Slashdot Mirror
U.S. Plan To Fight The Internet Revealed
geniese writes "The BBC is reporting on a recently declassified document that details the U.S. Military's intentions regarding warfare and the Internet." From the article: "Perhaps the most startling aspect of the roadmap is its acknowledgement that information put out as part of the military's psychological operations, or Psyops, is finding its way onto the computer and television screens of ordinary Americans. 'Information intended for foreign audiences, including public diplomacy and Psyops, is increasingly consumed by our domestic audience,' it reads."
Who cares? Honestly, it's not like you can just "target the Internet" to only those people you want. That's what makes it such a powerful medium, in a way.
-Erwos
Plausible conjecture should not be misrepresented as proof positive.
This is like the old dropping the leaflets out of the planes with the "Surrender or you will be attacked" in different languages. Still, during the current conflict the US has been found to have been paying newspapers to print positive stories about the war to influence public opinion - but with more and more ppl getting news from the internet spreading it there makes sense too. I don't like it though, think about it, we're fighting for "Iraqi's freedom" yet we shortcircut their right to freedom of the press? I know that's probably not a popular opinion around here, but wouldn't it be nice if we could rely on positive stories that no one was forced to write? Perhaps I'm being nieve.
Of course I'm also reminded of, "You have no chance to survive make your time. Ha Ha Ha Ha" which makes me smile.
fak3r.com
War Is Peace
Freedom Is Slavery
Ignorance Is Strength
Nothing new. From the propaganda side, we've been doing this type of stuff for years - Voice of America, for radio, etc... This is just a new medium. From the disruption of service side, we've also been doing this for years, most recently we debated weather to knock down Al Jazeera.
--- RFC 1149 Compliant.
1. We spew propaganda worldwide and are surprised that it's being picked up by American media outlets, and ;) ;)
2. We don't know what to do about this situation.
Oh, and 3. We'd love to build a system that would let us completely dominate everything operating in the electromagnetic realm. In fact, we're working on plans.
Why is this even news? Military propoganda is as old as military history. It is, or should be, a very important component of any successful military strategy. And if the US military wasn't doing that, then they weren't doing their jobs (for which we taxpayers are paying them to do).
Really, the only thing which is interesting is that the US national media seem to be picking up military propoganda more and more as it's distributed abroad, and then repackaging and redistributing it to the US market. So that's a sign that either the propoganda is very successful, or that the US media is rather poor on fact checking. Of course the media rebroadcast military propoganda quite a bit back in the World Wars, but I think it was common knowledge that it was being done. Today, the media does a very poor job of informing the public where or how it obtains its information.
That they are "targeting" the net should not be surprising either. It is their jobs to plan how to counter-attack any possible attack of the enemy. And frankly this should include what to do if the enemy manages to infiltrate the Internet as we know it. This planning should not be misinterpreted as thinking the US military wants to take down the Internet. Instead they want to be prepared if the enemy takes it down, or takes it over.
...regarding the propaganda:
The document's authors acknowledge that American news media should not unwittingly broadcast military propaganda. "Specific boundaries should be established," they write.
It's not quite like the summary seems to imply.
For a long time I had dismissed the idea of the military-industrial complex as being a mythology of overly paranoid conspiracy theorists. I don't any more. The more I learn about the Psyops program makes me wonder what else they're right about. Maybe there really is no such thing as enough paranoia when it comes to the government.
// file: mice.h
#include "frickin_lasers.h"
I'm not sure I understand. We live in a country in which the press went along with the President when he claimed that there was WMD when there was no WMD, when he claimed there was a nuclear threat when there was no nuclear threat, when he promoted a plan to increase pollution called the "The Clear Skies Initiative", and when he appointed lobbyists from major polluters to run key portions of the EPA. When the President, the Vice President, and the Attorney General all promoted torture, the press called it a patriotic act. How could anything possibly be more unpatriotic, more out of sync with the intentions of our founding fathers, than torture? When the President snoops on citizens in a clear and unequivocal violation of the law, the press goes along with his claims that he has a right to do so. And yet the only type of leader who would possibly have a right to do such a thing would be a dictator.
Given this situation the government feels it needs new outlets for propaganda? If nothing else, such programs would be an obvious waste of our tax dollars. American are subjected to enough propaganda as it is. If we want to send propaganda overseas, all we have to do is let them watch our major news outlets. After all, most Americans are already listening to either Rush Limbaugh or Fox News. What else could a right wing government that promotes torture, major polluters, and snooping on its citizens possibly want for its citizens and the citizens of other countries?
Better call in the US Army Corp of Engineers. Last I heard, the easiest way to take down a computer network, domestic or foriegn, was through the use of Earth moving equipment. "Accidentally" cutting the uplinks while working to repair the infrastructure, sounds like a great tactic to me!
-Patrick
"They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."
The document's authors acknowledge that American news media should not unwittingly broadcast military propaganda. "Specific boundaries should be established," they write.
Does this even make sense anymore? What about all the people who watch BBC news or Al-Jazerra on satelite TV / digital cable?
In this era of globalization, unless they totally block these channels (and international news websites like bbc.co.uk) out wholesale, it's kinda hard for the military to control all the information disseminated to the populace. Propeganda *is going to ge through*.
And if they *did* block them out, it'd be pretty obvious something was going on.
Though the headline makes it sound like the military considers the internet as an adversary, the description belies how the military fights using the internet and Info Warfare programs. There's a huge difference. With the former, it's easy to jump on the knee-jerk bandwagon and describe how stupid our government/military/Bushy/ChimpyMcHitlerstein is for wanting to fight against the internet. With the latter, it's a description of how the internet can be leveraged, and might lead to insightful discussions useful for anyone who wants to use the internet to further their agenda.
Really bad headline.
Why is this even news? Military propoganda is as old as military history.
You have very high standards for news. Look at todays headlines. Can you find anything that hasn't happened before? Crimes, wars, elections, earthquakes, all of these things have happened many times before, and should by your standards not be reported.
Is this evidence that the media has an anti-American bias, or is this evidence that the facts have an anti-American bias? I suppose the media would do a better job of reporting on all the good news coming out of Iraq if they could travel the country safely without a heavily-armed escort to keep them from getting killed or kidnapped.
Some of the reactions here remind me of a particualar Noam Chomsky quote, "State propaganda, when supported by the educated classes and when no deviation is permitted from it, can have a big effect". I can't decide which is more troubling, the idea of the U.S. military having their finger on the power button, or the mundane apathy expressed in some of these posts. I suppose if we allowed history alone to dictate our moral responsibilites, we would have had no reason to banish slavery, allow women to vote, etc. So maybe you see why I don't really understand the "what's new about this/no big deal" quibbliing, perhaps you don't really understand the concept of democracy. It is primarily by your lack of outrage ("you" being the privaledged techocratic elite) that such things can progress, if you really want to look at the historical record.
The alternative is state-run religious content
I don't think that's the only alternative.
A network that treats the release of a new Bin Laden tape like some sort of surprise Super Bowl isn't entirely helping matters. They certainly don't want to chase away their Arab viewership, but calling every Palestinian that blows up a bus a "martyr" only makes matters worse, not better. So what if they host talk shows that provide equal access to all flavors of idealogy in the Arab world? Not all flavors are rational or would even tolerate Al Jazeera's existence on soil they would rule, given the chance. I'm all for allowing idiots to air their opinions, the better to examine their idiocy, but the celebration (through endless airplay loops, followed by masked readings of last words by the killers) of things like suicide attacks on children and police cadets is absurd, and can't be construed as "liberal" nor helping secularism.
That Al Jazeera is, by local cultural standards, independent-minded and "edgy" in their editorial policies does not make them supportive of those people that are actually striving to produce states in which freedom of expression is built into the constitution. Making heros out of people that wantonly and indiscriminantly kill the people working on such is BS. They can and should do better, if they truly want their Arab brothers and sisters to enjoy the independence and relative liberty that they, in their sponsored coziness in Qatar, already have.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
There are plenty of bad things happening, no one has said there arent. What the parent poster was pointing out is that there are many more good thing happening and it all goes virtually unreported. You may blame it on sensationalism, the parent may blame it on bias, but either way, we as the American public, as the news agencies' consumers, are not being given the full and accurate picture of what happens in Iraq. If you want good news, often you have to go to the Soldiers , or the iraqis themselves.
"In the game of life, someone always has to lose. To me, if life were fair, that someone would always be Oklahoma." -DKR
The Sphinx: Your temper is very quick, my friend. But until you learn to master your rage...
Mr. Furious: Your rage will become your master? That's what you were going to say. Right? Right?
If Big Brother SAYS so, anyway...
I've seen more than one 'news' story that was written with a slant that made no sense in the context of the other news I had read that day... the same regurgitated wire crap... but slanted differently than the standard polarized crap we call news.
I try to read enough different viewpoints to make sense of the original story, somewhere in the middle, rather than the right and left slants of the mainstream news outlets.
Occasionally, I'll see one that is directed in such a way to make me think, "Why bend it in THAT direction?".
Guess it's time to invest in tinfoil...lol
Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
From the article:
"The US military seeks the capability to knock out every telephone, every networked computer, every radar system on the planet."
While i appreciate the leaders of our country protecting Americans, seeking the capability to knock out every telephone, every networked computer, every radar system on the planet is quite extreme and can only be compared to nuclear warfare. Because while the destruction worldwide may not be as quick as nuclear warfare, the destruction worldwide will be quite as total nonetheless.
Exactly where do they think this type of esclation is going to get us? When news of this spreads world wide, even our friends may get concerned and build aliances with bad guys because they have become afraid of our power.
From the article:
"The fact that the "Information Operations Roadmap" is approved by the Secretary of Defense suggests that these plans are taken very seriously indeed in the Pentagon."
Frightning.
This has been another valuable and informative opinion from:
Catahoula!
The other day they admitted to an "error" when they translated
the Iranian President's comments to something like - Iran has the
right and will develop nuclear weapons - from what they said really
was - Iran has the right to develop nuclear power.
When you think about how big the world is and few channels of
information there really are, and then couple that with your own
experience with people that probably most of us have had where
there is some personal incident in your personal circle of friends,
and how hard it can be to determine what happened.
We are living in total news fantasy, and our respective governments
own us to the extent they can force us into situations that demand
certain actions in order to get the carrot, avoid the stick, or
get along with our neighbors who probably all think the same thing
we do.