Internet Giving Rise To "Citizen Spies"

reporter writes "According to a startling report by the Wall Street Journal, the Internet has empowered ordinary people to be part-time intelligence officers, uncovering secrets like military facilities and prison camps across the landscape of North Korea. The report states, '[Curtis] Melvin is at the center of a dozen or so citizen snoops who have spent the past two years filling in the blanks on the map of one of the world's most secretive countries. Seeking clues in photos, news reports and eyewitness accounts, they affix labels to North Korean structures and landscapes captured by Google Earth, an online service that stitches satellite pictures into a virtual globe. The result is an annotated North Korea of rocket-launch sites, prison camps and elite palaces on white-sand beaches. "It's democratized intelligence," says Mr. Melvin. More than 35,000 people have downloaded Mr. Melvin's file, North Korea Uncovered. It has grown to include thousands of tags in categories such as "nuclear issues" (alleged reactors, missile storage), dams (more than 1,200 countrywide) and restaurants (47). Its Wikipedia approach to spying shows how Soviet-style secrecy is facing a new challenge from the Internet's power to unite a disparate community of busybodies.'"

Comments

Re:Not _SPIES_, intel analysts

[Hurricane78]

I think it would be more interesting to let it fly over the USA. ^^
I'll start it from the UK, because they are good brothers too.

Man, I bet you could unite 99% of the people of NK, Iran, and the USA, and they would work well together.
Why not just dump the government of all those states on the moon, and let them annihilate each other?

Re:In Soviet Internet

[Philip K Dickhead]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/5/21/734169/-A-Deeply-Unfair-Cast-of-Mind Thu May 21, 2009 at 08:22:20 PM PDT

May 21, 2009

At Abu Ghraib, a few sadistic prison guards abused inmates in violation of American law, military regulation, and simple decency. For the harm they did to Iraqi prisoners and to America's cause, they deserved and received Army justice.

And it takes a deeply unfair cast of mind to equate the disgraces of Abu Ghraib with the lawful, skillful, and entirely honorable work of CIA personnel trained to deal with a few malevolent men.
Dick Cheney

• Garrett's diary :: ::

Setting the Conditions
August 31 to September 9, 2003
Major General Geoffrey Miller, commander of the prison at Guantanamo Bay, leads a survey team to plan intelligence, interrogation, and detention operations in Iraq.

September 5, 2003
A JPRA (SERE) training team arrives in Iraq. Their visit includes Abu Ghraib.

September 6, 2003
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld tours Abu Ghraib.

September 9, 2003
General Miller delivers his recommendations. Guantanamo Bay should be used as a baseline. Interrogation in Iraq should be consolidated in one place. MPs should work to set the conditions for interrogation.

Dedicate and train a detention guard force subordinate to the JIDC Commander that sets the conditions for the successful interrogation and exploitation of internees/detainees. This action is now in progress.
General Geoffrey Miller

I had conversations with MG Miller on a couple of occasions.... Specifically, I recall he discussed the implementation of dedicated MP support to MI.
Captain Carolyn Wood

They [MPs] would be the bad guys and MI would be the good guy to gather information.
Colonel Jerry Phillabaum

Training

October 1, 2003
The 372nd MP Company, a reserve unit, moves to Abu Ghraib. It gets two weeks on-the-job training. Nudity, sexual humiliation, stress positions, sleep deprivation, and sensory deprivation are all standard procedures when the 372nd arrives.

This is also the deadline date for centralizing and consolidating interrogation and detention at Abu Ghraib. Most other locations in Iraq are now intended as 72-hour holding sites.

October 3 or 4, 2003
3:00 or 4:00 p.m.
Military police transport a prisoner to the hard site.

One of them whispered in my ear, "today I am going to fuck you", and he said this in Arabic. Whoever was with me experienced the same thing. That's what the American soldiers did.... When they took me to the cell, the translator Abu Hamid came with an American soldier and his rank was sergeant (I believe). And he called told me "faggot" because I was wearing the woman's underwear, and my answer was "no". Then he told me "why are you wearing this underwear", then I told them "because you make me wear it."
Kasim Hilas (#151108)

October 5
Three Guantanamo Tiger Teams arrive for duty at Abu Ghraib. Their task is to help set up and develop