War on internet

[Geggy]

US plans to 'fight the net' revealed
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4655196.stm
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.


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.


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.

All these are engaged in information operations.

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.

"Information intended for foreign audiences, including public diplomacy and Psyops, is increasingly consumed by our domestic audience," it reads.

"Psyops messages will often be replayed by the news media for much larger audiences, including the American public," it goes on.

The document's authors acknowledge that American news media should not unwittingly broadcast military propaganda. "Specific boundaries should be established," they write. But they don't seem to explain how.

"In this day and age it is impossible to prevent stories that are fed abroad as part of psychological operations propaganda from blowing back into the United States - even though they were directed abroad," says Kristin Adair of the National Security Archive.

Credibility problem

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

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.

But the true extent of the Pentagon's information operations, how they work, who they're aimed at, and at what point they turn from informing the public to influencing populations, is far from clear.

The roadmap, however, gives a flavour of what the US military is up to - and the grand scale on which it's thinking.

It reveals that Psyops personnel "support" the American government's international broadcasting. It singles out TV Marti - a station which broadcasts to Cuba - as receiving such support.

It recommends that a global website be established that supports America's strategic objectives. But no American diplomats here, thank you. The website would use content from "third parties with greater credibility to foreign audiences than US officials".

It also recommends that Psyops personnel should consider a range of technologies to disseminate propaganda in enemy territory: unmanned aerial vehicles, "miniaturized, scatterable public address systems", wireless devices, cellular phones and the internet.

'Fight the net'

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.

"Strategy should be based on the premise that the Department [of Defense] will 'fight the net' as it would an enemy weapons system," it reads.

The slogan "fight the net" appears several times throughout the roadmap.
The authors warn that US networks are very vulnerable to attack by hackers, enemies seeking to disable them, or spies looking for intelligence.

"Networks are growing faster than we can defend them... Attack sophistication is increasing... Number of events is increasing."

US digital ambition

And, in a grand finale, the document recommends that the United States should seek the ability to "provide maximum control of the entire electromagnetic spectrum".

US forces should be able to "disrupt or destroy the full spectrum of globally emerging communications systems, sensors, and weapons systems dependent on the electromagnetic spectrum".

Consider that for a moment.

The US military seeks the capability to knock out every telephone, every networked computer, every radar system on the planet.

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.

And that the scale and grandeur of the digital revolution is matched only by the US military's ambitions for it.

[Grislygus]

We can only hope that 7chan and 4chan will get caught in a bloody internet war with the FBI.

[El Blanco]

Most of that is crap that militaries have done since the begining of time. The only difference now is the media being utilized and the scale its being executed on.

[Courage the Cowardly Dog]

Can you really fight a series of tubes? Maybe dumping something on it like a truck will kill it.

The government actually trying to shut up people like Geggy gives the credence they otherwise didn't have befor.

[kahljorn]

it wont be long now before they can actually slap/shoot us through the internet. Maybe they'll just arrest us through the internet and it will work something like that scene in charlie and the chocolate factory.

[Geggy]

Nigga, pleaze. Warfares are not only physical but psychological, as well. Information can be used as weapons to fight enemies. The internet is an excellent source of communication to keep everyone aware of the truth. The information flowing into the corporate media is tightly controlled by the cia and the white house's public relations. This is about war on freedom of speech on the internet. since it's pretty much an open and free society. Now the govt look at it as a threat, they want to impose rules, regulations and false inforamtion to keep dissents at a minimum to prevent from people being aware of the truth that could lead to protests and disruptions of neocon's plans for globalization that began in 1992, years before the beginning of the rising popularity of internet use in which they've never envisioned. I would wish for the old geezers who are still living in the dark ages of modern technology would practice the use of internet and become aware of the real agendas behind the iraq war to recongize the lies and propaganda behind the corporate media.

[Ant10708]

So is the government in control of this site?

[kahljorn]

Governments always use information... everybody uses information.

[El Blanco]

Everybody tries to control the informatio0n out there, especially regarding themselves.

and you really don't know the history of the internet if you think any one party was responsible for trying to control it or shut it down.