The US government is offering private intelligence companies contracts to create software to manage “fake people” on social media sites and create the illusion of consensus on controversial issues.
The contract calls for the development of “Persona Management Software” which would help the user create and manage a variety of distinct fake profiles online. The job listing was discussed in recently leaked emails from the private security firm HBGary after an attack by internet activist last week.
According to the contract, the software would “protect the identity of government agencies” by employing a number of false signals to convince users that the poster is in fact a real person. A single user could manage unique background information and status updates for up to 10 fake people from a single computer.
The software enables the government to shield its identity through a number of different methods including the ability to assign unique IP addresses to each persona and the ability to make it appear as though the user is posting from other locations around the world.
Included in HBGary’s leaked emails was a government proposal for the government contract. The document describes how they would ‘friend’ real people on Facebook as a way to convey government messages. The document reads:
“Those names can be cross-referenced across Facebook, twitter, MySpace, and other social media services to collect information on each individual. Once enough information is collected this information can be used to gain access to these individuals social circles.
Even the most restrictive and security conscious of persons can be exploited. Through the targeting and information reconnaissance phase, a person’s hometown and high school will be revealed. An adversary can create a classmates.com account at the same high school and year and find out people you went to high school with that do not have Facebook accounts, then create the account and send a friend request. Under the mutual friend decision, which is where most people can be exploited, an adversary can look at a targets friend list if it is exposed and find a targets most socially promiscuous friends, the ones that have over 300-500 friends, friend them to develop mutual friends before sending a friend request to the target. To that end friend’s accounts can be compromised and used to post malicious material to a targets wall. When choosing to participate in social media an individual is only as protected as his/her weakest friend.”
Other documents in the leaked emails include quotes from HBGary CEO Aaron Barr saying, “There are a variety of social media tricks we can use to add a level of realness to all fictitious personas… Using hashtags and gaming some location based check-in services we can make it appear as if a persona was actually at a conference and introduce himself/herself to key individuals as part of the exercise, as one example.”
Additional emails between HBGary employees, usually originating from Barr, discuss the vulnerability social networking causes.
One employee wrote, “and now social networks are closing the gap between attacker and victim, to the point I just found (via linked-in) 112 females, wives of service men, all stationed at Hurlbert Field FL - in case you don’t know this is where the CIA flies all their “private” airlines out of. What a damn joke - the U.S. is no longer the super power in cyber, and probably won’t be in other areas soon.”
Barr also predicted a steady rise in clandestine or secret government operations to stem the flow of sensitive information. “I would say there is going to be a resurgence of black ops in the coming year as decision makers settle with our inadequacies… Critical infrastructure, finance, defense industrial base, and government have rivers of unauthorized communications flowing from them and there are no real efforts to stop it.”
The creation of internet propaganda software is only one of HBGary’s controversial activities. According to Wikileaks competitor and occasional collaborator Cryptome.org, several other progressive organizations were intended to be targeted including anti-war activist, anti-torture organizations and groups opposed to the US Chamber of Commerce.
(updated below - Update II - Update III - Update IV)
Cass Sunstein has long been one of Barack Obama’s closest confidants. Often mentioned as a likely Obama nominee to the Supreme Court, Sunstein is currently Obama’s head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs where, among other things, he is responsible for “overseeing policies relating to privacy, information quality, and statistical programs.” In 2008, while at Harvard Law School, Sunstein co-wrote a truly pernicious paper proposing that the U.S. Government employ teams of covert agents and pseudo-”independent” advocates to “cognitively infiltrate” online groups and websites — as well as other activist groups — which advocate views that Sunstein deems “false conspiracy theories” about the Government. This would be designed to increase citizens’ faith in government officials and undermine the credibility of conspiracists. The paper’s abstract can be read, and the full paper downloaded, here.
Sunstein advocates that the Government’s stealth infiltration should be accomplished by sending covert agents into “chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups.” He also proposes that the Government make secret payments to so-called “independent” credible voices to bolster the Government’s messaging (on the ground that those who don’t believe government sources will be more inclined to listen to those who appear independent while secretly acting on behalf of the Government). This program would target those advocating false “conspiracy theories,” which they define to mean: “an attempt to explain an event or practice by reference to the machinations of powerful people, who have also managed to conceal their role.” Sunstein’s 2008 paper was flagged by this blogger, and then amplified in an excellent report by Raw Story’s Daniel Tencer.
There’s no evidence that the Obama administration has actually implemented a program exactly of the type advocated by Sunstein, though in light of this paper and the fact that Sunstein’s position would include exactly such policies, that question certainly ought to be asked. Regardless, Sunstein’s closeness to the President, as well as the highly influential position he occupies, merits an examination of the mentality behind what he wrote. This isn’t an instance where some government official wrote a bizarre paper in college 30 years ago about matters unrelated to his official powers; this was written 18 months ago, at a time when the ascendancy of Sunstein’s close friend to the Presidency looked likely, in exactly the area he now oversees. Additionally, the government-controlled messaging that (more…)
Documents reveal that Blackwater has been busy expanding its corporate reach by providing intelligence services for agencies such as the Canadian Military, Netherlands Police and corporations like Monsanto.
Blackwater is a private, mercenary army. They’ve been called the ’shadow army,’ and most notoriously worked for the United States in Iraq, where the company courted controversy. Journalist Jeremy Scahill, who wrote a book about Blackwater, wrote an exclusive for The Nation, revealing general details of the extent of the Blackwater business operations. Scahill managed to obtain documents that, according to Scahill, show
“… entities closely linked to the private security firm Blackwater have provided intelligence, training and security services to US and foreign governments as well as several multinational corporations, including Monsanto, Chevron, the Walt Disney Company, Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines and banking giants Deutsche Bank and Barclays, according to documents obtained by The Nation. Blackwater’s work for corporations and government agencies was contracted using two companies owned by Blackwater’s owner and founder, Erik Prince: Total Intelligence Solutions and the Terrorism Research Center (TRC). Prince is listed as the chairman of both companies in internal company documents, which show how the web of companies functions as a highly coordinated operation.”
A spokesperson for Monsanto, reached by Scahill, first denied the relationship with Blackwater, but then admitted that Monsanto had paid Total Intelligence for intelligence reoprts
“… about the activities of groups or individuals that could pose a risk to company personnel or operations around the world which were developed by monitoring local media reports and other publicly available information. The subject matter ranged from information regarding terrorist incidents in Asia or kidnappings in Central America to scanning the content of activist blogs and websites.”
The spokesperson told Scahill he was told Total Intelligence was completely separate from Blackwater. The news that Monsanto hired a Blackwater company for intelligence reports is rocketing around the world via anti-GMO activists. Blogger Rady Ananda summed up the relationship between Monsanto and Blackwater as
“… A death-tech firm weds a hit squad.”
Citing the growing movement to destroy GMO crops, Ananda thought Monsanto was hoping to be able to quell dissent through infiltrating actvist groups that take direct action. Ananda concluded his article saying
“… Monsanto, by hiring a mercenary army and former CIA field agents, is deadly serious about protecting its deadly products. Yet, this contract further discredits the company. The public can now paint an even bleaker picture of the firm that brought us Agent Orange, PCBs, rBST, DDT, aspartame and, now, hitmen.”
Writing on Above Top Secret, Airspoon commented on Monsanto’s hiring of Blackwater, saying (sic)
“The above quote is pretty scary and indicative of how corporate interests are acting against our own, though most of us already knew that. For any of the deniars who tried to refute that such tactics were used, one need only look at the plethora of information coming out about Xe and Blackwater due to the scandal in Iraq. I think that the best thing that could be done, is to boycott these companies as much as possible. Monsanto might be a little hard to boycott for some folks, though the other companies shouldn’t be. In fact, Monsanto shouldn’t be either for most folks. Blackwater (Xe) is one of the most dangerous entities facing the American people. It’s like the enforcement arm of corporate interests that does not have to operate under the same “restrictions” that
In this edition of the Reality Report, Gary Franchi blows the lid off the Pennsylvania DHS list targeting activists. He also sits down with Arizona State Senate Libertarian Candidate Andrea Garcia to talk about her race for the Senate seat. Obama gets schooled during his own Town Hall meeting on CNBC, and we have the video. Nina breaks down the headlines including who is funding the Ground Zero Mosque and how the U.S. is in bigger debt than the Government is letting on. She also plays the controversial video of the middle school students praying at a Mosque during a field trip and reports on a new tax concept being proposed in the UK. The viewers brand a new “Enemy of the State” and the mailbag is sifted.
Did you know that attending a meeting to organize a bake sale for new band uniforms can put you on a terrorist watch list? You don’t have to join a peace group or protest oil drilling to be considered dangerous. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania hired ITRR, the Instititute of Terrorism Research and Response, a Jerusalem based company owned by the Mossad and tied directly to the Israeli Ministry of Defense to track “dissidents” and “activists.” In the process, they managed to find the most dangerous terrorist organization of all, the governor’s own non-profit organization, one supporting school funding initiatives. From ITTR’s website:
“All of the information ITRR’s staff creates is sent to its monitoring center in Jerusalem, where it is analyzed”
Governments, states, cities and even rural towns, believing they are participating in a Homeland Security initiative, have contracted with this and other organizations under foreign control, read “Israeli,” tracking organizations as diverse as the Tea Party and the Sierra Club. Reports submitted by ITTR showed them spying on nearly every organization they could find, no matter how innocent, patriotic or public minded. Organizations tied to Jewish causes, however, managed, somehow, to slip under the radar.
Those that were included are so comprehensive that it would be nearly impossible for an American to escape having confidential files, collected under government authority and financing, paid for by American taxpayers, held by Israeli intelligence agencies. In fact, databases include every organization, regardless of its membership or policies, with personal information on members being stored in databases in Israel.
Never before has America or any other nation funded a FOREIGN spy organization to catalog and watch our own people. This is one of the greatest intelligence coups in history. Combine this with control of America’s airport security and total control of America’s communications networks, everything, mobile, internet, even landlines….we might as well pull down the flag and roll over for Israel.
Governor Rendell expressed shock at the gross violation of constitutional rights involved in hiring this company, one that is said to be working for state and local governments across the United States. Rendell said he was “stunned” when he learned about the spying relationship, one he characterized as “ludicrous.” From Governor Rendell’s apology to the people of Pennsylvania at a capitol news conference this week:
“I am deeply embarrassed and I apologize to any of the groups who had this information disseminated on their right to peacefully protest”
As early as December 2001, not long after the 9/11 incident, Fox News investigated Israeli spying on the United States. However, not long after airing the Carl Cameron Report with Brit Hume as Host, not only did the show itself disappear but all transcripts as well, at least “almost all.”
BRIT HUME, HOST: It has been more than 16 years since a civilian working for the Navy was charged with passing secrets to Israel. Jonathan Pollard pled guilty to conspiracy to commit espionage and is serving a life sentence.
At first, Israeli leaders claimed Pollard was part of a rogue operation, but later took responsibility for his work. Now Fox News has learned some U.S. investigators believe that there are Israelis again very much engaged in spying in and on the U.S., who may have known things they didn’t tell us before September 11. …
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CARL CAMERON, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Since September 11, more than 60 Israelis have been arrested or detained, either under the new patriot anti-terrorism law, or for immigration violations. A handful of active Israeli military were among those detained, according to investigators, who say some of the detainees also failed polygraph questions when asked about alleged surveillance activities against and in the United States.
There is no indication that the Israelis were involved in the 9-11 attacks, but investigators suspect that they Israelis may have gathered intelligence about the attacks in advance, and not shared it. A highly placed investigator said there are “tie-ins.” But when asked for details, he flatly refused to describe them, saying,
Once people become somewhat conversant with the evidence surrounding the actual mechanics of the 9/11 Psy-op and the many methods of embellishing that lie employed by the perps on so many different levels, it becomes obvious that as much effort went into the planning and propagating of the propaganda and “Public Myths” aspect as went into the operation itself. We see that right from the outset, within minutes of the beginning of the unfolding of tragic events on the morning of 9/11, people appearing with ready-made stories to tell and specific technical knowledge of the “fire-induced structural failure” of the WTC towers, or intimate knowledge of the designated perpetrators Osama bin Laden and his cave-dwelling Al Quesadilla Terrorist Network and how they pulled it off, etc., when such specific knowledge could not possibly have been known so early in the game without it being pre-scriptied ahead of time. Jerome Hauer was one of those pre-planted experts employed to help steer the public towards the official myths that morning, appearing on multiple national television networks.
Check out this BrasscheckTV.com collection of video clips regarding these pre-planting of myths via the media on 9/11. Jerome Hauer’s interview by Dan Rather starts at 2:27
So, Jerome Hauer (former head of NY Office of Emergency Management) appeared in the CBS studio that morning within a couple of hours of the beginning of the attacks and already had this elaborate story to tell, both about how the WTC towers “collapsed”, and about Bin Laden and his merry band of hijackers able to outsmart the world’s most sophisticated air defense, etc., and then suddenly changed the topic to emotional-laden things such as the impact on rescue workers, blah, blah, blah.
The Method:
-Sell the lie with authority
-Then change the subject to something emotional
Rather asks him if pre-positioned explosives could have been used to bring down the Twin Towers and Hauer immediately discounts the possibility, saying: “My sense is that just the velocity of the plane and the fact that you have a plane filled with fuel hitting that building that burned, that the velocity of the plane certainly had an impact on the structure itself. And then the fact that it burned and you had that intense heat probably weakened the structure as well. And I think it was simply the planes hitting the buildings and causing the collapse.” Why was Hauer so sure the plane crashes and subsequent fires alone caused the collapses? In fact, when he testifies before the 9/11 Commission in 2004, he will be asked whether Office of Emergency Management had, before 9/11, conducted “any planning for what would be the response if a commercial or a private plane were to accidentally [hit] either the World Trade Center or some other building in New York City?” He will reply: “We had aircraft crash drills on a regular basis. The general consensus in the city was that a plane hitting a building… was that it would be a high-rise fire”. Yet he will not say that the building collapsing had been considered a possibility.
Jerome Hauer is a very interesting fellow.
A crucial aspect of control that needed to be established in order to pull off 9/11 was to gain control of security of the WTC complex. This way, Mossad explosive experts — who just so happened to be in town just prior to and on 9/11 — could be readily allowed access to strategic areas of the buildings in order to prep for the demolitions, for example. The contract to run security at the WTC was given to Kroll Associates after the 1993 wtc bombing. Kroll is otherwise known as “Wallstreets CIA”. The New York Port Authority (Chaired by Zionist Lewis Eisenberg) paid them $2.5 million to “revamp” security at the complex. The owners of Kroll were two Zionist Jews named Jules & Jeremy Kroll. The managing director of Kroll at the time was Zionist Jerome M. Hauer. I wonder why Kevin Ryan never explored these interesting connections when he wrote his big paper “Demolition Accesss to the WTC Towers”?
Hauer was also the guy chosen to run Mayor Rudy Guiliani’s office of emergency management (more…)
Special Reports - By Wayne Madsen - February 20, 2009
Online Journal Contributing Writer
WMR has learned from well-placed sources that international hedge fund mogul and financier of “progressive” causes George Soros has been, for a number of years, infiltrating 9/11 “truth” organizations, groups advocating election reform, and so-called “independent journalism” enterprises in order to hijack agendas and, eventually, cause the groups to collapse from within or be absorbed into larger organizations servile to Soros and his agenda.
By far, the largest group Soros and his allies has infiltrated and taken over is the Democratic Party of the United States. It now totally adheres to a corporatist line and has purged from its leadership Dr. Howard Dean and replaced him with Virginia Governor Tim Kaine, a Democratic Leadership Council adherent. The Soros faction and its allies has also seen to it that Bill Richardson, Caroline Kennedy, and others who represent the “Democratic wing of the Democratic Party” have been shut out of the Obama administration.
In many ways, Soros’ operation is strikingly similar to the FBI’s former Counter-Intelligence Program, also known as COINTELPRO. There is also ample evidence that Soros’ program is linked to Israeli intelligence operations in the United States and that some presidential campaigns in 2008 were infiltrated by the joint operation, including those of Democratic candidate and former Senator Mike Gravel, and Republican candidate Ron Paul.
Soros’ operations, according to our sources, involve his Open Society Institute, as well as Soros Fund Management LLC, in which his son, Jonathan Soros, plays a leading role.
For Soros, his political operations in America are much the same as they are in places like Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, Romania, and other countries: divide, confuse the political sides, and conquer.
The modus operandi is that Soros operatives either help establish “progressive” organizations or join them after they are established with a new infusion of a modest to substantial funding. The agenda of the organization is then altered to make it look either like a far-out “conspiracy” association or the infiltrators of the organization create internecine battles between factions or tamp down its fervor. In some cases, the organizations ultimately cease to exist or are combined with other Soros-controlled or influenced organizations.
In the case of alternative journalism operations, Soros’ operatives launch attacks, some of them highly personal, against bona fide independent journalists and question their sources and
A career Neo-Con hack with intimate ties to the CIA has shamefully exploited the tragic massacre at Fort Hood last week to smear anyone who questions the official 9/11 story as a gun-toting terrorist intent on mass murder on a par with crazed killer Nidal Malik Hasan.
In an opinion piece, UPI editor at large Arnaud De Borchgrave disgracefully claims that, “There are tens of thousands of Hasans all over the Western world — from Brussels to Berlin and from Burgos, Spain, to Birmingham, U.K.,” before making the case that anyone who dares doubt the government’s version of events on 9/11 is an extremist hell-bent on metering out “jihadi violence” like Hasan did when he gunned down scores of his colleagues.
“For them, Sept. 11, 2001, was a conspiracy cooked up by the CIA and Mossad, Israel’s external intelligence service,” writes Borchgrave.
Borchgrave’s bellicose hit piece harks back to the November 2007 hearing of the Homeland Security Subcommittee’s “Terrorism and the Internet,” which was broadcast on C-Span and chaired by California democrat Jane Harman, sponsor of the infamous HR 1955, “Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007.” During the hearing, a powerpoint demonstration from Mark Weitzman of the Simon Weisenthal Center ludicrously equated Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, an organization consisting of professionals who are investigating the collapse of WTC 7 and the twin towers, with violent Islamic terrorists.
Borchgrave outlines his argument with the usual turd-load of ad hominem drivel and half-baked strawman claims. At no point whatsoever does he present any evidence that Hasan embraced 9/11 conspiracies, which would totally contradict seperate reports that Hasan is linked with members of Al-Qaeda.
“Even though al-Qaida’s Osama bin Laden and his No. 2 Ajman Al-Zawahiri have both taken credit for Sept. 11, countless millions are convinced they had nothing to do with the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon,” he writes.
If Borchgrave had bothered to do one iota of research before spewing his vitriol, he would have discovered that on numerous occasions immediately after the attacks, Bin Laden explicitly denied responsibility for 9/11.
In a statement released to the Arabic satellite channel Al Jazeera and reported on by CNN on September 17, 2001, Bin Laden said, “I would like to assure the world that I did not plan the recent attacks, which seems to have been planned by people for personal reasons. I have been living in the Islamic emirate of Afghanistan and following its leaders’ rules. The current leader does not allow me to exercise such operations.”
Asked if he carried out 9/11 by the Pakistani newspaper Ummat on September 28, 2001, Bin Laden responded, “I have already said that I am not involved in the 11 September attacks in the United States. As a Muslim, I try my best to avoid telling a lie. I had no knowledge of these attacks, nor do I consider the killing of innocent women, children and other humans as an appreciable act. Islam strictly forbids causing harm to innocent women, children and other people. Such a practice is forbidden even in the course of a battle.”
The only person to “take credit” for the attacks was a dubiously fat Bin Laden lookalike who appeared on a videotape that was broadcast on December 13, 2001. Freedom Of Information Act requests attempting to validate the tape’s authenticity filed with the FBI, CIA, Department of Defense, and CENTCOM were met with a refusal to release any records. The FBI’s Most Wanted page still fails to list 9/11 on Bin Laden’s rap sheet because “the FBI has no hard evidence connecting bin Laden to 9/11,” according to FBI agent Rex Tomb.
The tape was allegedly found in a house in Jalalabad after anti-Taliban forces moved in. It featured a fat Osama laughing and joking about how he’d carried out 9/11. The video was also mistranslated in order to manipulate viewer opinion and featured “Bin Laden” praising two of the hijackers, only he got their names wrong.
This Osama also uses the wrong hand to write with and wears gold rings, a practice considered abhorrent to the Muslim faith.
A German TV Channel One investigation found that the White House’s translation of the video was inaccurate and “manipulative”. One of the experts employed by the program to study the video concluded that the translation was “Very problematic – at the most important places where it is held to prove the guilt of Bin Laden, it is not identical with the Arabic.”
“Prof. Gernot Rotter, professor of Islamic and Arabic Studies at the Asia-Africa Institute at the University of Hamburg sums it up: “The American translators who listened to the tapes and transcribed them apparently wrote a lot of things in that they wanted to hear but that cannot be heard on the tape no matter how many times you listen to it.”
In his hit piece, Borchgrave recycles a number of strawman issues that aren’t even embraced by the majority of (more…)
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