US Military Explored Hiring Bloggers As Propagandists

Zeinfeld writes "Wired reports that one time Clipper Chip supporter Dorothy Denning wrote a report on using blogs for information warfare in 2006 (a report available from cryptome). Amongst the proposals were hiring bloggers directly as propaganda agents and using military media resources to 'make' a blogger posting favorable material. Notably, and most unfortunately absent from the report, is the very real question of whether the military should be manipulating domestic media." Is meme warfare just another battleground, or is this dirty pool?

Comments

Just another form of media...

[binaryspiral]

Blogging is just another form of published media - it can be used for any reason. People have just been lured into believing blogs are personal posts from individuals.

Someone is going to be very busy...

So what's new?

[elrous0]

The U.S. government and military have routinely engaged in propaganda and information control at least since WWII (and, more informally, since long before that). Hell, they had an entire agency that did nothing but this sort of stuff (an agency which John McCain wants to bring back , incidentally).

How on earth anyone could be shocked by this at this point is beyond me. This kind of stuff is fairly benign next to the kind of stuff they do in SECRET. It's when they actually start talking about killing reporters to silence dissent that they REALLY get nasty.

Re:The military decided it wasn't worth paying for

[Anonymous Coward]

And just what makes you think they're doing it for free?

Well, dailykos.com is on the record saying that they take money to endorse candidates.

Unethical? Try illegal.

[pla]

Notably, and most unfortunately absent from the report, is the very real question of whether the military should be manipulating domestic media.

Not to mention the legality... The Hatch act still exists, to the best of my knowledge. And although people generally interpret it somewhat more liberally than intended, this seems like exactly the form of corruption targetted thereby... The executive branch, using federal funds to make the war look better, to improve the chances of McCain getting in come November.

Then again, since when has the current administration bothered with obeying all those pesky little laws? "Four more years - Why should the constitution matter this time?"

Re:The Future of Warfare

[sm62704]

The role of these bodies is not to try and manipulate my judgement in their favour. When that happens, you know that they consider YOU a threat to themselves. And that strongly implies that your interests are not their interests.

FBI tracked King's every move

Hoping to prove the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was under the influence of Communists, the FBI kept the civil rights leader under constant surveillance.

The agency's hidden tape recorders turned up almost nothing about communism.

But they did reveal embarrassing details about King's sex life -- details the FBI was able to use against him.

The almost fanatical zeal with which the FBI pursued King is disclosed in tens of thousands of FBI memos from the 1960s.

The FBI paper trail spells out in detail the government agency's concerted efforts to derail King's efforts on behalf of the civil rights movement.

The FBI's interest in King intensified after the March on Washington in August 1963, when King delivered his "I have a dream speech," which many historians consider the most important speech of the 20th century. After the speech, an FBI memo called King the "most dangerous and effective Negro leader in the country."

You are entirely right. But it appears that they (the rich people who run our plutocracy) have been pulling this disgusting stuff for most of my life, or more likely since before I was born.

And people wonder why I don't want to vote Democrat or Republican! How can we change our plutocratic republic back into a democratic republic?

-mcgrew