Now we learn that if you go online with a hot conspiracy theory you’ll have the FBI – or the NSA or some other agency too black to even have initials – all over your ass, attempting to ram you full of "cognitive diversity." Or you will have if some of the Harvard control freaks in the White House have their way. Those crazy conspiracy theories are just too whacked. They cannot be permitted to run around loose. Opponents of the idea claim US secret police trolling the net will take us back to the 1960s, Hoover’s FBI, and black ops like COINTELPRO. They are almost certainly right. I’d also point out how, when the first rumors about COINTELPRO and CIA domestic games like CHAOS and MKULTRA began to circulate, they were dismissed and dissed as crazy conspiracy theories.
“A high-ranking official in the Obama administration has come under fire in the past few weeks for suggesting that it would be a good idea to deploy federal agents to "cognitively infiltrate" political groups that believe in conspiracy theories. "Cognitive infiltration" may just be a fancy way to describe what chat room trolls do every day, but it's downright Orwellian in its implications, summoning visions of disinformation campaigns, agents provocateurs, and J. Edgar Hoover's COINTELPRO. The official is Cass Sunstein, the long-time University of Chicago law professor (he has since moved on to Harvard), who is currently serving as director of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. Sunstein's proposal was not issued under the auspices of the government, but in an academic paper. Co-authored with Harvard Law School Professor Adrian Vermeule and published in The Journal of Political Philosophy in 2008, "Conspiracy Theory" surveys the existing scholarship on the origins and characteristics of conspiracy theories and contemplates whether or not governments should try to neutralize them. In general, it takes a social sciences approach, arguing that conspiracy theories are neither legitimate political ideas nor symptoms of a psychological disorder, but are rather the inevitable distortions of closed-off, self-reinforcing belief systems. Using government agents to inject "cognitive diversity" into those communities, it suggests, just might provide the body politic with an antidote to the thought contagions they inspire.
Glenn Greenwald ripped into Sunstein's "truly pernicious" article in Salon. "Note how similar Sunstein's proposal is to multiple, controversial stealth efforts by the Bush administration to secretly influence and shape our political debates," he wrote. "There is a very strong case to make that what Sunstein is advocating is itself illegal under long-standing statutes prohibiting government 'propaganda' within the U.S., aimed at American citizens." The far right World Net Daily was no less alarmist: "Top Obama czar: Infiltrate all 'conspiracy theorists,'" its headline read. "Presidential adviser wrote about crackdown on expressing opinions." Click here for the rest.
Click here for “I Spy For The FBI” by Jamo Thomas
The secret word is Policeman
“A high-ranking official in the Obama administration has come under fire in the past few weeks for suggesting that it would be a good idea to deploy federal agents to "cognitively infiltrate" political groups that believe in conspiracy theories. "Cognitive infiltration" may just be a fancy way to describe what chat room trolls do every day, but it's downright Orwellian in its implications, summoning visions of disinformation campaigns, agents provocateurs, and J. Edgar Hoover's COINTELPRO. The official is Cass Sunstein, the long-time University of Chicago law professor (he has since moved on to Harvard), who is currently serving as director of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. Sunstein's proposal was not issued under the auspices of the government, but in an academic paper. Co-authored with Harvard Law School Professor Adrian Vermeule and published in The Journal of Political Philosophy in 2008, "Conspiracy Theory" surveys the existing scholarship on the origins and characteristics of conspiracy theories and contemplates whether or not governments should try to neutralize them. In general, it takes a social sciences approach, arguing that conspiracy theories are neither legitimate political ideas nor symptoms of a psychological disorder, but are rather the inevitable distortions of closed-off, self-reinforcing belief systems. Using government agents to inject "cognitive diversity" into those communities, it suggests, just might provide the body politic with an antidote to the thought contagions they inspire.
Glenn Greenwald ripped into Sunstein's "truly pernicious" article in Salon. "Note how similar Sunstein's proposal is to multiple, controversial stealth efforts by the Bush administration to secretly influence and shape our political debates," he wrote. "There is a very strong case to make that what Sunstein is advocating is itself illegal under long-standing statutes prohibiting government 'propaganda' within the U.S., aimed at American citizens." The far right World Net Daily was no less alarmist: "Top Obama czar: Infiltrate all 'conspiracy theorists,'" its headline read. "Presidential adviser wrote about crackdown on expressing opinions." Click here for the rest.
Click here for “I Spy For The FBI” by Jamo Thomas
The secret word is Policeman
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4 comments:
Well, of course. After all, trolling changes so many people's minds.
If the "theorists" have already locked themselves into "closed-off, self-reinforcing" web sites, no gummint operative is going to change their minds.
Plenty of information will be gathered though.
DAMNIT OLGA!
I can't help but wonder what might happen if someone accidentally blogged on a conspiracy that was actually true. Meanwhile I'll carry on with my method of "that which cannot be cured must be fucked with."
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