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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.'"
Let me know when that actually happens, rather than "hope". And exactly what would you accept as "being crucified" analog?
I will be surprised if anything is made of this other than the "ooops, I got caught" apology, and maybe a slap on the wrist. Nothing would make me happier than if I had to eat some crow.
He should be FIRED. He is not qualified to be in that position if that is how he thinks.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
If you read what Sunstein writes, you'll see that he wrote that paper as a legal scholar, not a public official, and he's presenting the dilemma of how best to react to concerted efforts by extremist groups to undermine society and government. He doesn't say that websites should be "infiltrated". I'd like to see anywhere that Cass Sunstein suggested that any website should be "banned", either. He only discusses the "Fairness Doctrine" in the context of public airwaves carrying stations owned by a very small number of corporate entities, severely limiting the diversity of opinions that can be heard on the air.
Nowhere does he actually advocate anything but, as you have said, fighting "bad" speech with more speech.
Sunstein is a real civil libertarian and great believer in a free society. I really hope he ends up on the Supreme Court.
Glenn Beck did this kind of smear on Van Jones, who's an exceptional man who has made a huge improvement in poor areas of California, spreading a message that "cleaning up an environment" isn't just something for rich white folks, and that by paying attention to the environment, at the most local and basic levels, can be socially and economically advantageous even for the poor. He got run out of the administration because he said that "Republicans are assholes" which is demonstrably true. But the free speech of this private citizen wasn't as important to Glenn Beck than being able to hang the pelt of a (black) liberal on his wall so he did this kind of smear on Jones on a nightly basis until he had to resign rather than keep the spotlight on himself.
Fox News has a long "enemies list" of people it believes should be forced to resign from public life. This is how they work.
You are welcome on my lawn.