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Sunday, January 29, 2006 |
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Fight The Web |
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From BBC News, we find out about a newly declassified document, signed by Donald Rumsfeld himself, that outlines military uses for the internet- including its use as a feedback loop to infiltrate Americans with propaganda legally, and even weirder, it's seeking the ability to destroy the entire internet, as well as television systems, phone lines, and anything else "dependent on the electromagnetic spectrum".
"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.
So, while the Pentagon acknowledges the need for American Media not to relay these operations, it doesn't bother to outline a strategy for avoiding it. While they dream out loud about an e-bomb of global proportions, keeping propaganda out of American Media is just too difficult a problem to solve:
"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.
Onward to nuking the web. The Pentagon strategy is summed up with the money quote:
"Strategy should be based on the premise that the Department [of Defense] will 'fight the net' as it would an enemy weapons system."
It also goes on to talk about the increasing sophistication of hackers and spies, something I am sure we'll see a lot of in the media as we get ready for funding a military defense of cyberspace, on par with the Star Wars nuclear defense shields militarization of plain old outer space.
It's possible these kinds of "defense" authorizations- sure to be called for by congress as soon as a malicious hacker turns the power off in a hospital somewhere- will set the military up nicely for its final destination, the capacity to "disrupt or destroy the full spectrum of globally emerging communications systems, sensors, and weapons systems dependent on the electromagnetic spectrum" should it be needed.
Posted by
Eryk @
9:03 AM
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