The Pentagon trolls the Net

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---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 23 Feb 1996 15:16:05 -0800
From: D Shniad <shniad@xxxxxx>

PENTAGON TROLLS THE NET
BY DAVID CORN
THE NATION
4 MARCH 1996

This is a verbatim forward of a forward, which should be of wide interest.
To cut to the chase, the document that is the focus of this article is at our
site at http://www.fas.org/pub/gen/fas/cp/swett.html The FAS Secrecy
and Government Project, which provided this little gem, also has lotsa
other neat stuff at http://www.fas.org/pub/gen/fas/sgp/ This copyrighted
material is distributed here under the Fair Use doctrine, for review and
commentary at this teachable moment. Other restrictions may apply to
further distribution and archiving. Check your local listings!!! Begin
forward:

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The following is an article from The Nation magazine (March 4, 1996) that
reports on a Pentagon study on how the military can exploit the Internet.
The Pentagon paper suggests using the Internet for the routine interception of
global e-mail, for covert operations and propaganda campaigns, and for
tracking domestic political activity, particularly that of the left. The
article was written by David Corn, the Washington editor of The Nation. If
you have any comments or leads for follow-up stories, please contact him at
202-546-2239/ph 202-546-1415/fx dacor@xxxxxxx To subscribe to The
Nation, a magazine of politics and culture, call 800-333-8536.
.......................................................................................

Pentagon Trolls the Net By David Corn c1996

Internet users beware: Pentagon snoops are taking an interest in your cyber-
communications. Last summer, Charles Swett, a policy assistant in the
Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and
Low-Intensity Conflict, produced a report that assessed the intelligence
value of the Internet for the Defense Department. His study discovered the
obvious: by monitoring computer message traffic and alternative news
sources from around the world, the military might catch "early warning of
impending significant developments."

Swett reports that the "Internet could also be used offensively as an
additional medium in psychological operations campaigns and to help
achieve unconventional warfare objectives." A striking aspect of his study
is that there is one sort of Internet user who attracts a large amount of
attention from Swett: cyber-smart lefties.

The thirty-one-page, unclassified study is mostly cut and dry. Much of it
describes what the Internet is and what can be found within its infinite
confines. Swett lists various "fringe groups" that are exploiting the Internet:
the white-supremacist National Alliance, the Michigan Militia, Earth First,
and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). He highlights
MUFON--the Mutual UFO Network--which uses the Internet to
disseminate information on "U.S. military operations that members believe
relate to investigations and cover-ups of UFO-related incidents." MUFON
computer messages, Swett notes, "contain details on MUFON's efforts to
conduct surveillance of DoD installations."

The report does not suggest that the computer communications of MUFON
and these other groups should be targeted by the military--though X Filers
will be forgiven for wondering if something sinister is afoot. What Swett
apparently finds of greater interest than MUFON and the "fringe groups" is
the online left. A significant portion of the report is devoted to the San
Francisco-based Institute for Global Communications, which operates
several computer networks, such as PeaceNet and EcoNet, that are used by
progressive activists. I.G.C. demonstrates, he writes, "the breadth of DoD-
relevant information available on the Internet." The paper refers to I.G.C.
conferences that might be considered noteworthy by the Pentagon,
including ones on anti-nuclear arms campaigns, the extreme right, social
change, and "multicultural, multi-racial news."

Swett cites I.G.C. as the home for "alternative news sources" that fill gaps
in the mainstream media. (It might be good for Pentagon analysts to read
I.G.C. dispatches from Holland's Peace Media Service.) Yet he seems to
say that one can also track the left around the world by monitoring I.G.C.:
"Although [I.G.C.] is clearly a left-wing political organization, without
actually joining I.G.C. and reading its message traffic, it is difficult to
assess the nature and extent of its members' actual real-world activities."

Swett's paper presents the world of opportunity awaiting a cyber-shrewd
military and intelligence establishment. The Pentagon and intelligence
services will conduct "routine monitoring of messages originating in other
countries" in the search for information on "developing security threats."
That means overseas e-mail, like overseas phonecalls, will be intercepted
by the electronic eavesdroppers of the National Security Agency or some
other outfit. The data will be fed into filtering computers and then, if it
contains any hot-button words, forwarded to the appropriate analyst.
"Networks of human sources with access to the Internet could be developed
in areas of security concern to the U.S." (But bureaucrats rest assured; "this
approach"--using computer-assisted spies--"could never replace official
DoD intelligence collection systems or services.")

The Internet "can also serve counterintelligence purposes" by identifying
threats to the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence activities. As an example,
Swett refers to a message posted in a discussion group for "left-wing
political activists" that repeated an A.P. article about an upcoming U.S.
Army Special Operations Command training exercise at an empty Miami
Beach hotel. Another growth area is the dirty tracks department. Noting that
government officials, military officials, business people, and journalists all
around the world are online, Swett envisions "Psychological Operations"
campaigns in which U.S. propaganda could be rapidly disseminated to a
wide audience.

He adds, "The U.S. might be able to employ the Internet offensively to help
achieve unconventional warfare objectives." Swett does not delve into
details on how the Internet could serve such a mission. But he tosses out
one possibility: communicating via the Internet with political and
paramilitary groups abroad that Washington wants to assist while "limiting
the direct political involvement of the United States." Imagine this: contras
with computers.

Swett does point to a few potential problems. The Internet is chockful of
chit-chat of no intelligence value. Retrieving useful nuggets will require
monumental screening. He also predicts that one day video footage of
military operations will be captured by inexpensive, hand-held digital video
cameras operated by local individuals and then up-loaded to the Internet.
Within minutes, millions of people around the world will see for themselves
what has happened--which could lead to calls for action (or calls to
terminate action) before government leaders have had a chance to react and
formulate a position. Such a development, he observes, "will greatly add to
the burden on military commanders, whose actions will be subjected to an
unprecedented degree of scrutiny."

And opponents of the Pentagon might try to exploit the Internet for their
own devilish ends: "If it became widely known that DoD were monitoring
Internet traffic for intelligence or counterintelligence purposes, individuals
with personal agendas or political purposes in mind, or who enjoy playing
pranks, would deliberately enter false or misleading messages."

The study ends with a series of vague recommendations--all to be carried
out "only in full compliance with the letter and the spirit of the law, and
without violating the privacy of American citizens."

The Swett paper is "refreshingly candid," says Steven Aftergood of the
Federation of American Scientists, who placed a copy of the document on
the FAS web site on government secrecy, where it is being downloaded
about twenty times a day (at http://www.fas.org/pub/gen/fas/sgp/.). The
I.G.C. staff is amused by Swett's interest. "We must be doing something
right," notes George Gundrey, program coordinator of I.G.C.'s PeaceNet.
"But it is interesting that all of his [I.G.C.] examples are the most left-wing
items [on the network]."

Swett's study is not the first of its kind. Under the rubric of "information
warfare," other Pentagon outfits and military contractors have studied how
to use computer networks to collect public information, disseminate
propaganda, politically destabilize other governments, and plant computer
viruses into the information systems of foes. (The latter task is particularly
foolhardy. Deploying viruses into cyber-space--even if targeted against an
enemy--would likely pose a danger to the United States, since this country
is more networked than any other.)

But Swett's office--the Pentagon's dirty tricks shop--is a newcomer to this
scene, acoording to David Banisar, a policy analyst for the Electronic
Privacy Information Center. Banisar's group has been helping international
human rights groups use encryption to protect their global e-mail, "so the
spooks don't listen in."

It is natural that the national security gang will try to infiltrate and use a
communication medium like the Internet to its advantage. What is most
troubling about Swett's paper is its preoccupation with left-of-center
travelers in cyberspace and _domestic_ political activities. In the appendix,
Swett reproduces four examples of notable e-mail. One (written by
progressive activists Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven) calls for 100
days of protest in response to the Republican's Contract with America,
another announces plans for a demonstration at the 1996 G.O.P. convention
in San Diego, the third relays to lefties information on the U.S. Army
exercise at the Miami Beach hotel, and the last is a communique from the
Zapatistas of Mexico. Swett's use of these cyber dispatches can be
explained one of two ways. Either the left has made much more progress in
cyber-organizing than the right and "such fringe groups" as PETA, or Swett,
true to institutional tradition, is overwrought about the use of the Internet by
a certain parties. In any case, the would-be watchers in the defense
establishment ought to be watched closely--especially if Swett's report
reflects broader sentiment within the Pentagon.
===============================================

-- John Pike Federation of American Scientists
http://www.fas.org/pub/gen/fas/ CyberStrategy Project
http://www.fas.org/pub/gen/fas/cp/ Intelligence Reform Project
http://www.fas.org/pub/gen/fas/irp/ Military Analysis Network
http://www.fas.org/pub/gen/fas/man/ Space Policy Project
http://www.fas.org/pub/gen/fas/spp/



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