BBC Reports on Pentagon's Plans for the Internet

[Einsteinia]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4655196.stm

We need Election Integrity Immediately! We need to vote these bums out post haste.

US plans to 'fight the net' revealed


By Adam Brookes
BBC Pentagon correspondent


A newly declassified document gives a fascinating glimpse into the US military's plans for "information operations" - from psychological operations, to attacks on hostile computer networks.

The document says information is "critical to military success"

Bloggers beware.

As the world turns networked, the Pentagon is calculating the military opportunities that computer networks, wireless technologies and the modern media offer. From influencing public opinion through new media to designing "computer network attack" weapons, the US military is learning to fight an electronic war. The declassified document is called "Information Operations Roadmap". It was obtained by the National Security Archive at George Washington University using the Freedom of Information Act.

Officials in the Pentagon wrote it in 2003. The Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, signed it.

< snip >

The "roadmap" calls for a far-reaching overhaul of the military's ability to conduct information operations and electronic warfare. And, in some detail, it makes recommendations for how the US armed forces should think about this new, virtual warfare. The document says that information is "critical to military success". Computer and telecommunications networks are of vital operational importance.

Propaganda

The operations described in the document include a surprising range of military activities: public affairs officers who brief journalists, psychological operations troops who try to manipulate the thoughts and beliefs of an enemy, computer network attack specialists who seek to destroy enemy networks.

< snip >

The wide-reaching document was signed off by Donald Rumsfeld

Perhaps the most startling aspect of the roadmap is its acknowledgement that information put out as part of the military's psychological operations, or Psyops, is finding its way onto the computer and television screens of ordinary Americans.

< snip >

Credibility problem

Public awareness of the US military's information operations is low, but it's growing - thanks to some operational clumsiness.

When it describes plans for electronic warfare, or EW, the document takes on an extraordinary tone. It seems to see the internet as being equivalent to an enemy weapons system

Late last year, it emerged that the Pentagon had paid a private company, the Lincoln Group, to plant hundreds of stories in Iraqi newspapers. The stories - all supportive of US policy - were written by military personnel and then placed in Iraqi publications.

And websites that appeared to be information sites on the politics of Africa and the Balkans were found to be run by the Pentagon.


< snip >

Are these plans the pipe dreams of self-aggrandising bureaucrats? Or are they real?

The fact that the "Information Operations Roadmap" is approved by the Secretary of Defense suggests that these plans are taken very seriously indeed in the Pentagon.

< snip >


To read more of this riveting article, see: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4655196.stm

[ewoden]

1. hense last night's report of Army IP's on folks firewall logs?

[Einsteinia]

4. Hmmm? What's that?

n/t

[ewoden]

6. somebody eported seeing IP addresses for some

USArmy electronic warfare unuit pinging their firewall last night. I can't search for it.

[cdsilv]

2. The US military/industrial complex INVENTED the internet....

...back then it was called 'DARPANET' - the Defense Advanced Research Project Network.

Originally conceived to link supercomputers together to provide for advanced defense research and be resilient in the event of a nuclear attack on one of its 'nodes' or computing centers.

My, what changes time brings...

[autorank]

9. Welcome to DU!!!

And from DARPANET came Telenet, the first Internet, true public data network.

Check on something called the Culler-Fried Online, I'm not sure on the spelling. I think it would qualify as the first "internet" since it linkedk 8 public university defense research groups together for information sharing.

Times do change.

[tocqueville]

3. it's part of the PNAC roadmap

Cyberspace or 'Net War'

"If outer space represents an emerging medium of warfare, then 'cyberspace', and in particular the Internet hold similar promise and threat. And as with space, access to and use of cyberspace and the Internet are emerging elements in global commerce, politics and power. Any nation wishing to assert itself globally must take account of this other new 'global commons'.

"Although many concepts of 'cyber-war' have elements of science fiction about them, and the role of the Defense Department in establishing 'control', or even what 'security' on the Internet means, requires a consideration of a host of legal, moral and political issues, there nonetheless will remain an imperative to be able to deny America and its allies' enemies the ability to disrupt or paralyze either the military's or the commercial sector's computer networks. Conversely, an offensive capability could offer America's military and political leaders an invaluable tool in disabling an adversary in a decisive manner.

"Taken together, the prospects for space war or 'cyberspace war' represent the truly revolutionary potential inherent in the notion of military transformation. These future forms of warfare are technologically immature, to be sure. But, it is also clear that for the U.S. armed forces to remain preeminent and avoid an Achilles Heel in the exercise of its power they must be sure that these potential future forms of warfare favor America just as today’s air, land and sea warfare reflect United States military dominance" (p. 57).

http://www.gvtc.com/~mpingo/pnac2.html

[Einsteinia]

5. But propaganda is as old as time--the big

difference now is dominion of the big microphone is in the hands of just 5 mega-corporations behold to the right-wing agenda

and now the big bird of the right-wing agenda wants to kill all this is magnficent, and all that we have left, our true free speech.

We now know the enemy, and it is U.S.!

We are builidng our own iron curtain.

[Wilms]

7. kick

[autorank]

8. This is the wrong battle field, the Internet(s). They'd lose.

There is a huge shortage of qualified personnel to run the Federal government information technology functions. Baby boomers are retiring from Federal service so rapidly, we can't replace them. These jobs are going to contractors. The Federal government pays a lot more than the US Military. Where will they get the cyber "top guns?" The answer is simple, they won't. Well, they'll contracted out. Aside from the problems with turning over "warfare" to contractors, the specific problem is that the employees of the contractors would be, in many cases, the type of people who hated any control of the Internet whatsoever.

Bad idea, just drop it, now.

[furrball]

10. "Bad idea, just drop it, now"

What you said seemed plausible until that last line.

Whenever anyone tells us to change the subject or drop it, it raises suspicion. People told me to drop the election reform cause, but I didn't and guess what? I was right.

Why do I have to be right about things like this? Now Lotto numbers are something I really want to be right about.