Why is Reuters claiming that propagandizing Americans was not allowed when, I believe, the patriot act gave them permission to do just that?

us dod is only legally allowed to conduct psyop domestically during national emergencies - such as covid.

I recall operation songbird (?) was this exact thing?

mockingbird was the recruitment of news journalists, media figures, left wing commentators, etc. (so the parallel would be the authors of this article)

Also why is the military the ones doing this? Does the CIA outsource their dumber operations to the military?

most us psyop falls under the military

And once again why are they even admitting to any of this?

a few guesses at motives: 1// you noted that they aren't allowed to target us audiences and they make it clear in the article. 2// concealing their capabilities - the images & text posts they show are unsophisticated. they say facebook employees easily identified posts. 3// they lay the blame on trump, biden is the dod's preferred candidate.

my paranoid stoner ass best effort anyway