daily Caller News Foundation logo
Anders Hagstrom Justice Reporter
Font Size:

The U.S.-based Human Rights Foundation (HRF) has worked with North Korean defectors to smuggle flash drives and other tools into their dictatorial homeland to counter the regime’s propaganda throughout 2017.

HRF director Alex Gladstein claims that his organization has successfully smuggled up to 10,000 flash drives into the country containing documentaries countering state narratives, according to The Telegraph. The organization also uses massive hydrogen balloons plastered with news bulletins to float across the boarder into North Korea in hopes that citizens will realize their true situation and bring the country down from within.

“This is to liberate minds,” Gladstein told the paper. “We’re creating little windows to the outside world so that the North Korean people can make decisions for themselves about what they want to do with their lives.”

HRF’s “Flash Drives for Freedom” campaign sees volunteers go to great risk smuggling USB sticks through black markets on the China-North Korea border. The majority of North Koreans have devices that can read the flash drives, and since the program began, HRF has smuggled in 2 million hours of footage and 48 million hours of reading material, reaching an estimated 1.1 million North Koreans. According to HRF’s website, the flash drives contain ebooks as well as an offline version of Korean wikipedia.

HRF began the program in 2013 by simply filling hydrogen balloons with DVDs and leaflets and floating them across the border. High level North Korean defectors have said that causing the general population to question their living conditions is one of the most effective ways to attack Kim Jong Un’s regime.

“Given the history of Eastern Europe, I hope that people can think about the potential of information rather than reckless conflict and provocation and totally failed diplomacy,” Gladstein said. “There is nothing the government can do with information, they can’t manipulate it. It’s a very powerful thing.”

Thae Yong-ho, who was once second in command at North Korea’s U.K. embassy before defecting in 2016, calls the general population of North Korea Un’s “Achilles heel.”

“We cannot change the policy of terror of the Kim Jong-un regime,” he said. “But we can educate the North Korean population to stand up by disseminating outside information.”

WATCH: 

Follow Anders on Twitter

Send Tips: anders@dailycallernewsfoundation.org

The Daily Caller News Foundation is working hard to balance out the biased American media. For as little as $3, you can help us. Freedom of speech isn’t free. Make a one-time donation to support the quality, independent journalism of TheDCNF. We’re not dependent on commercial or political support and we do not accept any government funding.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel