Rules of political misdirection and deception:
The people's minds will follow the media's focus and the media will follow the official focus. Whatever crisis the official spotlight illuminates is where the media will focus. Wherever the media looks – the people look. Guide the media's attention and the people's attention will follow. So direct their minds towards issues of your choice and away from your key moves and strategies - from the things you need to get away with doing.
Hide one movement with another. Use a large, dramatic movement to draw their attention. Use it to cover other movements on which there is too much heat or which are not executed well due to your lack of skill and ability or due to difficulties encountered (but which you still desire to accomplish).
Keep them occupied with your interpretation of events. When brutal deeds that need doing are underway keep the media occupied with your justifications - tell them over and over again that your actions are only a measured but necessary response for the protection and greater benefit of the people. Use rule number 1 (feed selected information to the media) to accomplish this. Repeat this claim incessantly and emphatically.
Make them afraid. Do something (anything) to maintain in the population a general sense of fear or dread (of imminent danger from enemies). When they are fearful - you can do your thing. When they become afraid, their critical faculties and overall awareness is low. Even if they are doubtful about your claims, they will acquiesce to most of what you do simply because they can't be completely certain that what you say isn't true.
Use broad, sweeping generalizations in your declarations. Create trepidation in your opponents, enemies, and everyone else by using vague but ominous descriptions when profiling your enemy and their aims. People will duck and keep their political heads low to avoid fitting the profile or even associating with those who might fit the hazy descriptions you provide. When they're busy trying not to be noticed they'll stay away from words, actions, demonstrations and open opposition to your goals.
Conceal the crucial information. Secrecy is good. The art of ruling requires maintenance of secrecy. Restrict access to information for security purposes - tell people this is for their own protection - now you can make whatever claims you like since it is always possible that you have information unknown to others and therefore your opponents cannot determine with certainty whether your actions are based on lies or whether they are based on "classified information" only available to you. By the time it is discovered whether they are based on falsehood or fact, it's too late - you would have accomplished your deception and the discovered information is largely irrelevant to the situation now at hand.
Spin a good story. It doesn't have to be the truth, so long as it's plausible and captures their attention. Feel free to mix lies with truth - it really doesn't matter if you're caught. If they point to the lies, you point to the true parts - blame the lies on faulty intel. Use the true parts to justify your actions.
Keep the momentum going no matter what. If they discover a part of your deception, deny their explanations and keep going on with what you're doing. They're unlikely to uncover all your trickery for quite some time, and the momentum of events will act as misdirection from what's already been exposed.
Restrict their freedom. First take care of steps 4 and 5. Then tighten the screws on political and legal rights - institute monitoring and surveillance on a widespread scale - grant your government special powers to circumvent the existing legal and justice systems. Tell people this is for their own safety and protection. After all what do they know - you have all the information.
Always keep a few aces up your sleeve. Hold them back for when the show goes wrong and the audience grows restless. Produce an ace as and when necessary (but make sure your timing is good) - the "foiled terror-plot" ace is always good for regaining political ground, pushing back the opposition, and distracting from weak areas in your performance. Always make a big show of the ace production - milk it for all you can. This will allow you to move forward on the other points and may make it possible to salvage a show that is going wrong.
Stay one step ahead of the media. This one's easy, since you have all the intel and information and they have nothing except what you tell them. And they're mostly inefficient at actually doing any real investigating - it's much easier for them just to attend briefings and report what you tell them and then call in the "experts" to speculate on what it all means.
Like the audience at a magic show, many of us willingly suspend our disbelief and accept the illusions (even the poorly executed ones) - and if we're somewhat skeptical of the performance it's still hard to look away from such vigorously audacious spectacle. Perhaps it is only through letting ourselves be deceived, through taking sides and falling into line in order to soothe our fears, that our consciences can accept the actions carried out in our society's name.
Perhaps, as a society, we have lost (or thrown away, or drawn a heavy curtain over) the ability to see and judge things according to a realm of supernal values and ethics (which requires a compassionate connection to the wider world and a more elevated viewpoint). Instead the realm of desire and will allied with technical, instrumental, manipulative ability has come to supersede any impetus among the powerful to move and interact with the world in accordance with humane values and non-exploitative means. The faint shadow of understanding of ethics that remains has itself become a thing to be manipulated - useful for purposes of propaganda or as a mental instrument to be used to gain the acquiescence of people for the support of certain goals - goals which are ideological, power based goals, which, if they carry any value, carry a negative one - a negativity that arises not only from the relentless pursuit of acquisitive ends but from the heartless and mechanistic use of degraded, amoral means to achieve the end.
As for us, we're simply parameters that need to be managed and controlled and kept ineffectual (if we're in opposition to policy) while the equation plays itself out - we're an audience whose attention is to be directed and misdirected while the "great" goals of this new century are relentlessly pursued.
"...the powerful among the unjust speak out words (of promise) only to lead-on and deceive....What (they) have brought is deception; (and) surely God will make it come to nothing....(and) will show the truth to be the truth...though the guilty may be averse (to it)" (Qur'an 35:40, 10:81,82)