Military Report: Secretly ‘Recruit or Hire Bloggers’
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By Noah Shachtman
- March 31, 2008 |
- 11:11 am |
- Categories: Info War
A study, written for U.S. Special Operations Command, suggested "clandestinely recruiting or hiring prominent bloggers."
Since the start of the Iraq war, there’s been a raucous debate in military circles over how to handle blogs — and the servicemembers who want to keep them. One faction sees blogs as security risks, and a collective waste of troops’ time. The other (which includes top officers, like Gen. David Petraeus and Lt. Gen. William Caldwell) considers blogs to be a valuable source of information, and a way for ordinary troops to shape opinions, both at home and abroad.
This 2006 report for the Joint Special Operations University, "Blogs and Military Information Strategy," offers a third approach — co-opting bloggers, or even putting them on the payroll. "Hiring a block of bloggers to verbally attack a specific person or promote a specific message may be worth considering," write the report’s co-authors, James Kinniburgh and Dororthy Denning.
Lt. Commander Marc Boyd, a U.S. Special Operations Command spokesman, says the report was merely an academic exercise. "The comments are not ‘actionable’, merely thought provoking," he tells Danger Room. "The views expressed in the article publication are entirely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views, policy or position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, USSOCOM [Special Operations Command], or the Joint Special Operations University."
Denning, a professor at Naval Postgraduate School, adds in an e-mail, "I got some positive feedback from people who read the article, but I don’t know if it led to anything."
The report introduces the military audience to the "blogging phenomenon," and lays out a number of ways in which the armed forces — specifically, the military’s public affairs, information operations, and psychological operations units — might use the sites to their advantage.
Information strategists can consider clandestinely recruiting or hiring prominent bloggers or other persons of prominence… to pass the
U.S. message. In this way, the U.S. can overleap the entrenched inequalities and make use of preexisting intellectual and social capital. Sometimes numbers can be effective; hiring a block of bloggers to verbally attack a specific person or promote a specific message may be worth considering. On the other hand, such operations can have a blowback effect, as witnessed by the public reaction following revelations that the U.S. military had paid journalists to publish stories in the Iraqi press under their own names. People do not like to be deceived, and the price of being exposed is lost credibility and trust.An alternative strategy is to “make” a blog and blogger. The process of boosting the blog to a position of influence could take some time, however, and depending on the person running the blog, may impose a significant educational burden, in terms of cultural and linguistic training before the blog could be put online to any useful effect.
Still, there are people in the military today who like to blog. In some cases, their talents might be redirected toward operating blogs as part of an information campaign. If a military blog offers valuable information that is not available from other sources, it could rise in rank fairly rapidly.
Denning, the report’s author, has promoted controversial opinions before. In the early 1990s, when she was chair of the Georgetown
University’s computer science department, Denning emerged as the leading advocate for the so-called "Clipper Chip,"
a cryptographic device for protecting communications — until the government wanted to listen in. The project was cancelled by 1996.
In her 2006 paper, Denning warns that blogs can and will be used by
America’s enemies. These sites, she argues, can also be used to serve
U.S. government interests.
There are certain to be cases where some blog, outside the control of the U.S. government, promotes a message that is antithetical to U.S. interests, or actively supports the informational, recruiting and logistical activities of our enemies. The initial reaction may be to take down the site, but this is problematic in that doing so does not guarantee that the site will remain down. As has been the case with many such sites, the offending site will likely move to a different host server, often in a third country. Moreover, such action will likely produce even more interest in the site and its contents. Also, taking down a site that is known to pass enemy EEIs (essential elements of information) and that gives us their key messages denies us a valuable information source. This is not to say that once the information passed becomes redundant or is superseded by a better source that the site should be taken down. At that point the enemy blog might be used covertly as a vehicle for friendly information operations. Hacking the site and subtly changing the messages and data—merely a few words or phrases—may be sufficient to begin destroying the blogger’s credibility with the audience. Better yet, if the blogger happens to be passing enemy communications and logistics data, the information content could be corrupted. If the messages are subtly tweaked and the data corrupted in the right way, the enemy may reason that the blogger in question has betrayed them and either take down the site
(and the blogger) themselves, or by threatening such action, give the
U.S. an opportunity to offer the individual amnesty in exchange for information. (emphasis mine)
(Hook up: Cryptome.org; photo: Peter Starman / WIRED)
ALSO:
* Coast Guard Fires Blogger
* Coast Guard Hates the Internet, Maybe
* If You’re Gonna Get Blocked by the Air Force…
* Air Force Blocks Access to Many Blogs
* Who Gets Through the Air Force’s Blog Block?
* Facebook Threatens Soldiers, Canada Says
* Army: Wikis Too Risky
* U.S. Starting to Wake Up to Media War?
* AQI Leaders: Breaking Smokers’ Fingers Backfiring
* Pentagon Plots Sim Iraq for Propaganda Tests
* Pentagon Panel: U.S. Must Sell ‘Good News’
* Top General: Let Soldiers Blog
* Rummy Resurfaces, Calls for U.S. Propaganda Agency
* In Iraq, Psyops Team Plays on Iran Fears, Soccer Love
* How Technology Almost Lost the War
* Targeting the Jihadist Noise Machine
* 18 Months Later, Charges for Jailed Journo in Iraq
* U.S. Enlists Arab Bloggers for Info War
* Some of Her Best Friends Are Terrorists
* Inside Al-Qaeda’s "Intranet"
* Intel Director Launches Qaeda Leak Probe
* Ex-Spies Blast Qaeda Breach
* Al-Qaeda "Intranet" Goes Dark After Leak
* Bloggers vs. Terrorists?
* Army Gearing Up for Info War (Finally)
* Osama: Back in Black
* Al-Qaeda Channels Pixar
* Inside the Insurgent Noise Machine
* Terrorists Keep Blogs, Too
* Al-Qaeda Ramps up Propaganda Push
* Army Bullies Blogger, Invades YouTube
* Al-Qaeda Propaganda at New High
* British Military Gags Blogs
* Army Audit: Official Sites, Not Blogs, are Security Threat
* Military Security Threat: Bogus Bomb-Zapper’s Bogus Countermeasure
* Military Hypes, Bans YouTube
* Petraeus Hearts Milblogs
* No More YouTube, MySpace for U.S. Troops
* Milblogs Boost War Effort
* Pentagon Whispers; Milbloggers Zip Their Lips
* Clarifying the Blog Rule Clarification
* Army to Bloggers: We Won’t Bust You. Promise.
* Army’s Blog Rebuttal
* Stop Those Leaks!
* Strategic Minds Debate Milblog Crackdown
* Milblog Bust: AP Gets Snowed
* Army: Milblogging is "Therapy," Media is "Threat"
* Urban Legend Led to Army Blog-Bust?
* New Army Rules Could Kill G.I. Blogs (Maybe E-mail, Too)
* Reporters = Foreign Spies?
* Army’s Info-Cop Speaks
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Noah:
Does this mean we can start calling you and Sharon agents 008 and 009?
You could… but I’d have to kill you.
If dreaded cyber war breaks out, is there combat pay?
The potential for funneling misinformation into the Pentagon is mindboggling.
Sounds like ‘The Execution Channel’ by Ken MacLeod
I thought they were already doing this. If it’s a new policy, some bloggers ought to demand back pack!
Oops. That was supposed to be “back pay.”
This has been going on for a long time. Paul Wolfowitz and the neocons were always promoting blogs like Iraq The Model, whose authors met Bush in the White House and are now living in the USA while studying on taxpayer-funded courses.
How is this different from secretly hiring (no offense intended, Noah) real journalists? I think back in the 1930s they called that “propaganda” or something…
And FOR THE RECORD: Blogger and Journalist are NOT synonyms. Journalists can be bloggers, and vice versa, but having a blog does NOT automatically make you a journalist.
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“The Blogs Of War” New mini-series coming soon to ABC.
This will not work. The minute someone takes money to state an opinion, it is suspect.
Bloggers who follow government policy to the letter would be drab, dull, and pointless. They would be handicapped in that they would not be able to consider all the pros and cons of a given situation. They would have to deliberately ignore facts. It would be quickly apparent who was on the government’s payroll.
The first time one of those bloggers recruited to spout the party line came up against another pentagon lie being exposed and subsequently had to spout the party line as to why the lie wasn’t really a lie I see the entire enterprise collapsing.
Have they no shame?
They stole that man’s damn desk right out from under him! How’s a fella supposed to blog like that?
Drop the digital bomb on digital Jihad. It all boils down to who has the best data. Also a slower conveyance of resorcing linked back from the controllers to the blogger. But yeah, as I had mentioned a paycheck would be nice. I know there are several agencies allready doing this type of action daily, but some “bloggers” have skils way beyond a normal archiver or anlalyst. It all boils down to who has a prooven track record too, phone calls that are recorded , prior feild experience, search skills.
I am now researching interrogation techniques . I have learned some newer notes on this skill. Linked mainly to psychology, at a time latter if this were to transpire, we would need to be able to interrogate our captives after a research, feild ops, and then capture of the suspect linked to terrror<<<
Ah, the NeoCon blog CON again…
Remember, in the elections in 04, they ran prominent stories about “Paid Bloggers” and how a supposedly “Neutral” though slightly less right wing than Hitler “TV Personality” was paid US$2million to blog for the right?
Almost overnight, I saw a four-fold increase in right wing nutsacks who likely used multiple aliases, hoping some rich elite would ‘elevate’ them if they brayed and kissed up loud enough. Far as I can tell, not ONE ever got a dime… Certainly no “Windfall” from the rich elite. Newsflash, Toadies, the “Smithers” jobs are taken and there’s a line of better heeled applicants waiting.
Hey, though I loathe NeoCons, you gotta admire the strategey. Just tell people it’s happening that way, they get a lot of free help. Just like they conned the “Good Christians” into believing they actually gave a d—.
But, yeah, blog for the army… The only “Offers” you’ll get will involve a “Recruiter” and I really doubt you’ll actually get a “Clerical blogging” job.
I’m already an accomplished blogger, I’m a veteran of the US Army, and I already hold an active security clearance.
And I’m available for hire. Today. Just hit the Contact button at urbangrounds.com and we can get started.
Seriously.
Gotta love it. What better way to initiate propoganda than to hire those whom love freedom of speech ~ but wouldn’t mind picking up a dollar or two for it.
I blog with the US Antthem blasting in the BackGround, I am a Patriot !
HIRE ME PLEASE
Actually, this seems to be required in the war on our soldiers- there are already a ton of exposed non-military bloggers, some of which never saw action, but made up lies about “atrocities”- see Jimmy Massey, others…
What is wrong with the TRUTH? Won’t that work for you?
Government-paid TROLL teams…Yeah, China’s got that, too. No lie. More evidence of the slide into fascism and information control.
# the price of being exposed is
# lost credibility and trust
In other words, they’ve nothing to lose.
The war on terror is the war on truth.
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This must have come out of the department of no shit sherlock.
WORD-UP:
When the US military has to contemplate using Bloggers (inside or outside the military), to sell themselves to the public at large, in order to get recruits.
Then that tells me they are getting into something that borders on the intrusion of FREE SPEECH for military personnel.
And indulging in cyber propaganda, like the commercial and political protagonists do!
Derryck.
NYC.
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Nothing wrong with social engineering, I do it!
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Y’all are dopes if you think this isn’t already happening.
I suppose Posse Comitatus means nothing to Special Operations Command.
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Clearly, at least 99% of the folks posting on this, and Mr. Shachtman himself failed to actually read the paper. For example; 3tcp on Digg said: “Using blogs to target Americans and influence public opinion is dispicable. It is a very bad omen that our government even considers these kinds of things.”
Before you go looking for your tinfoil hat and casting insults, I would call everyone’s attention to the following excerpts:
“This brings us to an even more fundamental issue. Because the U.S. military is prohibited from conducting information operations against U.S. persons, it is reluctant to engage in Internet IO operations that might be characterized as PSYOP or deception. Once information is on the Internet, it can reach anyone, including those in the U.S. Thus, while the military offers factual news on the Internet through Public Affairs, it generally stays away from commentary and IO.” p.22
“Military use of the blogosphere must necessarily focus on foreign blogs, bloggers and audiences.” p. 28
No one is suggesting anything targeting Americans. Grow up and learn to read, people.
not unless they are homegrowns. Then we step in…
I have seen a few drop off in my time blogging.
they were american citizens recruited by black muslims and al queda. They were neutralized very quickly! and covertly!
I have a newer one I am looking over with links to usama. He is last seen communicating with khandahar taliban. Whether he is knowing who they are is the question. we are still watching him closely. It may be a case of he is allready a white aqi … pending
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Nothing wrong with social engineering, I do it!
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