Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Obama Appointee Sunstein Favors Infiltrating Online Groups

Posted by timothy on from the freedom-of-somethingeruther dept.

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.'"

28 of 689 comments (clear)

  1. Why fear terrorists... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why fear Middle Eastern terrorists, when there are home-grown Americans so eager to utterly destroy freedom of expression...

    1. Re:Why fear terrorists... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      If you are willing to give up your liberty for security, you will get neither liberty or security.

      No matter how secure a nation makes itself, it is still vulnerable to attack by citizens or foreign nationals. The Idea of liberty is that citizens actively participate in the security of their nation by allowing citizens the freedom to keep and bear arms. At the start The President of the United States walked around without security and among dissenters themselves wearing guns. The idea was that as an elected leader he would be protected by his fellow Americans.

      Now the roles have reversed and we are kept swine for the government to protect. It is almost more of a crime to protect yourself from a criminal than it is for them to visit hostilities upon you.

    2. Re:Why fear terrorists... by Nefarious+Wheel · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I don't know, they're blogs and chat groups. Open to all, generally. I see it as a legitimate use. It's no more subversive than any other astroturfer would be, and such postings are pretty easy to recognise. Now, if they actually blocked content or filtered it in any way (you listening, Conroy?) then that would be truly evil.

      --
      Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
    3. Re:Why fear terrorists... by BobMcD · · Score: 4, Insightful

      So the government is joining conspiracy theory groups, posing as ordinary citizens, winning their trust, and then debunking their theories. This is bad, the end.

      FTFY

      Just because other bad events exist you wish to excuse this behavior away?

    4. Re:Why fear terrorists... by Chris+Burke · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yeah well I fucking hate "astroturfers" and marketeers disguising themselves as customers in forums, and having the government do it is ten times worse.

      Sure it's not nearly as evil as actually shutting down or censoring the content on forums, but that doesn't mean I like it.

      I mean, as an academic paper about conspiracy theories and how they could be defused, it doesn't sound that terrible*. As a government policy? It's shitty, and I don't like it. If the government wants to make more information/propaganda available officially, that's fine with me. Hiding the source of information presented to the people is not how our government should work. Fuck that.

      * The observation from the paper that a conspiracy theorist would not believe someone who is coming from an organization involved in the conspiracy is obviously true. And it's also true I think that conspiracy theories can come from having insufficient information (rather than simple craziness). I thought there was some sense behind some of the 9/11 conspiracies... until I talked to a civil engineer who explained to me what would happen when the steel in a skyscraper was merely heated enough to weaken.

      --

      The enemies of Democracy are
    5. Re:Why fear terrorists... by BobMcD · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If only that is what they are proposing to do, that would be fine. Let the arguments stand on their own merit, and let people decide without coercion. Particularly without using any government agents to influence the conversation through infiltration.

    6. Re:Why fear terrorists... by tsm_sf · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That should be pretty obvious, since treason now means "something I don't like."

      --
      Literalism isn't a form of humor, it's you being irritating.
    7. Re:Why fear terrorists... by Chyeld · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Realism is calling, it wants you to acknowledge that most paranoid delusionists aren't going to decide arguments on their merits but on how closely the argument feeds their own paranoia.

      This is a good idea/bad idea moment.

      Good idea: Infiltrating said groups and using facts to undermine and destroy the leadership's control over the group by disproving their theories.

      Bad idea: Infiltrating said groups and using lies and manipulation to undermine and destroy the leadership's control over the group by pretending to disprove their theories and by smearing their reputation.

      The problem is, Good idea can slip into Bad idea quite easily. That's not a failure of ethics, it's a failure of judgment.

    8. Re:Why fear terrorists... by MindlessAutomata · · Score: 4, Insightful

      So we need a final arbiter of the truth... and that truth is the government.

      Yes, I'm sure there's nothing wrong with that idea.

      Face it: the very fact that there is no source of indisputable truths, no objective source of morality, and no guidebook on how to live life means that people are ultimately left to their own devices to determine who is right and wrong, what is good and evil, so on and so forth. You can't just point to someone and say "they get to tell us what the truth is." That's religion.

      And yes, that means some people will be hopelessly wrong, and some will believe terrible things. Deal with it.

    9. Re:Why fear terrorists... by Peter+La+Casse · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The Fairness Doctrine is appropriate for the public airwaves, a shared resource,

      No. The Fairness Doctrine is a tool for the government to suppress political views it does not agree with. That's how it was used, and that's why people want to bring it back.

    10. Re:Why fear terrorists... by PopeRatzo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I mean, as an academic paper about conspiracy theories and how they could be defused, it doesn't sound that terrible

      Well, an academic paper is exactly what it was.

      Sunstein was a private citizen when he wrote it, and he has never advocated any of these things as public policy since becoming part of the administration.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    11. Re:Why fear terrorists... by DigiShaman · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Oh man! Cut to the chase shall we? The Fairness Doctrine is aimed squarely at Rush Limbaugh. The Democrat party has a major hard-on for getting rid of him. Had it been any other time or country, the military would have assassinated him AND his family long ago. He pisses them off that badly!!!

      So what do Rush Limbaugh and Micheal Moore have in common? They both exercise the 1st Amendment to its fullest. Very brave of them!

      --
      Life is not for the lazy.
    12. Re:Why fear terrorists... by Chyeld · · Score: 4, Insightful

      So what do Rush Limbaugh and Micheal Moore have in common? They both exercise the 1st Amendment to its fullest

      and apparently only the 1st Admendment, as both have the brain and body of a sea slug.

    13. Re:Why fear terrorists... by kindbud · · Score: 4, Insightful

      He proposed not just blocking content, but actually banning certain content.

      No, he didn't.

      In particular, he proposed banning "conspiracy theories".

      No, he didn't. What has happened here, is that you've been Punk'd by WorldNetDaily. Yep. You might wish it was Ashton Kutcher instead. I am not sure which should be more embarrassing.

      --
      Edith Keeler Must Die
    14. Re:Why fear terrorists... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      But how do we know you're not some Obama/Sunstein shill trying to debunk these conspiracy theories just like TFA said?

    15. Re:Why fear terrorists... by Curunir_wolf · · Score: 4, Insightful

      MOD PARENT UP!

      Very insightful. I used to be very critical of Charlotte Iserbyt (author of "The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America"), because I thought her title and viewpoint were overly inflammatory, that, yes, there was too much incompetence and bad ideas in the educational system and our outcomes were falling behind those of other countries. But I've changed my mind lately. I'm convinced that it is deliberate. So my apologies for statements I made about Charlotte Iserbyt in the past.

      The thing about the "conspiracy nuts" is that their ideas would never get so much traction if 100% of what they say is false. There is an absence of clear and credible answers, too many inconsistencies in the official stories, and not enough real information. So all kinds of crazy ideas spring out of that.

      The problem with Sunstein's plan is that he wants to create infiltrators that parrot the official story, not just to shut down the crazy theories, but to get rid of the questions. And questioning government is vital to a democracy. When government has control of every side of the message, then, yes, all conspiracy theories go away, but so do any questions about what they are doing. And that's bad.

      --
      "Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
      --- Jerry Garcia
  2. What do you expect... by Kazoo+the+Clown · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What do you expect from the party of Barbara Streisand, than to institutionalize the "Streisand Effect"?

    1. Re:What do you expect... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      As an outsider who used to be a liberal, I find conservatives' fixation on Barbara Streisand to be utterly bizarre. When I was a liberal, the only times I ever thought about Barbara Streisand were when conservative wackadoos got enraged over things she said or did -- and that was just long enough to think "Barbara Streisand? Huh? Who gives a shit?" The other liberals I knew had more or less the same reaction.

        Now that I've moved to a position outside that of the R vs. D "Go team!" demographics, I think I grasp the foundation of the problem: modern conservative politics, lacking much in the way of coherent principles since Goldwater went down, has to appeal to emotion. Consequently, the conservative hate machine is born, and every two minutes, there has to be a new Two Minutes Hate, and a constant cycling of new targets for hatred. Otherwise conservatives might stop being angry for a moment and start thinking for themselves. This would be as dangerous for Republican politicians as if the Democratic base really sat down and thought about what they actually want and whether their politicians ever showed any inclination of giving it to them. (No, being the answer to that. The Democratic party is a self-contained, self-interested machine at this point.)

        Then again, I guess that "Streisand Effect" is also easier for conservatives to stomach than "Nixon Effect", the real modern archetype of an individual who made things worse by trying to hush everything up.

        - mantar

  3. GENIUS! by Monkeedude1212 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What better way to prove that there isn't a conspiracy
    THAN TO TRY AND STOP PEOPLE FROM SPREADING IT.

    This would have been a good article to write one of my 5 or 6 paragraph conspiracy theories that I whip up out of thin air, but I already did one of those today, and my brain hurts.

  4. Re:Responsible dissent. by Hatta · · Score: 4, Insightful

    However, there ARE people out there who practice irresponsible dissent, and their sole purpose is to disrupt the lives of everyone in order to make a point which most find irrational. I am all for these people getting shut down, so long as those who are responsible and do not infringe on the liberty of others are left in peace.

    The question is, who gets to decide which is which? It would be very easy for a government engaged in an unjust war to label peace protesters as "irresponsible dissenters" and have them shut up.

    --
    Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
  5. Re:Responsible dissent. by ArsonSmith · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I agree, it's OK for the government to shut down people I disagree with as long as they leave the people I agree with alone.

    --
    Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
  6. Brilliant! by straponego · · Score: 4, Insightful

    By floating this, he's ensured that participants in these groups, who by definition are more suspicious than most, will now be paranoid that their peers are government infiltrators. They'll be less open with each other, and may quit altogether. And the Man doesn't even have to follow through to have this effect-- it's totally free! Well played, fascist.

    Of course, social interaction may be the last thing holding some of the target audience from going lone gunman, but you can't make an omelette without killing a few people. At least, I can't. And the more incidents we have, the more funding the security apparatus gets. There is no downside!

    Wait... should I post this? ...ah, I trust you guys.

  7. Not a good source by OverlordQ · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'd probably consider myself right of center, but I also don't think World Net Daily is a very unbiased source.

    --
    Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
  8. One simple question: by BorgAssimilator · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why is our tax money being used for this?

    I mean, I don't care about people who think the moon landing is fake. Let them spend their time thinking that. It doesn't hurt me. What does hurt me is _my_ hard earned money being used for a useless cause.

    It even states in TFA that "some conspiracy theories, under [their] definition, have turned out to be true." So why spend time and energy arguing potentially the wrong side?

    --
    "Intelligence has nothing to do with politics!"
    -Londo Mollari
  9. GWB by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Remember when the left-wingers merely suspected GWB of thinking about possibly doing something similar and how apeshit crazy they went over that slim possibility?

    Where are those people now?

    Now that someone is actually proposing these CHILLING suggestions, because they are against "right wing nutjobs" it is okay?

    Hypocrites. It wasn't right then, it isn't right now. It doesn't matter what you "agree" with; that which needs protection is that which you DON'T agree with.

    Obama Administrator is no friend of Liberty, and he is making GWB look angelic at this point. Don't get me wrong, the Republicans aren't any better, and I'm not defending them either.

    --
    Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
    1. Re:GWB by nomadic · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Remember when the left-wingers merely suspected GWB of thinking about possibly doing something similar and how apeshit crazy they went over that slim possibility? Where are those people now?

      Right where they usually are? Obama has been attacked plenty of times by the left, throughout his entire presidency. How on earth can you honestly pretend otherwise.

    2. Re:GWB by Nimey · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Obama has been attacked plenty of times by the left, throughout his entire presidency. How on earth can you honestly pretend otherwise.

      Confirmation bias.

      --
      Hail Eris, full of mischief...

      E pluribus sanguinem
    3. Re:GWB by PopeRatzo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It was a dumb thing then, it's a dumb thing now, and I hope Sunstein gets crucified for even suggesting that.

      Neutron, did you actually read Sunstein's paper, or only the World Net Daily story?

      Seriously, friend, go to the source on this one.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.