Mark Broughton

Mark Broughton is the public affairs director of Strategic Communication Laboratories, a small U.K. firm specializing in 'influence operations'.

SCL was showcasing a mock-up operations center at the 2005 Defense Systems & Equipment International, or DSEI, the United Kingdom's largest showcase for military technology. One of scenarios on demonstration featured a "sophisticated campaign of mass deception" that uses a fictitious chemical plant accident as a ploy to minimize the spread of smallpox.

"If your definition of propaganda is framing communications to do something that's going to save lives, that's fine," says Mark Broughton, SCL's public affairs director. "That's not a word I would use for that."