Online Propaganda - Invisible Tool of Secret Government

[Octafish]

How Covert Agents Infiltrate the Internet to Manipulate, Deceive, and Destroy Reputations

By Glenn Greenwald
The Intercept, 24 Feb 2014

One of the many pressing stories that remains to be told from the Snowden archive is how western intelligence agencies are attempting to manipulate and control online discourse with extreme tactics of deception and reputation-destruction. It’s time to tell a chunk of that story, complete with the relevant documents.

Over the last several weeks, I worked with NBC News to publish a series of articles about “dirty trick” tactics used by GCHQ’s previously secret unit, JTRIG (Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group). These were based on four classified GCHQ documents presented to the NSA and the other three partners in the English-speaking “Five Eyes” alliance. Today, we at the Intercept are publishing another new JTRIG document, in full, entitled “The Art of Deception: Training for Online Covert Operations.”

SNIP...

Among the core self-identified purposes of JTRIG are two tactics: (1) to inject all sorts of false material onto the internet in order to destroy the reputation of its targets; and (2) to use social sciences and other techniques to manipulate online discourse and activism to generate outcomes it considers desirable. To see how extremist these programs are, just consider the tactics they boast of using to achieve those ends: “false flag operations” (posting material to the internet and falsely attributing it to someone else), fake victim blog posts (pretending to be a victim of the individual whose reputation they want to destroy), and posting “negative information” on various forums. Here is one illustrative list of tactics from the latest GCHQ document we’re publishing today:



SNIP...

No matter your views on Anonymous, “hacktivists” or garden-variety criminals, it is not difficult to see how dangerous it is to have secret government agencies being able to target any individuals they want – who have never been charged with, let alone convicted of, any crimes – with these sorts of online, deception-based tactics of reputation destruction and disruption. There is a strong argument to make, as Jay Leiderman demonstrated in the Guardian in the context of the Paypal 14 hacktivist persecution, that the “denial of service” tactics used by hacktivists result in (at most) trivial damage (far less than the cyber-warfare tactics favored by the US and UK) and are far more akin to the type of political protest protected by the First Amendment.

CONTINUED w/links, sources, details...

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipulation/

[woo me with science]

1. The existence of the online propaganda machine,

secret, unaccountable, targeted at Americans, undoubtedly funded by our tax dollars, is to me the most intimate sign of how sick, corrupt, and authoritarian this government has become.

What is happening in messaging from our own government is unconscionable, malignant, and creepy as hell. We've experienced massive betrayals by our government in recent years, but these sorts of revelations....mass spying; smear and disinformation; constant, orchestrated campaigns of manipulation aimed at citizens...

The relationship of the people to the US government has been fundamentally changed, and in a profound way. Perhaps we have not lived in a free country for some time now, but they have destroyed any remaining illusion of our real relationship to this government most of us were taught to believe was our own.

These are the tactics of a totalitarian state manipulating and exploiting its own people, not something any of us should have to associate with the United States of America.

[truebrit71]

4. It is staggering to behold as the populace seems blithley unaware...

..as they march themselves into serfdom..

[Octafish]

8. Un-American, Creepy as Hell, and Legal.

And we pay for it, too; so there is that.

U.S. Repeals Propaganda Ban, Spreads Government-Made News to Americans

BY JOHN HUDSON
Foreign Policy, JULY 14, 2013 - 03:06

For decades, a so-called anti-propaganda law prevented the U.S. government's mammoth broadcasting arm from delivering programming to American audiences. But on July 2, that came silently to an end with the implementation of a new reform passed in January. The result: an unleashing of thousands of hours per week of government-funded radio and TV programs for domestic U.S. consumption in a reform initially criticized as a green light for U.S. domestic propaganda efforts. So what just happened?

Until this month, a vast ocean of U.S. programming produced by the Broadcasting Board of Governors such as Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks could only be viewed or listened to at broadcast quality in foreign countries. The programming varies in tone and quality, but its breadth is vast: It's viewed in more than 100 countries in 61 languages. The topics covered include human rights abuses in Iran, self-immolation in Tibet, human trafficking across Asia, and on-the-ground reporting in Egypt and Iraq.

The restriction of these broadcasts was due to the Smith-Mundt Act, a long-standing piece of legislation that has been amended numerous times over the years, perhaps most consequentially by Arkansas Senator J. William Fulbright. In the 1970s, Fulbright was no friend of VOA and Radio Free Europe, and moved to restrict them from domestic distribution, saying they "should be given the opportunity to take their rightful place in the graveyard of Cold War relics." Fulbright's amendment to Smith-Mundt was bolstered in 1985 by Nebraska Senator Edward Zorinsky, who argued that such "propaganda" should be kept out of America as to distinguish the U.S. "from the Soviet Union where domestic propaganda is a principal government activity."

Zorinsky and Fulbright sold their amendments on sensible rhetoric: American taxpayers shouldn't be funding propaganda for American audiences. So did Congress just tear down the American public's last defense against domestic propaganda?
BBG spokeswoman Lynne Weil insists BBG is not a propaganda outlet, and its flagship services such as VOA "present fair and accurate news."

SNIP...

This partially explains the push to allow BBG broadcasts on local radio stations in the United States. The agency wants to reach diaspora communities, such as St. Paul, Minnesota's significant Somali expat community. "Those people can get al-Shabab, they can get Russia Today, but they couldn't get access to their taxpayer-funded news sources like VOA Somalia," the source said. "It was silly."

CONTINUED w links n sources...

http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/07/12/us_backs_off_propaganda_ban_spreads_government_made_news_to_americans

No static at all. No irony, neither. And please don't ask about the hypocrisy.

[ucrdem]

62. Yes, it is Un-American. GCHQ and JTRIG are British intel divisions. This is not an NSA program. nt

[Marr]

104. Yes, I'm sure it was presented in-depth to the NSA because they had no interest in it.

I'm sure British intelligence groups offer all sorts of reports to the NSA, completely unsolicited, just sort of yard-sale style. And it's not like they have any history of working closely together. It's only been a few decades.

You know, at a certain point, the denials really start to look ridiculous.

[2banon]

85. Octafish.. is there a way to access the article without setting up an account?

I just want to know more information on the actual Bill that enabled the anti-propaganda law to be repealed. anyway, if you can post a bit on that aspect, if you have it in front of you... tia.

[Octafish]

88. Sorry! I don't believe it did that when I first found it...

...The Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012, which passed as part of the 2013 National Defense Authorization Act seems to have legalized Operation MOCKINGBIRD. Here's a little more of the story:

US Repeals Propaganda Ban, Spreads Government-Made News to Americans

by John Hudson
Foreign Policy, July 14, 2013

EXCERPT...

"They don't shy away from stories that don't shed the best light on the United States," she told The Cable. She pointed to the charters of VOA and RFE: "Our journalists provide what many people cannot get locally: uncensored news, responsible discussion, and open debate."

A former U.S. government source with knowledge of the BBG says the organization is no Pravda, but it does advance U.S. interests in more subtle ways. In Somalia, for instance, VOA serves as counterprogramming to outlets peddling anti-American or jihadist sentiment. "Somalis have three options for news," the source said, "word of mouth, al-Shabab, or VOA Somalia."
This partially explains the push to allow BBG broadcasts on local radio stations in the United States. The agency wants to reach diaspora communities, such as St. Paul, Minnesota's significant Somali expat community. "Those people can get al-Shabab, they can get Russia Today, but they couldn't get access to their taxpayer-funded news sources like VOA Somalia," the source said. "It was silly."

Lynne added that the reform has a transparency benefit as well. "Now Americans will be able to know more about what they are paying for with their tax dollars -- greater transparency is a win-win for all involved," she said. And so with that we have the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012, which passed as part of the 2013 National Defense Authorization Act, and went into effect this month.

But if anyone needed a reminder of the dangers of domestic propaganda efforts, the past 12 months provided ample reasons. Last year, two USA Today journalists were ensnared in a propaganda campaign after reporting about millions of dollars in back taxes owed by the Pentagon's top propaganda contractor in Afghanistan. Eventually, one of the co-owners of the firm confessed to creating phony websites and Twitter accounts to smear the journalists anonymously. Additionally, just this month, the Washington Post exposed a counter-propaganda program by the Pentagon that recommended posting comments on a U.S. website run by a Somali expat with readers opposing al-Shabab. "Today, the military is more focused on manipulating news and commentary on the Internet, especially social media, by posting material and images without necessarily claiming ownership," reported the Post.

But for BBG officials, the references to Pentagon propaganda efforts are nauseating, particularly because the Smith-Mundt Act never had anything to do with regulating the Pentagon, a fact that was misunderstood in media reports in the run-up to the passage of new Smith-Mundt reforms in January.

[font color="red"]One example included a report by the late BuzzFeed reporter Michael Hastings, who suggested that the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act would open the door to Pentagon propaganda of U.S. audiences. In fact, as amended in 1987, the act only covers portions of the State Department engaged in public diplomacy abroad (i.e. the public diplomacy section of the "R" bureau, and the Broadcasting Board of Governors.)[/font color]

CONTINUED...

http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/07/12/us_backs_off_propaganda_ban_spreads_government_made_news_to_americans

Here's another source with the complete article:

http://www.alipac.us/f12/u-s-repeals-propaganda-ban-spreads-government-made-news-americans-283470/

[2banon]

97. Thanks for bringing this to our attention Octafish..

Ok.. so the propaganda policies are tucked in between the sheets of the beomuth defense bills - purposely written in a way too voluminous and dense manner for the public to decyfer and debate vis a vis investigative journalists prior to it's passing, practically impossible to repeal after passage.

so with that we have the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012, which passed as part of the 2013 National Defense Authorization Act, and went into effect this month.

Btw, Back in the mid to late 70's Carl Bernstein wrote a piece published in Rolling Stone exposing the CIA infiltrating U.S. News agencies to promulgate propaganda formally relegated to VOA. This was before the advent of Cable News, before CNN was created and launched. This of course was given virtually no mention or attention in mainstream news publications/broadcasts.


I think we see how this has manifested on this site, Snowden/NSA/Crimea etc.

Last year, two USA Today journalists were ensnared in a propaganda campaign after reporting about millions of dollars in back taxes owed by the Pentagon's top propaganda contractor in Afghanistan. Eventually, one of the co-owners of the firm confessed to creating phony websites and Twitter accounts to smear the journalists anonymously. Additionally, just this month, the Washington Post exposed a counter-propaganda program by the Pentagon that recommended posting comments on a U.S. website run by a Somali expat with readers opposing al-Shabab. "Today, the military is more focused on manipulating news and commentary on the Internet, especially social media, by posting material and images without necessarily claiming ownership," reported the Post.

Kudos to the writer crediting Michael Hastings.

Michael Hastings was certainly made the ultimate example of DoD retaliation targeting journalists who dare expose corruption and wrong doing, regardless of citizenship.

[Autumn]

2. Experts on everything.

Rec, of course this will probably be locked.

[Octafish]

12. Amazing what the US Taxpayer gets for his and her money.

From the OP:

Under the title “Online Covert Action”, the document details a variety of means to engage in “influence and info ops” as well as “disruption and computer net attack,” while dissecting how human beings can be manipulated using “leaders,” “trust,” “obedience” and “compliance”:



Thanks for grokking the situation, Autumn. One thing that's illegal, apart from the whole propaganda-spying-secret police state-for-Empire thing being un-Constitutional, is the fact unknown figures in government hide not only the source of the message and who's responsible for the messaging, they also hide from public review who benefits and who profits from people taking it in. All the censors on the Internet can't hide that Truth.

[woo me with science]

15. As seen daily on DU.

Great posts, as usual, Octafish.

Thank you for this OP. It should be pinned to the top of every board.

[gopiscrap]

119. welcome to DU

[aikoaiko]

120. And the jury results are in....

Welcome to DU (:hi SMTW. Because you're brand new, I thought I'd explain the alert below. Some people on DU are very sensitive to newcomers whom they think might be trolls. Some of them fancy themselves "troll hunters." The jury rejected the alert on you 5- 1. Good luck and welcome to DU.

AUTOMATED MESSAGE: Results of your Jury Service
Mail Message
On Mon Mar 24, 2014, 10:26 AM an alert was sent on the following post:

Many people don't realize how prevalent this is.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=4718191

REASON FOR ALERT

This post is disruptive, hurtful, rude, insensitive, over-the-top, or otherwise inappropriate.

ALERTER'S COMMENTS

Troll. Arrives today to tell us in his/her first post to watch out for trolls, specifically the spooky invisible tools infesting DU. Please hide, MIRT, thank you.

You served on a randomly-selected Jury of DU members which reviewed this post. The review was completed at Mon Mar 24, 2014, 10:29 AM, and the Jury voted 1-5 to LEAVE IT.

Juror #1 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: I don't see anything wrong with it, the poster is agreeing with the discussion.
Juror #2 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: No explanation given
Juror #3 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: To the alerter: be more friendly.
Juror #4 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: No explanation given
Juror #5 voted to HIDE IT
Explanation: Bye library girl.
Juror #6 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: This could be another LG incarnation for all I know, but I don't see how this post transgresses community standards.

Thank you very much for participating in our Jury system, and we hope you will be able to participate again in the future.

[arcane1]

125. That one tried to be sneaky.

They usually aren't that clever

[aikoaiko]

127. Are you on MIRT? Can you tell me what happened?

[arcane1]

128. Alas, I'm not on MIRT. I wish I couldv'e seen the post that got them PPRed

I may have to do a tour of duty in MIRT sometime though. I bet it's fascinating!

[Junkdrawer]

123. Monopoly on Science (tm)

I'd post my background, but I've always found that breaking anonymity online is a BAD idea.

Let's just say that I find their lectures on the Scientific Method...interesting...

[snagglepuss]

3. to read later

[Octafish]

13. Imagine if they combined high tech with craft learned in the pre-digital age?

They'd be scary, if you're a democracy or a republic or anybody in We the People.

For instance, leaking to a journalist and getting hounded into the Ecuadoran embassy for mentioning the corrupt nature of secret government, means, obviosly ENEMY OF THE STATE. So, we -- including all too often on DU -- don't get to read what Julian Assange found:

Wikileaks Release Suggests Stratfor Inside Info Plan with Goldman Sachs Exec

By Ryan Villarreal: Subscribe to Ryan's RSS feed
IBTimes.com
February 27, 2012 6:26 PM EST

WikiLeaks released more than 5 million e-mails Monday hacked from U.S.-based global intelligence firm Strategy Forecasting Inc. (Stratfor), revealing an alleged plan between the firm's CEO and a Goldman Sachs executive to set up an investment fund that would rely on inside information gathered by the company.

A September 2011 company-wide e-mail composed by Stratfor CEO George Friedman indicates that Goldman Sachs financial adviser and former Managing Director Shea Morenz was directly involved in the establishment of the investment fund StratCap.

"Shea Morenz provided us with two opportunities," wrote Friedman.

"First, he made an investment in Stratfor designed to give us the capital needed to build our staff and our marketing. Second, he proposed a new venture, StratCap, which would allow us to utilize the intelligence we were gathering about the world in a new but related venue -- an investment fund. Where we had previously advised other hedge funds. We would now have our own, itself fully funded by Shea."

CONTINUED...

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/305532/20120227/wikileaks-stratfor-stratcap-goldman-sachs-fund-julian.htm

Of course, on occasion, stories like this get missed. When their source is attacked and his or her character assassinated for telling the truth, there's a problem.

Thanks for reading, snagglepuss! And thanks for standing up to Them.

[Aerows]

21. This is something that never should have been missed

It is telling that everything rolled down on Assange's head when this was released. Thanks for continuing to reveal the truth Octafish.

[Octafish]

94. You are most welcome, Aerows!

Some of what Assange told SXSW:

Julian Assange tells SXSW audience: ‘NSA has grown to be a rogue agency’

• Wikileaks founder: ‘All of us have to do something’
• Interview conducted from Ecuador’s London embassy
• Snowden and Greenwald also set to appear at SXSW

Stuart Dredge in Austin, Texas
theguardian.com, Saturday 8 March 2014 14.03 EST

EXCERPT...

“It became clear to me that one of the best ways to achieve justice is to expose injustice. And you can be simplistic about it, which some people are. It’s not that when you expose something automatically there is justice,” he said. Instead, he said: “There’s always a really decent chance that they’re not going to get away with it, and the people affected can take some kind of action. And there’s no confidence in the power being deployed. No confidence in the injustice.”

Assange was asked about whether, thanks to the NSA revelations, the web was under threat. He pointed to comments made this week by a US military figure about a bill being put to Congress to try to “stop publication of material about the National Security Agency”, backed by new cyberterrorism legislation.

“There is a really serious attempt to try and stop these revelations and others, and introduce a new international regime of censorship,” he said, pointing to the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement as a particular threat.

“Now that the internet has merged with human society … the laws that apply to the internet apply to human society. This penetration of the internet by the NSA and [British spy agency] GCHQ is the penetration of our human society. It means there has been a militarisation of our civilian space. A military occupation of our civilian space … is a very serious matter.”

Assange attacked what he sees as the powerlessness of even the most theoretically powerful politicians, and asked what would happen if President Barack Obama said tomorrow he was immediately disbanding the NSA, or even the CIA. “On paper he has that power, but we all know that this is simply impossible,” he said. “People would come up with lots of dirt attacking him in some manner … the National Security Agency has dirt on everyone.

CONTINUED...

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/mar/08/julian-assange-wikileaks-nsa-sxsw

PS: Your words mean the world to me, as you are one of the kind people on DU.

[woo me with science]

5. The manipulation is pervasive and transparent

to anyone who observes for a little while.

It makes me ashamed of and very angry at my government.

And to those who gain a paycheck by participating: This is a base, low line of work, incompatible with human conscience and decency.

[Octafish]

14. Bamford spelled out the situation. Two weeks later, the Pentagon dropped the I-Bomb.

The Secret War

INFILTRATION. SABOTAGE. MAYHEM. FOR YEARS, FOUR-STAR GENERAL KEITH ALEXANDER HAS BEEN BUILDING A SECRET ARMY CAPABLE OF LAUNCHING DEVASTATING CYBERATTACKS. NOW IT’S READY TO UNLEASH HELL.

by James Bamford
Wired, June 12, 2013

EXCERPT...

This is the undisputed domain of General Keith Alexander, a man few even in Washington would likely recognize. Never before has anyone in America’s intelligence sphere come close to his degree of power, the number of people under his command, the expanse of his rule, the length of his reign, or the depth of his secrecy. A four-star Army general, his authority extends across three domains: He is director of the world’s largest intelligence service, the National Security Agency; chief of the Central Security Service; and commander of the US Cyber Command. As such, he has his own secret military, presiding over the Navy’s 10th Fleet, the 24th Air Force, and the Second Army.

SNIP...

What’s good for Alexander is good for the fortunes of the cyber-industrial complex, a burgeoning sector made up of many of the same defense contractors who grew rich supplying the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. With those conflicts now mostly in the rearview mirror, they are looking to Alexander as a kind of savior. After all, the US spends about $30 billion annually on cybersecurity goods and services.

In the past few years, the contractors have embarked on their own cyber building binge parallel to the construction boom at Fort Meade: General Dynamics opened a 28,000-square-foot facility near the NSA; SAIC cut the ribbon on its new seven-story Cyber Innovation Center; the giant CSC unveiled its Virtual Cyber Security Center. And at consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton, where former NSA director Mike McConnell was hired to lead the cyber effort, the company announced a “cyber-solutions network” that linked together nine cyber-focused facilities. Not to be outdone, Boeing built a new Cyber Engagement Center. Leaving nothing to chance, it also hired retired Army major general Barbara Fast, an old friend of Alexander’s, to run the operation. (She has since moved on.)

Defense contractors have been eager to prove that they understand Alexander’s worldview. “Our Raytheon cyberwarriors play offense and defense,” says one help-wanted site. Consulting and engineering firms such as Invertix and Parsons are among dozens posting online want ads for “computer network exploitation specialists.” And many other companies, some unidentified, are seeking computer and network attackers. “Firm is seeking computer network attack specialists for long-term government contract in King George County, VA,” one recent ad read. Another, from Sunera, a Tampa, Florida, company, said it was hunting for “attack and penetration consultants.”

One of the most secretive of these contractors is Endgame Systems, a startup backed by VCs including Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Bessemer Venture Partners, and Paladin Capital Group. Established in Atlanta in 2008, Endgame is transparently antitransparent. “We’ve been very careful not to have a public face on our company,” former vice president John M. Farrell wrote to a business associate in an email that appeared in a WikiLeaks dump. “We don’t ever want to see our name in a press release,” added founder Christopher Rouland. True to form, the company declined Wired’s interview requests.

CONTINUED...

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/06/general-keith-alexander-cyberwar/all/

An Info-Bomb of infiltration, sabotage and mayhem targeting democracy. Disgusting, when wielded to suppress rather than to enlighten.

[2banon]

98. This deserves it's own thread!

[ucrdem]

6. Octa . . .

has it ever occurred to you that the best defense is an offense, i.e., that the Omidyar boys are in the secret government? Or that it's someone else's? Don't forget that Dulles wasn't in the US government when JFK was assassinated. In other words there are more players out there than just the USG.

[Octafish]

7. Absolutely. Gore Vidal pegged them...

They're the types who say: "Why become a Senator when you can buy one."

And while Dulles of Wall Street on the Potomac Underground wasn't cashing a paycheck, he was still receiving visitors and enjoying the respect and privileges of rank. On the day of the assassination of President Kennedy, Dulles was visiting "The Farm," where he was kept abreast of the developing situation.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=4128777

[ucrdem]

35. Okay. But what I'm getting at is this:

Things aren't always as they're made to appear. This article for example seems to expose an elaborate NSA propaganda scheme, but if you read carefully, what it actually exposes is an elaborate British scheme that has only an incidental connection to the NSA:

Over the last several weeks, I worked with NBC News to publish a series of articles about “dirty trick” tactics used by GCHQ’s previously secret unit, JTRIG (Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group). These were based on four classified GCHQ documents presented to the NSA and the other three partners in the English-speaking “Five Eyes” alliance. Today, we at the Intercept are publishing another new JTRIG document, in full, entitled “The Art of Deception: Training for Online Covert Operations.”

GCHQ and JTRIG are both British intel divisions, as you probably know, and all this article says is that the scheme was "presented" at some unspecified time and place to the NSA. I have no problem directing well-deserved outrage at UK spookery (sorry DU Brits!), and don't forget that Orwell worked as a BBC propagandist during the war and modeled 1984 after that experience, but Team Omidyar is not playing cricket by presenting this in a way that deceives the casual reader into believing they're exposing an NSA program. Which makes me wonder yet again whose game they're playing.

[Luminous Animal]

77. Oooh! I wonder too! Shifting eyes back and forth... back and forth. And don't forget there's a team!

Playing cricket! Beware casual reader because cricket will trick into believing Snowglen is a poopie head.

[ucrdem]

79. I thought you didn't like deceptive propaganda?

But now it's okay? Curious.

[Luminous Animal]

82. I'm looking at you, kid. I am looking at you.

[ucrdem]

83. I like you too. nt

[Aerows]

131. Yes, there are sure more players out there

than just the USG. And that desperately needs to be addressed. There are so many independent defense contractors out there operating without proper oversight, you can't shake a stick at them all.

But somehow, I don't get the feeling that you will like that truth being pointed out. Independent defense contractors operating in the US without oversight are all about keep us "safe and free".

Anything sinister, unethical, ignoble and harmful is done by "the other players in other countries".

I'll wait and see what your response, if any, is to this.

[Puzzledtraveller]

9. A mighty K&R

[Octafish]

10. Taht KIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIICK! 63 yards. 19-17.

Karras tries to get to Dempsey.

Then...5-0 in the playoff.

[Puzzledtraveller]

11. with a club foot!

Booyah!

[jsr]

17. Recommend

[Octafish]

27. Other tactics aimed at individuals are listed here, under the revealing title “discredit a target”:

NSA was never supposed to be used against We the People.

What the late Sen. Frank Church, D-Idaho, and a patriot, hero and statesman -- a truly great American, said:

“That capability at any time could be turned around on the American people and no American would have any privacy left, such is the capability to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn’t matter. There would be no place to hide. If this government ever became a tyranny, if a dictator ever took charge in this country, the technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back, because the most careful effort to combine together in resistance to the government, no matter how privately it was done, is within the reach of the government to know. Such is the capability of this technology.

I don’t want to see this country ever go across the bridge. I know the capability that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision, so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return.”

-- Sen. Frank Church (D-Idaho) FDR New Deal, Liberal, Progressive, World War II combat veteran. A brave man, the NSA was turned on him. Coincidentally, he narrowly lost re-election a few years later.

When talking about NSA spying, Corporate McPravda seldom mentions how Frank Church also led the last real investigation of CIA, NSA and FBI. When it came to NSA Tech circa 1975, he definitely knew what he was talking about. So, newly minted CIA director George Herbert Walker Bush would help shut down the investigation by making a case that former agents leaked the CIA station chief in Greece's name. Of course, no one brought up the point that the man's name was well known before any leaks, as detailed in in this post on DU.

And what happened to Church, for his trouble to preserve Democracy?

In 1980, Church will lose re-election to the Senate in part because of accusations of his committee’s responsibility for Welch’s death by his Republican opponent, Jim McClure.

SOURCE: http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=frank_church_1

They use every dirty trick in the book, including spying on the people they are supposed to serve and protect.

Thanks for standing up to Them and their unconstitutional secret police powers, jsr. Wish more knew what is at stake.

[jsr]

96. +1

Thanks for posting, Octafish. Keep up the good fight.

[bobduca]

18. Kick

[Octafish]

32. GCHQ describes the purpose of JTRIG in starkly clear terms:

“using online techniques to make something happen in the real or cyber world,” including “information ops (influence or disruption).”



The same NSA that unconstitutionally spies on Americans also gets to propagandize Americans.

You can't get more Orwell than that.

[Maedhros]

43. Deny/Disrupt/Degrade/Deceive

You will find examples of each of these on pretty much any thread discussing Snowden, Greenwald, Assange, Manning, drone warfare, the NSA or the CIA.

We should start labeling them as we find them.

[sabrina 1]

57. Absolutely, there are some classic examples of that here. But the good thing is we recognize them.

In the beginning no decent person could conceive that such sleazy, smarmy, sneaky, deceptive tactics were possible, at least not on such a large scale. But the uniformity of the tactics caused people to notice and then to question. And even before we ever had confirmation of it, most people who had been around for a while, just assumed they were organized. And could probably have won a bet on who they were.

[ucrdem]

59. Yes, it's hard to believe Greenwald would pass off British intel as an NSA program.

Well maybe not that hard.

[sabrina 1]

70. Thanks for mentioning Greenwald. The smear campaign against HIM is a perfect example of the OP.

And while a few people noticed it and THOUGHT he might be a target of some organized smear campaign, there was no proof until Anonymous exposed the emails of HB Gary, and wow, it was astonishing to see that not only was he a target, there is big money in targeting people who write about stuff they don't want people to know about.

The extent to which they were going to smear him was simply disgusting. And who was the bid on the contract for? A Big Bank. BOA to be precise. And clearly someone got that contract because we've been seeing the smears in action for quite a while.

What a waste of their money now that people know he is being targeted, which is why it isn't working.

[ucrdem]

72. The article in the OP appears under GG's name. nt

[sabrina 1]

73. Yes, it does. Again thanks for mentioning him. n/t

[Marr]

106. Exactly where you'd expect them to swarm, too.

Interesting, isn't it?

[Catherina]

19. DU rec n/t

[Octafish]

33. Online Covert Action

Critically, the “targets” for this deceit and reputation-destruction extend far beyond the customary roster of normal spycraft: hostile nations and their leaders, military agencies, and intelligence services. In fact, the discussion of many of these techniques occurs in the context of using them in lieu of “traditional law enforcement” against people suspected (but not charged or convicted) of ordinary crimes or, more broadly still, “hacktivism”, meaning those who use online protest activity for political ends.

The title page of one of these documents reflects the agency’s own awareness that it is “pushing the boundaries” by using “cyber offensive” techniques against people who have nothing to do with terrorism or national security threats, and indeed, centrally involves law enforcement agents who investigate ordinary crimes:



What an interesting web the police state builds to practice tradecraft and deceive or whatever the rich use to get richer and make wars forever.

"Hacktivism" is what I call "Democracy."

[Oilwellian]

20. Happy to keep this kicked to the top n/t

[Octafish]

42. Thank you, Oilwellian! Here's how this whole ball of antiterror police state wax got rolling...

From Christopher Simpson, info on how Poppy started the big ball of wax when he pried control out of the bed-ridden Ronald Reagan:

George Bush Takes Charge: The Uses of "Counter-Terrorism"

By Christopher Simpson
Covert Action Quarterly 58

A paper trail of declassified documents from the Reagan-Bush era yields valuable information on how counter-terrorism provided a powerful mechanism for solidifying Bush's power base and launching a broad range of national security initiatives.

During the Reagan years, George Bush used "crisis management" and "counter-terrorism" as vehicles for running key parts of the clandestine side of the US government.

Bush proved especially adept at plausible denial. Some measure of his skill in avoiding responsibility can be taken from the fact that even after the Iran-Contra affair blew the Reagan administration apart, Bush went on to become the "foreign policy president," while CIA Director William Casey, by then conveniently dead, took most of the blame for a number of covert foreign policy debacles that Bush had set in motion.

The trail of National Security Decision Directives (NSDDS) left by the Reagan administration begins to tell the story. True, much remains classified, and still more was never committed to paper in the first place. Even so, the main picture is clear: As vice president, George Bush was at the center of secret wars, political murders, and America's convoluted oil politics in the Middle East.

SNIP...

Reagan and the NSC also used NSDDs to settle conflicts among security agencies over bureaucratic turf and lines of command. It is through that prism that we see the first glimmers of Vice President Bush's role in clandestine operations during the 1980s.

CONTINUED...

http://goo.gl/KXsMke

Bush coming up with a way to run the show through the war on terror was 1981 or so, before the collapse of the Soviet Union. Looking back, it's clear how they have turned all the powers they once used on the USSR on the American people, making these gangster times.

[SidDithers]

22. Greenwald. LOL...nt

Sid

[Octafish]

23. SidDithers SOP. Nothing to say about the issue, so use 'LOL' to ridicule Greenwald.

Through his reporting on NSA spying and now NSA propaganda, Greenwald has done a great service for democracy in the United States and around the world.

What have you done to help democracy, SidDithers?

[Raksha]

74. LOL = Deny, as in Deny/Disrupt/Degrade/Deceive.

It's a good thing these keywords are so easy to remember. Not that the tactics aren't pretty easy to recognize anyway.

Now I suppose you'll raise the stakes with the old standby

That's even easier.

[Marr]

107. Put it in D for Deny!

[Blue_Tires]

24. FYI, this piece was already posted when it first ran...

[Luminous Animal]

25. It's worth posting again.

[Octafish]

28. You must be thinking of Latest Breaking News. That DU forum runs articles just once.

So. Anything to say about NSA propaganda?

You can re-post what you said on any other thread.

Unlike the secret police, I'll tell you I'm listening and you can see my handle and smiling face next to what I post.

[Blue_Tires]

30. I did have some thoughts and a number of questions about the piece

But if they weren't answered a month ago, they sure as hell won't be answered now...And truth be told, I'm getting tired of typing them...

For the time being all I can do is wait and see if the Intercept prints any kind of follow-up to this story...

[Octafish]

34. Oh well. I'd have given them a try.

As for what all this means:

The same NSA that spies on Americans top-to-bottom also gets to use that data on which to formulate propaganda campaigns.

If that isn't the biggest threat to democracy, I'd like to know what is.

[Blue_Tires]

37. Thanks...

I got a pretty good handle on what the writers are saying a month ago; my questions are of a wider context...

[H2O Man]

26. Very good.

Recommended. Thank you for posting this.

[Octafish]

40. 'The Mother Tongue is Propaganda' -- Marshall MacLuhan

Then there is the use of psychology and other social sciences to not only understand, but shape and control, how online activism and discourse unfolds. Today’s newly published document touts the work of GCHQ’s “Human Science Operations Cell,” devoted to “online human intelligence” and “strategic influence and disruption”:



You are most welcome, H2O Man. It's because of you and all who stand up to Them, the secret government of privilege, that We the People will win. Unless, of course, they round us all up before then.

From Chris Hedges:

The goal of wholesale surveillance, as Arendt wrote in “The Origins of Totalitarianism,” is not, in the end, to discover crimes, “but to be on hand when the government decides to arrest a certain category of the population.” And because Americans’ emails, phone conversations, Web searches and geographical movements are recorded and stored in perpetuity in government databases, there will be more than enough “evidence” to seize us should the state deem it necessary. This information waits like a deadly virus inside government vaults to be turned against us. It does not matter how trivial or innocent that information is. In totalitarian states, justice, like truth, is irrelevant.

Thanks to the technology, it's easy.

Thank Moon the Truth spreads as fast as a lie these days.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

29. The best propaganda is one that you don't even realize is propaganda!

Until you research everything and it hits you in the face that it's BS.

That's what makes it so heinous. You often don't notice.

[Octafish]

36. It takes a fish out of water.

“One thing about which fish know exactly nothing is water, since they have no anti-environment which would enable them to perceive the element they live in.” ― Marshall McLuhan, War and Peace in the Global Village



"My main theme is the extension of the nervous system in the electric age, and thus, the complete break with five thousand years of mechanical technology. This I state over and over again. I do not say whether it is a good or bad thing. To do so would be meaningless and arrogant." ― Marshall McLuhan, letter to Robert Fulford, 1964. Letters of Marshall McLuhan (1987), p. 300

"The mother tongue is propaganda."

[Sarah Ibarruri]

41. We should've paid attention to what he was saying. nt

[bbgrunt]

31. essential reading. BIG k and r

[Octafish]

46. 'Conspiracy Stories'

Under the title “Online Covert Action”, the document details a variety of means to engage in “influence and info ops” as well as “disruption and computer net attack,” while dissecting how human beings can be manipulated using “leaders,” “trust,” “obedience” and “compliance”:



No matter what Cass Sunstein says, propaganda is what tyrants use. Thank you for standing up to Them, bbgrunt!

[G_j]

38. Recommend

[Octafish]

47. The documents... attempt to identify ways to influence the outcomes...

The documents lay out theories of how humans interact with one another, particularly online, and then attempt to identify ways to influence the outcomes – or “game” it:







We submitted numerous questions to GCHQ, including: (1) Does GCHQ in fact engage in “false flag operations” where material is posted to the Internet and falsely attributed to someone else?; (2) Does GCHQ engage in efforts to influence or manipulate political discourse online?; and (3) Does GCHQ’s mandate include targeting common criminals (such as boiler room operators), or only foreign threats?

As usual, they ignored those questions and opted instead to send their vague and nonresponsive boilerplate: “It is a longstanding policy that we do not comment on intelligence matters. Furthermore, all of GCHQ’s work is carried out in accordance with a strict legal and policy framework which ensures that our activities are authorised, necessary and proportionate, and that there is rigorous oversight, including from the Secretary of State, the Interception and Intelligence Services Commissioners and the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee. All our operational processes rigorously support this position.”

These agencies’ refusal to “comment on intelligence matters” – meaning: talk at all about anything and everything they do – is precisely why whistleblowing is so urgent, the journalism that supports it so clearly in the public interest, and the increasingly unhinged attacks by these agencies so easy to understand. Claims that government agencies are infiltrating online communities and engaging in “false flag operations” to discredit targets are often dismissed as conspiracy theories, but these documents leave no doubt they are doing precisely that.

CONTINUED...

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipulation/

[ucrdem]

49. It's UK intel, not NSA.

To pretend otherwise is deceptive.

[Octafish]

51. Really? You think NSA plays second fiddle to Booz Allen Hamilton?

That's Carlyle Group.

[ucrdem]

53. I think Intercept is proving its true colors by passing this off as an NSA program. It isn't. nt

[Maedhros]

66. "Repetition Reduces Vigilance"

We see this on DU all day long. The same posters put up the same stale, debunked arguments again and again, regardless of how many times their argument is competently refuted.

After a while, it becomes a chore to have to respond again to the same exact nonsense that one just rebutted in the last thread. So one skips it, out of "rebuttal fatigue."

This explains a lot of the behavior that puts posters on my ignore list. But is "ignore" the best way to deal with these vandals, or is it playing into their hands?

[Octafish]

76. I favor refutation in order to let their Words stand.

At the rate things are getting compromised, soon everybody will know everthing about everybody else, including the actual identity of others online. Then, those who apply the 4Ds to deny, disrupt, degrade, deceive Democracy will be publicly recognized for the treasonous bastards they are.

For that will be history in the digital age - the Truth, not as simply regurgitated from ABCNNBCBS FakeNoiseNutworks, but rather a democratic and just evaluation of the data.

Until that happy day, interested parties can buy the private info, like everybody else who can afford it, from secret government entrepreneurs, the BFEE Carlyle Group. They already know they stand on the wrong side of history.

[G_j]

69. great resource

well done

[Octafish]

95. US Government reminds employees it's illegal to read Wikileaks docs, etc.

US to federal workers: If you read WikiLeaks, you're breaking the law

In the view of the US government, many of the WikiLeaks documents are still classified, and reading classified documents without clearance is illegal. Critics say the warning is censorship.

By Howard LaFranchi
Christian Monitor, Staff writer / December 7, 2010

Imagine you’re a soldier in Iraq seeking to keep up with world events, so you forgo the TMZs of the cyberworld in favor of real news on a site like CBS or CNN or Fox. You click on a story about the WikiLeaks release of thousands of State Department cables – and up pops a government-placed box informing you that if you proceed to the story you will be breaking the law.

Huh? Welcome to one of the more bewildering tangents of the WikiLeaks information dump: the clash between the principle of a censorship-free Internet and the government’s need to protect certain information – and the sources of that information.

The federal government reasons that, published or not, the cables released by WikiLeaks are still classified documents. So it is warning employees from the Library of Congress to its far-flung foot soldiers not to access WikiLeaks and the mirror sites it and other information activists are feverishly setting up.

In some cases the warnings have extended even to accessing media reports about the disclosures. Accessing classified information without clearance is tantamount to breaking the law, the warnings go, and could damage one’s government career or even end it.

Federal agencies are not blocking WikiLeaks and mirror websites, but some government employee advocates deem the warnings a form of censorship.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has made censorship-free Internet access a top priority of her dealings with authoritarian countries like China, some rights activists note. But now that the shoe is on the other foot, they add, the US government is violating its own policies.

CONTINUED...

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Foreign-Policy/2010/1207/US-to-federal-workers-If-you-read-WikiLeaks-you-re-breaking-the-law

Thanks, G_j! I'm so old I remember when US Government started with the Constitution. Once us geezers are gone, it's up to the young to remember and pass it forward and freedom.

[ucrdem]

39. Can we at least establish that GCHQ and JTRIG are British intel divisions?

And that this is a British program and presentation, with no clear connection to the NSA beyond the fact the Brits presented it?

[Octafish]

50. And the distribution list to Five Eyes across the bottom of the slides.

That, and the fact that if Booz Allen Hamilton -- and parent Carlyle Group -- can access this info, it's a pretty good bet the secret team on this side of the Atlantic can also access the info.

Regarding GCHQ, sinister city. What a socialist friend found:

Snowden documents show US, UK spy agencies infiltrate online groups

By Nick Barrickman
wsws.org, 27 February 2014

British and US intelligence agencies are systematically employing deceptive tactics to monitor, manipulate and subvert the activities of individuals in various online activist organizations who have never been charged with crimes, according to a report on Glenn Greenwald’s website, the Intercept.

The report is based on a 50-page presentation by the British spy agency GCHQ to the NSA and other agencies, entitled “The Art of Deception: Training for a New Generation of Online Covert Operations.” The document expands on details of methods used by GCHQ and its previously secret unit, the Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group (JTRIG), reported in previous leaks from Snowden.

Greenwald notes that JTRIG is engaged in “online covert action” (OCA) against individuals and groups in an effort “to inject all sorts of false material onto the internet in order to destroy the reputation of its targets,” as well as “to use social sciences and other techniques to manipulate online discourse and activism to generate outcomes it considers desirable.”

The aim of these operations, as with the basic mission of the NSA and its partners, is not to combat “terrorism,” but to target anyone considered a threat to the internal and geopolitical interests of the British and American ruling class.

SNIP...

As a member of the “Five Eyes” alliance with other English-speaking countries, the GCHQ has developed its methods in close collaboration with intelligence counterparts in the US and elsewhere. Covert actions are implemented with the assistance of local authorities, the report notes.

CONTINUED...

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/02/27/gchq-f27.html

When it comes to secret government, who outranks whom? Prince Charles or Jeb Bush?

[ucrdem]

52. Does your presenting it to us make us propagandists? No.

There's *NO* direct connection to the NSA. It's a British presentation made by a British intel division and to represent it otherwise is frankly, well, dishonest.

[Octafish]

89. Does GCHQ keep secrets from NSA?

Who outranks whom in the Special Relationship?

Remember ECHELON.

USA's been on top for a long while.

[idendoit]

44. Yep, that's Greenwald's playbook alright.

[ucrdem]

55. The irony is downright comical.

It takes some of us a while to catch on though.

[Octafish]

91. Not as funny as someone pretending something isn't what it is.

Most of the people I know who "caught on" realized just the opposite: The United States government is spying on them.

[malokvale77]

45. Kick (nt)

[Octafish]

93. Exclusive: NSA pays £100m in secret funding for GCHQ

• Secret payments revealed in leaks by Edward Snowden
• GCHQ expected to 'pull its weight' for Americans
• Weaker regulation of British spies 'a selling point' for NSA

Nick Hopkins and Julian Borger
The Guardian, Thursday 1 August 2013 11.04 EDT

The US government has paid at least £100m to the UK spy agency GCHQ over the last three years to secure access to and influence over Britain's intelligence gathering programmes.

The top secret payments are set out in documents which make clear that the Americans expect a return on the investment, and that GCHQ has to work hard to meet their demands. "GCHQ must pull its weight and be seen to pull its weight," a GCHQ strategy briefing said.

The funding underlines the closeness of the relationship between GCHQ and its US equivalent, the National Security Agency. But it will raise fears about the hold Washington has over the UK's biggest and most important intelligence agency, and whether Britain's dependency on the NSA has become too great.

In one revealing document from 2010, GCHQ acknowledged that the US had "raised a number of issues with regards to meeting NSA's minimum expectations". It said GCHQ "still remains short of the full NSA ask".

SNIP...

Snowden warned about the relationship between the NSA and GCHQ, saying the organisations have been jointly responsible for developing techniques that allow the mass harvesting and analysis of internet traffic. "It's not just a US problem," he said. "They are worse than the US."

As well as the payments, the documents seen by the Guardian reveal:

• GCHQ is pouring money into efforts to gather personal information from mobile phones and apps, and has said it wants to be able to "exploit any phone, anywhere, any time".

• Some GCHQ staff working on one sensitive programme expressed concern about "the morality and ethics of their operational work, particularly given the level of deception involved".

• The amount of personal data available to GCHQ from internet and mobile traffic has increased by 7,000% in the past five years – but 60% of all Britain's refined intelligence still appears to come from the NSA.

• GCHQ blames China and Russia for the vast majority of cyber-attacks against the UK and is now working with the NSA to provide the British and US militaries with a cyberwarfare capability.

The details of the NSA payments, and the influence the US has over Britain, are set out in GCHQ's annual "investment portfolios". The papers show that the NSA gave GCHQ £22.9m in 2009. The following year the NSA's contribution increased to £39.9m, which included £4m to support GCHQ's work for Nato forces in Afghanistan, and £17.2m for the agency's Mastering the Internet project, which gathers and stores vast amounts of "raw" information ready for analysis.

CONTINUED...

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/aug/01/nsa-paid-gchq-spying-edward-snowden

Thank you for standing up to Them, malokvale77!

[ucrdem]

48. Why is Greenwald trying to pass off British intel as an NSA program?

And Octa, don't you realize the irony of your kicking this misinformed thread? I tried to explain politely but you don't seem to get that you're doing exactly what this thing is describing -- pushing propaganda on the internet. This is not, repeat not, an NSA program! It's a UK program.

I don't understand why you don't self-delete it frankly

[Octafish]

65. That's good to know, but it's not the issue.

Greenwald has helped expose the secret government propaganda system. Whether it says NSA or GCHQ on a series of slides or not, this is technology that was not meant to be turned on free people.

[ucrdem]

67. Octa, it IS the issue, because Greenwald has been lying all along.

This is just the latest example but NONE of his or Snowden's claims hold water. Either they're pure suppositions or outright lies. This is just a particularly blatant example.

[Octafish]

68. It was GREENWALD who called out Bush and Cheney on ILLEGAL N.S.A. Spying back in 2007.

If the rest of the press had carried half as much water as Greenwald, these two would have long ago been in front of a Grand Jury.



Here's what Greenwald wrote on the subject of NSA abuse by them, when the story broke in 2007. In his story, Greenwald raised questions about the Comey visit to Ashcroft that have still to be answered -- six long warmongering profiteering years later:

Comey’s testimony raises new and vital questions about the NSA scandal

The testimony yesterday, while dramatic, underscores how severe a threat to the rule of law this administration poses.

BY GLENN GREENWALD
WEDNESDAY, MAY 16, 2007 06:16 AM EDT

The testimony yesterday from James Comey re-focuses attention on one of the long unresolved mysteries of the NSA scandal. And the new information Comey revealed, though not answering that question decisively, suggests some deeply troubling answers. Most of all, yesterday’s hearing underscores how unresolved the entire NSA matter is — how little we know (but ought to know) about what actually happened and how little accountability there has been for some of the most severe and blatant acts of presidential lawbreaking in the country’s history.

SNIP...

The key questions still demanding investigation and answers

But the more important issue here, by far, is that we should not have to speculate in this way about how the illegal eavesdropping powers were used. We enacted a law 30 years ago making it a felony for the government to eavesdrop on us without warrants, precisely because that power had been so severely and continuously abused. The President deliberately violated that law by eavesdropping in secret. Why don’t we know — a-year-a-half after this lawbreaking was revealed — whether these eavesdropping powers were abused for improper purposes? Is anyone in Congress investigating that question? Why don’t we know the answers to that?

Back in September, the then-ranking member (and current Chairman) of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Jay Rockefeller, made clear how little even he knew about the answers to any of these questions in a letter he released:

For the past six months, I have been requesting without success specific details about the program, including: how many terrorists have been identified; how many arrested; how many convicted; and how many terrorists have been deported or killed as a direct result of information obtained through the warrantless wiretapping program.

[font size="6"][font color="red"]I can assure you, not one person in Congress has the answers to these and many other fundamental questions.[/font size][/font color]

CONTINUED...

http://www.salon.com/2007/05/16/nsa_comey/

Instead, six years and who-knows-how-many lives later, Bush and Cheney and the rest of their election thieving warmongering bankster oilmen posse continue merrily on their way, unpunished for lying America into war and making huge profits in the process.

Remember, it was Greenwald who stood up to Cheney and Bush. He covered the story and asked "Why?"

[ucrdem]

71. Greenwald wasn't even at the hearing.

And he certainly didn't organize it. His first link goes to blog post by Marty Lederman, who also did not attend the hearing, but read a transcript posted by Georgetown U and a summary posted at TPM. So this is third- or fourth-hand commentary at best. To claim that Greenwald has ever "stood up" to anyone outside of the Obama administration, which he harps on ceaselessly and mendaciously, is not supported by anything he's ever actually written or said, at least that I've ever seen.

[Octafish]

103. NYT Buried NSA Spying Story BEFORE 2004 Selection

Apart from Greenwald and a handful of journalists and news sites, these issues have been largely ignored by the corporate media.

Spying & the Public's Right to Know

By Robert Parry
December 17, 2005

The New York Times has disclosed that George W. Bush secretly waived rules restricting electronic surveillance inside the United States, allowing spying on hundreds of Americans without a court warrant. But almost as stunning was the Times admission that it had held the story for a year.

Indeed, it appears the information about Bush’s secret spy order was leaked before Election 2004, but was kept from the American people because the Bush administration warned Times executives that the story’s publication might endanger national security.

In finally publishing the story on Dec. 16, more than 13 months after President Bush won a second term, the Times gave few details about specifically why it withheld the story in 2004 and then decided to print it now.

The article stated that “the White House asked The New York Times not to publish this article, arguing that it could jeopardize continuing investigations and alert would-be terrorists that they might be under scrutiny. After meeting with senior administration officials to hear their concerns, the newspaper delayed publication for a year to conduct additional reporting.”

In the final weeks before Election 2004, Bush administration officials might have been nervous, too, that the revelation that Bush had asserted broad presidential authority in overriding legal constraints on domestic spying could have played into the hands of Democrat John Kerry. But there is no indication that political concerns were raised with New York Times executives.

Still, there is an unwritten rule in elite U.S. journalism that sensitive stories should not be published in the days before an election so as not to skew the outcome. A countervailing view holds that newsworthy information should be reported to the American people whenever a story is ready, regardless of the political calendar.

CONTINUED...

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2005/121605.html

[Marr]

108. Why are you so frantically repeating that talking point?

Go take your break, for crying out loud.

[ucrdem]

110. Truth bothering you?

Try the Good News forum if the irony is too rich for you here.

[Marr]

111. You've repeatedly posted the same talking point at the OP.

Three times-- at the OP alone. I mean, if you want to address every individual poster with the official retort, that's one thing, and I see you're making a solid attempt toward that goal, but posting the same line over and over at the OP just seems... well, desperate would be the most charitable word I can think of.

I'm trying to help you.

[Kurovski]

115. "Desperate" is one word, but "rookie" is a nice word too.

Kindness is very important these days.

[woo me with science]

54. Let's post these links again, (USA! USA!)

just because of all the silly nonsense suggestions that this isn't happening in the good old USA.

It's deliberate, and it's despicable.

States that build surveillance machines also build propaganda machines:

Obama taps "cognitive infiltrator" Cass Sunstein for Committee to create "trust" in NSA:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023512796

Salon: Obama confidant’s spine-chilling proposal: Cass Sunstein wants the government to "cognitively infiltrate" anti-government groups
http://www.salon.com/2010/01/15/sunstein_2/

The US government's online campaigns of disinformation, manipulation, and smear.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024560097

Snowden: ‘Training Guide’ for GCHQ, NSA Agents Infiltrating and Disrupting Alternative Media Online
http://21stcenturywire.com/2014/02/25/snowden-training-guide-for-gchq-nsa-agents-infiltrating-and-disrupting-alternative-media-online/

The influx of corporate propaganda-spouting posters is blatant and unnatural.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=3189367

U.S. Repeals Propaganda Ban, Spreads Government-Made News To Americans
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023262111

The goal of the propaganda assaults across the internet is not to convince anyone of anything.*
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023359801

The government figured out sockpuppet management but not "persona management."
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023358242

The Gentleman's Guide To Forum Spies (spooks, feds, etc.)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=4159454

Seventeen techniques for truth suppression.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=4249741

Just do some Googling on astroturfing - big organizations have some sophisticated tools.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=1208351

The influx will continue
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=4216987

[ucrdem]

56. Here's a link: "The JTRIG is a unit of the GCHQ, the British intelligence agency." B-R-I-T-I-S-H.

" The Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group (JTRIG) is a unit of the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the British intelligence agency ."


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Threat_Research_Intelligence_Group

That's BRITISH. You know, sceptered isle? Tea and crumpets? That British.

[woo me with science]

60. Is intentional myopia contagious?

Or is this more like deliberate Kalnienk vision?

Hmm.

[ucrdem]

61. Only among the willfully blind. nt

[woo me with science]

63. Still pretending not to see the links?

Is the government not spying on Americans, either?

[ucrdem]

64. Is the British government spying on Americans?

I wouldn't doubt it. Do you?

[Luminous Animal]

80. Yes. And sending that info right back at us. 5 eyes. How to bypass ever english speaking

countries right to privacy.

[ucrdem]

81. Is everything okay?

That doesn't make much sense.

[Luminous Animal]

84. Well, elderly next door neighbors are under a bit of a stress and we do all that we can to help out

and it hurts that we can't do more.

Perhaps, the next time that you are in the neighborhood, you could check in.

[Zorra]

58. k & r nt

[Octafish]

101. America's Outsourced Spy Force, by the Numbers

by PHILIP BUMP
The Wire, JUN 10, 2013 9:25AM ET / NATIONAL

Edward Snowden wasn't your traditional spy. He was, however, a very modern one, a guy who worked from a computer terminal in an office, similar to how a modern bomber pilot might control his drone. The weekend's big revelations about the NSA's biggest revealer prompt a natural question: How many Snowden-type spies with top secret security clearance are there?

There's another way in which Snowden was a modern spy. He didn't work for the government, but for a government contractor, Booz Allen Hamilton. Snowden's emergence has drawn a great deal of attention to the company, about which it is almost certainly not excited. Both The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal have stories detailing the growth of contractor dependency in the federal government, looking at Booz in particular. As does our sister publication National Journal, which quotes former NSA head Michael Hayden: "There isn't a phone or computer at [NSA headquarters] that the government owns."

That's primarily because of shifts in how the government operates. Right now, federal employees make up less than one percent of the American population.

SNIP...

In its look at Booz, the Times indicates how closely the company is tied to the government.

As evidence of the company’s close relationship with government, the Obama administration’s chief intelligence official, James R. Clapper Jr., is a former Booz executive. The official who held that post in the Bush administration, John M. McConnell, now works for Booz.

That means that there are an estimated 450,000 people beyond those that work for Booz who have top secret clearance. Again, the Times:

“The national security apparatus has been more and more privatized and turned over to contractors,” said Danielle Brian, the executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, a nonprofit group that studies federal government contracting. “This is something the public is largely unaware of, how more than a million private contractors are cleared to handle highly sensitive matters.”

CONTINUED...

http://www.thewire.com/national/2013/06/contract-security-clearance-charts/66059/

Gee. I wonder what percentage of those "In the Loop" are in the CEO suites and boardrooms, let alone in Booze Allen Hamilton's parent, the Carlyle Group and/or BFEE.

Thanks for standing up to the tyranny they represent, Zorra.

[Zorra]

130. It's a dirty job, and a lifetime commitment, and as we both know,

somebody's gotta do it.

Thank you, Octafish, for your dedication to democracy, justice, and humanity.

[Raksha]

75. K & R, bookmarked. n/t

[Octafish]

105. Online Covert Agent Accreditation

SOURCE: http://rt.com/news/five-eyes-online-manipulation-deception-564/

Seeing how it's for War Inc, it likely pays very well.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

78. Every thing secret degenerates, even the administration of justice; Lord Acton

Every thing secret degenerates, even the administration of justice; nothing is safe that does not show how it can bear discussion and publicity. Lord Acton

[Octafish]

109. No President should fear public scrutiny of his program.

For from that scrutiny comes understanding; and from that understanding comes support or opposition. And both are necessary. I am not asking your newspapers to support the Administration, but I am asking your help in the tremendous task of informing and alerting the American people. For I have complete confidence in the response and dedication of our citizens whenever they are fully informed. - President John F. Kennedy, from an address to newspaper publishers.

SOURCE: http://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Research-Aids/JFK-Speeches/American-Newspaper-Publishers-Association_19610427.aspx

Certainly miss statesmen like Acton and JFK who appreciated the importance of openness, public scrutiny, review and accountability for Democracy.

[Kurovski]

86. K&R. (nt)

[Kurovski]

87. kick.

[Octafish]

90. POLITICAL USES OF ECHELON AND UKUSA

EXCERPT...

Several incidents of domestic spying involving ECHELON have emerged from the secrecy of the UKUSA relationship. What these brief glimpses inside the intelligence world reveal is that, despite the best of intentions by elected representatives, presidents and prime ministers, the temptation to use ECHELON as a tool of political advancement and repression proves too strong.

Former Canadian spy Mike Frost recounts how former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher made a request in February 1983 to have two ministers from her own government monitored when she suspected them of disloyalty.

In an effort to avoid the legal difficulties involved with domestic spying on high-level governmental officials, the GCHQ liaison in Ottawa made a request to CSE for them to conduct the three-week-long surveillance mission at British taxpayer expense. Frost’s CSE boss, Frank Bowman, traveled to London to do the job himself. After the mission was over, Bowman was instructed to hand over the tapes to a GCHQ official at head office.

Using the UKUSA alliance as legal cover is seductively easy.

As Spyworld co-author Michel Gratton puts it:

"The Thatcher episode certainly shows that GCHQ, like NSA, found ways to put itself above the law and did not hesitate to get directly involved in helping a specific politician for her personal political benefit…

"[T]he decision to proceed with the London caper was probably not put forward for approval to many people up the bureaucratic ladder. It was something CSE figured they would get away with easily, so checking with the higher-ups would only complicate things unnecessarily."

Frost also told of how he was asked in 1975 to spy on an unlikely target: Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s wife, Margaret Trudeau.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police’s (RCMP) Security service division was concerned that the Prime Minister’s wife was buying and using marijuana, so they contacted the CSE to do the dirty work. Months of surveillance in cooperation with the Security Service turned up nothing of note. Frost was concerned that there were political motivations behind the RCMP’s request:

"She was in no way suspected of espionage. Why was the RCMP so adamant about this? Were they trying to get at Pierre Trudeau for some reason or just protect him? Or were they working under orders from their political masters?"

The NSA frequently gets into the political spying act as well. Nixon presidential aide John Ehrlichman revealed in his published memoirs, Witness to Power: The Nixon Years, that Henry Kissinger used the NSA to intercept the messages of then Secretary of State William P. Rogers, which Kissinger used to convince President Nixon of Rogers’ incompetence.

Kissinger also found himself on the receiving end of the NSA’s global net. Word of Kissinger’s secret diplomatic dealings with foreign governments would reach the ears of other Nixon administration officials, incensing Kissinger.

As former NSA Deputy Director William Colby pointed out:

"Kissinger would get sore as hell…because he wanted to keep it politically secret until it was ready to launch."

However, elected representatives have also become targets of spying by the intelligence agencies. In 1988, Margaret Newsham, a former Lockheed software manager who was responsible for a dozen VAX computers that powered the ECHELON computers at Menwith Hill, came forth with the stunning revelation that she had actually heard the NSA’s real-time interception of phone conversations involving South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond.

Newsham was fired from Lockheed after she filed a whistle-blower lawsuit alleging that the company was engaged in flagrant waste and abuse. After a top-secret meeting in April 1988 with then Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Rep. Louis Stokes, Capitol Hill staffers familiar with the meeting leaked the story to the Cleveland Plain Dealer. While Sen.

Thurmond was reluctant to pressure for a thorough investigation into the matter, his office revealed at the time that it had previously received reports that the Senator was a target of the NSA. After the news reports, an investigation into the matter discovered that there were no controls or questioning over who could enter target names into the Menwith Hill system.

The NSA, under orders from the Reagan Administration, also targeted Maryland Congressman Michael Barnes. Phone calls he placed to Nicaraguan officials were intercepted and recorded, including a conversation he had with the Foreign Minister of Nicaragua, protesting the implementation of martial law in that country. Barnes found out about the NSA’s spying after White House officials leaked transcripts of his conversations to reporters.

CONTINUED...

http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/ciencia/echelon/echelon_2.htm

Thanks, Kurovski. This is serious, longterm, and most un-democratic. IMFO, it's why the Bankster/Warmonger class gets away with mass murder.

[Kurovski]

116. Anytime, daddy-o.

[DisgustipatedinCA]

92. Kicked to piss off the Staziwhores

[2banon]

99. LOL! good one! eom

[johnnyreb]

102. Gotcher back.

[Kurovski]

114. Kick.

[malokvale77]

100. Kick

For #92

[CanSocDem]

112. We're lucky to have DU...

...where normal democratic values quickly suppress un-democratic disruptors.


.

[LuvNewcastle]

113. K&R Thanks for another great thread, Octafish.

[PowerToThePeople]

117. Big K&R!

We see these things a lot on DU. We see it in this thread. I started reading the thread last night, made it about half way through. Very interesting.

The problem here is, there are people who are prospering greatly under the current corrupt system, they do not want real change.

[Junkdrawer]

122. Doiuble Agents -> Triple Agents....

Ya need a spy decoder ring somedays...

[Jesus Malverde]

124. bump... nt

[RC]

126. The sailor has his strips on the wrong arm and he has no hash marks either.

No way he could make First class in less than 4 years. If they can't get something that easy to check correct, what else can't they get right?

[Rex]

129. Thankfully if you look at recs and replies alone, most DUers are not fooled by the propaganda.

nt.

[Aerows]

132. K&R

The antidote to propaganda is awareness of it's usage and tactics. The more widespread the knowledge of the infection of propaganda is, and the methods of the disease's transmission, the more people can become inoculated and treated!

[Kurovski]

133. Nicely put.

Kick.

[Aerows]

134. Thank you

That is exactly what it is - a disease that is intended to go viral in the conscience, and consciousness, of a population. It is as insidious as any other infection, IMHO.

It is a disease of Identity.

[woo me with science]

135. More relevant than ever.

The influx of corporate/MIC line-dispensing personas has been constant and unnatural. The tactics of disinformation, disruption, and smear are consistent. It is no accident that the propaganda brigade posts new OP's well out of proportion to their presence in the community, and they demand the last word in nearly every exchange.

Everybody knows who they are. They have no credibility anymore.

[Judi Lynn]

136. Followed a link from another DU'er who puts great stock in your information.

This thread slipped right by me originally. I am so very grateful to have been able to find it today.

Thank you for your conscientious, intelligent efforts on the part of all of us, Octafish. It matters enormously.