Obama Appointee Sunstein Favors Infiltrating Online Groups

megamerican writes "President Barack Obama's appointee to head the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs advocated in a recent paper the 'cognitive infiltration' of groups that advocate 'conspiracy theories' like the ones surrounding 9/11 via 'chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups and attempt to undermine' those groups. Sunstein admits that 'some conspiracy theories, under our definition, have turned out to be true' Sunstein has also recently advocated banning websites which post 'right-wing rumors' and bringing back the Fairness Doctrine. You can find a PDF of his paper here. For decades (1956-1971), the FBI under COINTELPRO focused on disrupting, marginalizing and neutralizing political dissidents, most notably the Black Panthers. More recently CENTCOM announced it would be engaging bloggers 'who are posting inaccurate or untrue information, as well as bloggers who are posting incomplete information.' In January 2009 the USAF released a flow-chart for 'counter-bloggers' to 'counter the people out there in the blogosphere who have negative opinions about the US government and the Air Force.'"

Comments

Wow, you can't get better sources than WND?

[Rei]

Why not link in HuffingtonPost, FreeRepublic, and MichaelMoore.com while you're at it. ;)

For those who care about the actual paper rather than the right-wing spin of it:

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Abstract:
Many millions of people hold conspiracy theories; they believe that powerful people have worked together in order to withhold the truth about some important practice or some terrible event. A recent example is the belief, widespread in some parts of the world, that the attacks of 9/11 were carried out not by Al Qaeda, but by Israel or the United States. Those who subscribe to conspiracy theories may create serious risks, including risks of violence, and the existence of such theories raises significant challenges for policy and law. The first challenge is to understand the mechanisms by which conspiracy theories prosper; the second challenge is to understand how such theories might be undermined. Such theories typically spread as a result of identifiable cognitive blunders, operating in conjunction with informational and reputational influences. A distinctive feature of conspiracy theories is their self-sealing quality. Conspiracy theorists are not likely to be persuaded by an attempt to dispel their theories; they may even characterize that very attempt as further proof of the conspiracy. Because those who hold conspiracy theories typically suffer from a crippled epistemology, in accordance with which it is rational to hold such theories, the best response consists in cognitive infiltration of extremist groups. Various policy dilemmas, such as the question whether it is better for government to rebut conspiracy theories or to ignore them, are explored in this light.
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Note how the Slashdot header linked to COINTELPRO, to imply that that's what's being talked about? Even in the *scenario* where infiltration is discussed, the paper explicitly states, "By this we do not mean 1960s-style infiltration with a view to surveillance and collecting information, possibly for use in future prosecutions." The paper is about how (or whether to) dispel conspiracy theories to prevent them from spreading, not to prosecute the individuals who promote them. Cognitive infiltration is discussed (again, in purely theoretical terms) in not just a covert manner, but also an overt manner. A lot (although not all) of the paper also is about overseas actions against muslim radical organizations, too, giving examples of tactics we're already employing to dispel conspiracy theories that help fuel terrorist organizations. Anyone who doesn't realize that our government actively employs propaganda even against non-conspiracy-theories isn't paying attention.

Now, all of that said, Sunstein does come across in the end as as supporting debunking conspiracy theories which can "create or fuel violence" by "rebutting more rather than fewer theories, by enlisting independent groups to supply rebuttals, and by cogitive infiltration designed to break up the crippled epistemology of conspiracy-minded groups and informationally isolated social networks." Which form of cognitive infiltration discussed -- covert or overt -- is not mentioned, nor is whether this is a reference to domestic, international, or both kinds of conspiracy theories.

I disagree, but it's not as radical of a paper as it's being made out to be.

Re:Responsible dissent.

[krou]

In the words of Noam Chomsky: "Goebbels was in favour of free speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you're really in favor of free speech, then you're in favour of freedom of speech for precisely for views you despise. Otherwise, you're not in favour of free speech."

Re:Why fear terrorists...

[PopeRatzo]

Is that what these reports say?

Spun, you hit the nail on the head.

I am well acquainted with Professor Sunstein and his writings, and the above "summary" is a smear job and some extreme misdirection.

It starts with a link to an article on World Net Daily, which is the paper which published "research" stating that eating soybeans would make you gay. They are a well-known fringe "news" outlet that on any given day will have stories about the "murders" that Barack Obama "committed" when he lived in Chicago and "shocking interviews" with Chicago drug dealers and pedophiles who claim they sold crack to Obama and had gay sex with him. Oh, and of course, they have lots of stories about the "fact" of Obama's Kenyan birth. How a submission with a link to WND got past the slashdot editors is beyond me.

Then, and here's the misdirection part, it immediately links to unrelated articles about COINTELPRO and the US Air Force's plan to start blogs.

There's one bit of truth in this article, though, and that's a link to an abstract of a paper that Professor Sunstein wrote 2 years ago this week. If you're willing to drill down and actually read the paper itself, you'll find nothing that suggests anything like COINTELPRO or "destroying freedom of expression" as the Anonymous Coward GP suggests.

Seriously, this article is some serious baloney and if you care at all about the truth, I ask that you dig a little bit and see for yourself if this smear attempt of a brilliant and decent constitutional scholar should be allowed to stand unchallenged.

This kind of stuff went on back in Tailgunner Joe McCarthy's day and a lot of people's lives and careers were destroyed by right-wing jackoffs playing these games of lies, misdirection and guilt by association. I guess every half a century or so decent people have to smack this kind of smear-mongering down and chase these trolls like "megamerican" back into the sewers of history.

Take a minute and look into Cass Sunstein yourselves, and watch out for this kind of drive-by bullshit.