People should find this interesting. It looks like the Pentagon, at least publically, may be a bit behind the CIA/NSA/etcetera in Internet stuff. -Allen From: IN%"rre@weber.ucsd.edu" 19-FEB-1996 01:13:01.46 [I've removed the header, but the author's e-mail address is in the text.] =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= This message was forwarded through the Red Rock Eater News Service (RRE). Send any replies to the original author, listed in the From: field below. You are welcome to send the message along to others but please do not use the "redirect" command. For information on RRE, including instructions for (un)subscribing, send an empty message to rre-help@weber.ucsd.edu =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= 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@aol.com 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-mai, "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 refelcts broader sentiment within the Pentagon.