New Internet Censorship Bill Introduced

by Stephen Lendman

Like most others in Congress, Senator Patrick Leahy is no progressive. He voted to fund imperial wars, regressive Obamacare, Wall Street-friendly financial reform, and other pro-business measures, including agribusiness-empowering bills, harming small farmers and consumers.

Now he's at it again. On September 20, he introduced S. 3804: Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA), "A bill to combat online infringement, and for other purposes." Referred to committee, it awaits further action. In fact, it needs a dagger thrust in its heart to kill it.

According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Richard Esguerra:

If enacted, this bill lets the Attorney General and Justice Department "break the Internet one domain at a time - by requiring domain registrars/registries, ISPs, DNS providers, and others to block Internet users from reaching certain websites."

Two online blacklists will be created:

-- one for web sites the Attorney General may censor or block, and

-- most disturbing, domain names the Justice Department decides (without judicial review) are "dedicated to infringing activities."

The bill doesn't mandate, but "strongly suggests" that second category domains be blocked "as well as providing legal immunity for Internet intermediaries and DNS operators" that do it willingly at the behest of authorities.

Without question, "tremendous pressure" will be applied to comply, the alternative perhaps being recrimination for refusing.

Though fairly short, COICA may dangerously impair free expression, "current Internet architecture, copyright doctrine, foreign policy," and more. In 2010, "efforts to re-write copyright law (targeting) 'piracy' online" have been shown "to have unintended consequences."

Like other 2009 and 2010 bills, COICA "is a censorship bill that runs roughshod over freedom of speech on the Internet," an outrageous First Amendment violation by "tr(ying) to define a site 'dedicated to infringing activities,' (by) block(ing) a whole domain," not that one part alone if legally proved, rather than by government edict.

The 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) "already gives copyright owners legal tools to remove infringing material piece-by-piece." It also lets them get injunctions requiring ISPs block infringing offshore sites. Misusing these provisions "have had a tremendously damaging impact on fair use and free expression."

If enacted, Leahy's COICA will take a giant leap, "streamlin(ing) and vastly expand(ing)" existing damage. It'll let the Attorney General shut down domains, including their "blog posts, images, backups, and files." As a result, "legitimate, protected speech will be taken down in the name of copyright enforcement," and basic Internet infrastructure will be undermined.

For example: when users enter web site URLs into their browsers, the domain name system server identifies their Internet location. COICA will let the Attorney General "prevent the players in (those) domain system(s), (possibly including your ISP) from telling you the truth about a website's location."

It's also unclear what would be accessed - perhaps a message saying "a site or page could not be found, without explaining why? Would users receive some kind of notice," possibly saying "the site they were seeking was made inaccessible at the behest of the government?"

COICA will force Internet "middlemen" to act like the "Internet doesn't exist," even though the site or page wanted "may otherwise be completely available and accessible."

Like many other pre and post-9/11 bills, COICA is police state legislation. It says America "approves of unilateral Internet censorship," no matter that it's constitutionally illegal.

America is on a fast track toward despotism, civil liberties threatened by bills like COICA, mandating "Unilateral censorship of websites (Washington) doesn't like...."

Moreover, its "poorly drafted definitions....threaten fair use online, endanger innovative backup services, and raises questions about how new (Internet intermediary) obligations....fit with existing US secondary liability rules and the DMCA copyright safe harbor regime."

Also, it's easy to get blacklisted because COICA streamlines the procedure for adding domains - "including a McCarthy-like (one) of public snitching." Then, once on, it's hard getting off, just like persons unfairly vilified struggle to regain their reputations, often without success.

COICA takes but doesn't give in letting Washington "play an endless game of whack-a-mole, blocking one domain after another," even though sophisticated users will figure out a way to access censored sites. Maybe them, but not ordinary ones denied free access to constitutionally protected information.

Bottom line - COICA lets Washington "suppress truthful speech and could block access to a wealth of non-infringing" material. It will do little to end online infringement, but plenty of constitutional damage, besides other vast erosion in recent years heading toward ending democratic freedoms unless public awareness gets aroused enough to stop it in time.

On September 29, Tech Daily Dose.nationaljournal.com reported possible COICA changes, "addressing some of the concerns raised by technology and public interest groups," pertaining to online piracy and counterfeiting. COICA remains a work in progress. What emerges in final form demands close scrutiny.

Obama's Proposal to End Online Privacy - Another Police State Measure if Enacted

Merriam-Webster defines a police state as follows:

"a political unit characterized by repressive government control of political, economic, and social life usually by an arbitrary exercise of power by police and especially secret police in place of regular operation of administrative and judicial organs of the government according to publicly known legal procedures."

In other words: overt and covert hardline control, maintained by loss of personal freedoms, civil liberties, and constitutional protections though legislation, pervasive surveillance, lawless privacy intrusions, and midnight or pre-dawn arrests on whatever grounds authorities charge against which there's no defense.

In the last decade especially, America has recklessly gone that route, one government edict, pronouncement or congressional bill at a time. Obama has advanced the Bush agenda further for totalitarian control, including the right to imprison anyone for their beliefs, assassinate American citizens extrajudicially, and much more.

Since taking office, he's done the impossible, compiling a worse record than his fiercest critics feared, exceeding Bush in militarism, harshness, lawlessness, and betrayal of the public trust. Besides waging imperial wars, he wrecked the American dream, and hardened a police state apparatus to protect privilege from progressive change. He also waged war on free expression, dissent, due process, judicial fairness and privacy rights.

He calls heroic activism "violent extremism" and persecutes Muslims for their faith and ethnicity. He says anti-war supporters are anti-American, providing "material support to terrorism," a serious charge carrying 15 years imprisonment. It's why former Reagan administration Assistant Treasury Secretary, Paul Craig Roberts, says "the Bush and Obama regimes" wrecked the country. "America, as people of my generation knew it, no longer exists."

But wait, the worst is yet to come, including subverting privacy, what former Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis called "the most comprehensive of rights, and the right most valued by a free people." The Fourth Amendment and numerous laws embody it, requiring judicial warrants for most searches and seizures. Yet today's sophisticated technology enables lawless intrusions, absent congressional legislation prohibiting them.

New legislation, however, may mandate them, according to an Electronic Frontier Foundation alert saying:

"an Obama Administration proposal (will) end online privacy as we know it by requiring all Internet communication service providers - from Facebook to Skype to your webmail provider - to rebuild their systems to give the government backdoor access to all of your private Internet communications."

Planned legislation, so far not introduced or named is expected in 2011, the Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) saying "Federal law enforcement and national security officials are preparing to seek sweeping new regulations for the Internet, arguing that their ability to wiretap criminal and terrorism suspects is 'going dark' as people increasingly communicate online instead of by telephone."

CDT's vice president, James Dempsey said:

"They are really asking for the authority to redesign services that take advantage of the unique, and now pervasive, architecture of the Internet. They basically want to turn back the clock and make Internet services function the way" telephones work, making them simple to wiretap the same way but do it online digitally.

Currently, the 1994 Communications Assistance to Law Enforcement Act requires broadband networks to have intercept capabilities to permit digital and cellphone surveillance. However, for encrypted messages, ISPs must be ordered to unscramble them because they're not covered under the 1994 law. Further, providers can't unscramble some encrypt messages between users.

As a result, proposals may include the following:

-- mandate that communication services, including foreign-based ones doing business in America, have full unscrambling technology capabilities; and

-- require peer-to-peer software communication developers to redesign their intercept capabilities.

These ideas not only fly in the face of a free society, they contradict a congressionally-ordered 1996 National Research Council report that found back door access bad government policy, its committee chair, Professor Kenneth W. Dam, saying:

"While the use of encryption technologies is not a panacea for all information security policies, we believe that....our recommendation would lead to enhanced protection and privacy for individuals and businesses in many areas, ranging from cellular and other wireless phone conversations to electronic transmission of sensitive business or financial documents."

"It is true that the spread of encryption technologies will add to the burden of those in government who are charged with carrying out certain law enforcement and intelligence activities. But the many benefits to society of widespread commercial and private use of cryptography outweigh the disadvantages."

Further, according to government records, encryption rarely subverts law enforcement, statistics showing few case examples. In 1998, crytography expert, Professor Matt Blaze, questioned the technical capabilities of back door access. Now he says:

"This seems like a far more baffling battle in a lot of ways. In the 1990s, the government was trying to prevent something necessary, good and inevitable. (Now) they are trying to roll back something that already happened and that people are relying on."

Blaze added:

"We need to protect the country's information infrastructure....So how do you reconcile that with the policy of discouraging encryption broadly," or making it vulnerable to surveillance. Hackers and other experts have the same capabilities as government. Mandate back door access, and they'll find a way to block or otherwise subvert it.

According to computer expert Peter Neumann:

"The arguments haven't changed. 9/11 was something long predicted and it hasn't changed the fact that if you are going to do massive surveillance using the ability to decrypt - even with warrants, it would have to be done with enormously careful oversight. Given we don't have comp(uter) systems that are secure, the idea we will have adequate oversight is unattainable. Encryption has life-critical consequences."

Current and possible new legislation worries organizations like the CDT and its efforts "to keep the Internet open, innovative and free," what's fast eroding in America and may soon entirely dissappear. Apparently like Bush, Obama is committed to assuring it unless mass public outrage stops him. Even so, a kinder, gentler America "no longer exists."

Some Final Comments

On September 27, Tech Daily Dose.nationaljournal.com writer Eliza Krigman headlined, "Net Neutrality Bill Gives FCC No New Rulemaking Power," saying:

Leaked House Energy and Commerce Committee (chaired by so-called liberal Henry Waxman) draft bill information aims to subvert Net Neutrality, according to an unnamed source saying:

"This bill represents a giant retreat by some of those who claim to support net neutrality and sends the wrong signal to the FCC (that) will ultimately deal with this issue."

If enacted, it will let cable and telecom giants establish, among other provisions, premium higher-priced lanes (two Internets), effectively destroying Net Neutrality, subverting the last free and open space. Dirty politics and back room deals put the Internet up for grabs to the highest bidders, creating a two-tiered system, besides blocking entry for those who can't pay.

Waxman hopes for passage in the lame duck session. So far, efforts to advance Net Neutrality legislation have stalled, some congressional leaders saying anything this year is doubtful.

Post-election, cybersecurity will also come up in the form of a bill combining earlier ones introduced:

-- S. 773: Cybersecurity Act of 2009, and

-- S. 778: A bill to establish, within the Executive Office of the President, the Office of National Cybersecurity Advisor

Information on them can be accessed through the following link:

http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2009/11/struggle-for-net-neutrality.html

The revised measure will let Obama shut down parts of the Internet, as well as businesses and perhaps organizations, not complying with national emergency declared orders. Specifically, his order will last 30 days, renewable for another 60 before Congress may, if it wishes, intervene.

At issue, of course, is whether government can unconstitutionally regulate, restrict, censor or suppress online free expression, the direction Congress and the administration are heading.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.

Daily Fascism, US style

Land of the free?! Riiiiight......

Civil Rights Attorney Lynne Stewart Resentenced to 10-Year Term—Nearly Five Times Her Original Sentence

This entire case is grotesque and appalling. What a disgrace for the USA.

Obama Can Shut Down Internet For 4 Months Under New Emergency Powers

by Paul Joseph Watson for Prison Planet

President Obama will be handed the power to shut down the Internet for at least four months without Congressional oversight if the Senate votes for the infamous Internet ‘kill switch’ bill, which was approved by a key Senate committee yesterday and now moves to the floor.

The Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act, which is being pushed hard by Senator Joe Lieberman, would hand absolute power to the federal government to close down networks, and block incoming Internet traffic from certain countries under a declared national emergency.

Despite the Center for Democracy and Technology and 23 other privacy and technology organizations sending letters to Lieberman and other backers of the bill expressing concerns that the legislation could be used to stifle free speech, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee passed in the bill in advance of a vote on the Senate floor.

In response to widespread criticism of the bill, language was added that would force the government to seek congressional approval to extend emergency measures beyond 120 days. Still, this would hand Obama the authority to shut down the Internet on a whim without Congressional oversight or approval for a period of no less than four months.

The Senators pushing the bill rejected the claim that the bill was a ‘kill switch’ for the Internet, not by denying that Obama would be given the authority to shut down the Internet as part of this legislation, but by arguing that he already had the power to do so.

They argued “That the President already had authority under the Communications Act to “cause the closing of any facility or station for wire communication” when there is a “state or threat of war”, reports the Sydney Morning Herald.

Fears that the legislation is aimed at bringing the Internet under the regulatory power of the U.S. government in an offensive against free speech were heightened further on Sunday, when Lieberman revealed that the plan was to mimic China’s policies of policing the web with censorship and coercion.

“Right now China, the government, can disconnect parts of its Internet in case of war and we need to have that here too,” Lieberman told CNN’s Candy Crowley.

While media and public attention is overwhelmingly focused on the BP oil spill, the establishment is quietly preparing the framework that will allow Obama, or indeed any President who follows him, to bring down a technological iron curtain that will give the government a foot in the door on seizing complete control over the Internet.

As we have illustrated, fears surrounding cybersecurity have been hyped to mask the real agenda behind the bill, which is to strangle the runaway growth of alternative and independent media outlets which are exposing government atrocities, cover-ups and cronyism like never before.

Indeed, China uses similar rhetoric about the need to maintain “security” and combating cyber warfare by regulating the web, when in reality their entire program is focused around silencing anyone who criticizes the state.

The real agenda behind government control of the Internet has always been to strangle and suffocate independent media outlets who are now competing with and even displacing establishment press organs, with websites like the Drudge Report now attracting more traffic than many large newspapers combined. As part of this war against independent media, the FTC recently proposing a “Drudge Tax” that would force independent media organizations to pay fees that would be used to fund mainstream newspapers.

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Commentary: Joe Lieberman. "Evil Joe". Lieberman has this almost satanic ability to radiate evil and to always, always, be right in the middle of most, if not all, the really ugly and evil plans the Empire is cooking up for the rest of us. In the same vein as Kissinger, Perle or Dershowitz, Lieberman is a living caricature of the "evil Jew" of the Nazi propaganda. Why is that? Why do these guys go out of their way to match the most extreme anti-Jewish stereotypes? I just don't get it...

The Saker

Is America ‘Yearning For Fascism?’

By Chris Hedges for TruthDig

The language of violence always presages violence. I watched it in war after war from Latin America to the Balkans. The impoverishment of a working class and the snuffing out of hope and opportunity always produce angry mobs ready to kill and be killed. A bankrupt, liberal elite, which proves ineffectual against the rich and the criminal, always gets swept aside, in times of economic collapse, before thugs and demagogues emerge to play to the passions of the crowd. I have seen this drama. I know each act. I know how it ends. I have heard it in other tongues in other lands. I recognize the same stock characters, the buffoons, charlatans and fools, the same confused crowds and the same impotent and despised liberal class that deserves the hatred it engenders.

"We are ruled not by two parties but one party," Cynthia McKinney, who ran for president on the Green Party ticket, told me. "It is the party of money and war. Our country has been hijacked. And we have to take the country away from those who have hijacked it. The only question now is whose revolution gets funded."

The Democrats and their liberal apologists are so oblivious to the profound personal and economic despair sweeping through this country that they think offering unemployed people the right to keep their unemployed children on their nonexistent health care policies is a step forward. They think that passing a jobs bill that will give tax credits to corporations is a rational response to an unemployment rate that is, in real terms, close to 20 percent. They think that making ordinary Americans, one in eight of whom depends on food stamps to eat, fork over trillions in taxpayer dollars to pay for the crimes of Wall Street and war is acceptable. They think that the refusal to save the estimated 2.4 million people who will be forced out of their homes by foreclosure this year is justified by the bloodless language of fiscal austerity. The message is clear. Laws do not apply to the power elite. Our government does not work. And the longer we stand by and do nothing, the longer we refuse to embrace and recognize the legitimate rage of the working class, the faster we will see our anemic democracy die.

The unraveling of America mirrors the unraveling of Yugoslavia. The Balkan war was not caused by ancient ethnic hatreds. It was caused by the economic collapse of Yugoslavia. The petty criminals and goons who took power harnessed the anger and despair of the unemployed and the desperate. They singled out convenient scapegoats from ethnic Croats to Muslims to Albanians to Gypsies. They set in motion movements that unleashed a feeding frenzy leading to war and self-immolation. There is little difference between the ludicrous would-be poet Radovan Karadzic, who was a figure of ridicule in Sarajevo before the war, and the moronic Glenn Beck or Sarah Palin. There is little difference between the Oath Keepers and the Serbian militias. We can laugh at these people, but they are not the fools. We are.

The longer we appeal to the Democrats, who are servants of corporate interests, the more stupid and ineffectual we become. Sixty-one percent of Americans believe the country is in decline, according to a recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, and they are right. Only 25 percent of those polled said the government can be trusted to protect the interests of the American people. If we do not embrace this outrage and distrust as our own it will be expressed through a terrifying right-wing backlash.

"It is time for us to stop talking about right and left," McKinney told me. "The old political paradigm that serves the interests of the people who put us in this predicament will not be the paradigm that gets us out of this. I am a child of the South. Janet Napolitano tells me I need to be afraid of people who are labeled white supremacists but I was raised around white supremacists. I am not afraid of white supremacists. I am concerned about my own government. The Patriot Act did not come from the white supremacists, it came from the White House and Congress. Citizens United did not come from white supremacists, it came from the Supreme Court. Our problem is a problem of governance. I am willing to reach across traditional barriers that have been skillfully constructed by people who benefit from the way the system is organized."

We are bound to a party that has betrayed every principle we claim to espouse, from universal health care to an end to our permanent war economy, to a demand for quality and affordable public education, to a concern for the jobs of the working class. And the hatred expressed within right-wing movements for the college-educated elite, who created or at least did nothing to halt the financial debacle, is not misplaced. Our educated elite, wallowing in self-righteousness, wasted its time in the boutique activism of political correctness as tens of millions of workers lost their jobs. The shouting of racist and bigoted words at black and gay members of Congress, the spitting on a black member of the House, the tossing of bricks through the windows of legislators' offices, are part of the language of rebellion. It is as much a revolt against the educated elite as it is against the government. The blame lies with us. We created the monster.

When someone like Palin posts a map with cross hairs on the districts of Democrats, when she says "Don't Retreat, Instead-RELOAD!" there are desperate people cleaning their weapons who listen. When Christian fascists stand in the pulpits of megachurches and denounce Barack Obama as the Antichrist, there are messianic believers who listen. When a Republican lawmaker shouts "baby killer" at Michigan Democrat Bart Stupak, there are violent extremists who see the mission of saving the unborn as a sacred duty. They have little left to lose. We made sure of that. And the violence they inflict is an expression of the violence they endure.

These movements are not yet full-blown fascist movements. They do not openly call for the extermination of ethnic or religious groups. They do not openly advocate violence. But, as I was told by Fritz Stern, a scholar of fascism who has written about the origins of Nazism, "In Germany there was a yearning for fascism before fascism was invented." It is the yearning that we now see, and it is dangerous. If we do not immediately reincorporate the unemployed and the poor back into the economy, giving them jobs and relief from crippling debt, then the nascent racism and violence that are leaping up around the edges of American society will become a full-blown conflagration.

Left unchecked, the hatred for radical Islam will transform itself into a hatred for Muslims. The hatred for undocumented workers will become a hatred for Mexicans and Central Americans. The hatred for those not defined by this largely white movement as American patriots will become a hatred for African-Americans. The hatred for liberals will morph into a hatred for all democratic institutions, from universities to government agencies to the press. Our continued impotence and cowardice, our refusal to articulate this anger and stand up in open defiance to the Democrats and the Republicans, will see us swept aside for an age of terror and blood.
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Commentary: has anybody noticed that Chris Hedges has been on a spree of very good articles recently? If not, goggle his recent stuff, there is a lot of very insightful pieces there.

While I have some disagreements about his characterization of the causes of war in the former Yugoslavia, I do agree with him that the potential for Fascism in the USA is huge and frightening. I would even go further and argue that while the US population might have a potential for Fascism, the regime in Washington and the elite which runs the USA is *already* clearly Fascist. I have written several articles about the growth of Fascism in the USA (Rudy Guiliani - the face of American Fascism, When is the use of the 'F' word appropriate?, The only thing which can prevent a Fascist President in 2008) and I would say that all my worst fears soon became true: Obama and his Democracts are Fascists is the worst sense of the word and I don't see *any* reason to hope in the foreseeable future.

So yes, combine a collapsing economy, militarism run amok, nationalist and outright xenophobic feelings on the rise, a totally crushed labor movement and, worse, a totally crushed labor class, and you get a lot of unreleased anger which can very easily be channelled into exactly the kind of 'Imperial' ideology which both factions of the Republicrat Party have been promoting since WWII.

It is true that there are millions of Americans out there who hate Washington and many of them fully understand that things are only going to get worse. The frightening thing is that these Americans are the biggest danger for the elites who have taken over the country. This, in turn, means that it is quite possible that martial law might be introduced in the country under some 'patriotically pious' pretext. More cops, more jails, more prisons, the National Guard under Federal authority, FEMA camps, ICE raids, DEA raids, FBI raids, Blackwater, a USNORTHCOM, Presidential authority to suspend the Constitution in a national crisis, the CIA and NSA on an orgy of snooping targeting Americans, the iron grip control of the press by Jewish and Christian Zionists, the PATRIOT act and all the rest of it are only more dots connecting a line which can only be called Fascism.

Sooner or later, they will be arresting and jailing people for 'crimethink'. Of course, there are already political prisoners in the USA, but their number will shoot through the roof.

The Saker

Obama confidant's spine-chilling proposal

by Glenn Greewald for Salon.com

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 Sunstein desires has been a prominent feature of U.S. Government actions over the last decade, including in some recently revealed practices of the current administration, and the mindset in which it is grounded explains a great deal about our political class. All of that makes Sunstein's paper worth examining in greater detail.

* * * * *

Initially, note how similar Sunstein's proposal is to multiple, controversial stealth efforts by the Bush administration to secretly influence and shape our political debates. The Bush Pentagon employed teams of former Generals to pose as "independent analysts" in the media while secretly coordinating their talking points and messaging about wars and detention policies with the Pentagon. Bush officials secretly paid supposedly "independent" voices, such as Armstrong Williams and Maggie Gallagher, to advocate pro-Bush policies while failing to disclose their contracts. In Iraq, the Bush Pentagon hired a company, Lincoln Park, which paid newspapers to plant pro-U.S. articles while pretending it came from Iraqi citizens. In response to all of this, Democrats typically accused the Bush administration of engaging in government-sponsored propaganda -- and when it was done domestically, suggested this was illegal propaganda. Indeed, there is a very strong case to make that what Sunstein is advocating is itself illegal under long-standing statutes prohibiting government "propaganda" within the U.S., aimed at American citizens:

As explained in a March 21, 2005 report by the Congressional Research Service, "publicity or propaganda" is defined by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) to mean either (1) self-aggrandizement by public officials, (2) purely partisan activity, or (3) "covert propaganda." By covert propaganda, GAO means information which originates from the government but is unattributed and made to appear as though it came from a third party.

Covert government propaganda is exactly what Sunstein craves. His mentality is indistinguishable from the Bush mindset that led to these abuses, and he hardly tries to claim otherwise. Indeed, he favorably cites both the covert Lincoln Park program as well as Paul Bremer's closing of Iraqi newspapers which published stories the U.S. Government disliked, and justifies them as arguably necessary to combat "false conspiracy theories" in Iraq -- the same goal Sunstein has for the U.S.

Sunstein's response to these criticisms is easy to find in what he writes, and is as telling as the proposal itself. He acknowledges that some "conspiracy theories" previously dismissed as insane and fringe have turned out to be entirely true (his examples: the CIA really did secretly administer LSD in "mind control" experiments; the DOD really did plot the commission of terrorist acts inside the U.S. with the intent to blame Castro; the Nixon White House really did bug the DNC headquarters). Given that history, how could it possibly be justified for the U.S. Government to institute covert programs designed to undermine anti-government "conspiracy theories," discredit government critics, and increase faith and trust in government pronouncements? Because, says Sunstein, such powers are warranted only when wielded by truly well-intentioned government officials who want to spread The Truth and Do Good -- i.e., when used by people like Cass Sunstein and Barack Obama:

Throughout, we assume a well-motivated government that aims to eliminate conspiracy theories, or draw their poison, if and only if social welfare is improved by doing so.

But it's precisely because the Government is so often not "well-motivated" that such powers are so dangerous. Advocating them on the ground that "we will use them well" is every authoritarian's claim. More than anything else, this is the toxic mentality that consumes our political culture: when our side does X, X is Good, because we're Good and are working for Good outcomes. That was what led hordes of Bush followers to endorse the same large-government surveillance programs they long claimed to oppose, and what leads so many Obama supporters now to justify actions that they spent the last eight years opposing.

* * * * *

Consider the recent revelation that the Obama administration has been making very large, undisclosed payments to MIT Professor Jonathan Gruber to provide consultation on the President's health care plan. With this lucrative arrangement in place, Gruber spent the entire year offering public justifications for Obama's health care plan, typically without disclosing these payments, and far worse, was repeatedly held out by the White House -- falsely -- as an "independent" or "objective" authority. Obama allies in the media constantly cited Gruber's analysis to support their defenses of the President's plan, and the White House, in turn, then cited those media reports as proof that their plan would succeed. This created an infinite "feedback loop" in favor of Obama's health care plan which -- unbeknownst to the public -- was all being generated by someone who was receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in secret from the administration (read this to see exactly how it worked).

In other words, this arrangement was quite similar to the Armstrong Williams and Maggie Gallagher scandals which Democrats, in virtual lockstep, condemned. Paul Krugman, for instance, in 2005 angrily lambasted right-wing pundits and policy analysts who received secret, undisclosed payments, and said they lack "intellectual integrity"; he specifically cited the Armstrong Williams case. Yet the very same Paul Krugman last week attacked Marcy Wheeler for helping to uncover the Gruber payments by accusing her of being "just like the right-wingers with their endless supply of fake scandals." What is one key difference? Unlike Williams and Gallagher, Jonathan Gruber is a Good, Well-Intentioned Person with Good Views -- he favors health care -- and so massive, undisclosed payments from the same administration he's defending are dismissed as a "fake scandal."

Sunstein himself -- as part of his 2008 paper -- explicitly advocates that the Government should pay what he calls "credible independent experts" to advocate on the Government's behalf, a policy he says would be more effective because people don't trust the Government itself and would only listen to people they believe are "independent." In so arguing, Sunstein cites the Armstrong Williams scandal not as something that is wrong in itself, but as a potential risk of this tactic (i.e., that it might leak out), and thus suggests that "government can supply these independent experts with information and perhaps prod them into action from behind the scenes," but warns that "too close a connection will be self-defeating if it is exposed." In other words, Sunstein wants the Government to replicate the Armstrong Williams arrangement as a means of more credibly disseminating propaganda -- i.e., pretending that someone is an "independent" expert when they're actually being "prodded" and even paid "behind the scenes" by the Government -- but he wants to be more careful about how the arrangement is described (don't make the control explicit) so that embarrassment can be avoided if it ends up being exposed.

In this 2008 paper, then, Sunstein advocated, in essence, exactly what the Obama administration has been doing all year with Gruber: covertly paying people who can be falsely held up as "independent" analysts in order to more credibly promote the Government line. Most Democrats agreed this was a deceitful and dangerous act when Bush did it, but with Obama and some of his supporters, undisclosed arrangements of this sort seem to be different. Why? Because, as Sunstein puts it: we have "a well-motivated government" doing this so that "social welfare is improved." Thus, just like state secrets, indefinite detention, military commissions and covert, unauthorized wars, what was once deemed so pernicious during the Bush years -- coordinated government/media propaganda -- is instantaneously transformed into something Good.

* * * * *

What is most odious and revealing about Sunstein's worldview is his condescending, self-loving belief that "false conspiracy theories" are largely the province of fringe, ignorant Internet masses and the Muslim world. That, he claims, is where these conspiracy theories thrive most vibrantly, and he focuses on various 9/11 theories -- both domestically and in Muslim countries -- as his prime example.

It's certainly true that one can easily find irrational conspiracy theories in those venues, but some of the most destructive "false conspiracy theories" have emanated from the very entity Sunstein wants to endow with covert propaganda power: namely, the U.S. Government itself, along with its elite media defenders. Moreover, "crazy conspiracy theorist" has long been the favorite epithet of those same parties to discredit people trying to expose elite wrongdoing and corruption.

Who is it who relentlessly spread "false conspiracy theories" of Saddam-engineered anthrax attacks and Iraq-created mushroom clouds and a Ba'athist/Al-Qaeda alliance -- the most destructive conspiracy theories of the last generation? And who is it who demonized as "conspiracy-mongers" people who warned that the U.S. Government was illegally spying on its citizens, systematically torturing people, attempting to establish permanent bases in the Middle East, or engineering massive bailout plans to transfer extreme wealth to the industries which own the Government? The most chronic and dangerous purveyors of "conspiracy theory" games are the very people Sunstein thinks should be empowered to control our political debates through deceit and government resources: namely, the Government itself and the Enlightened Elite like him.

It is this history of government deceit and wrongdoing that renders Sunstein's desire to use covert propaganda to "undermine" anti-government speech so repugnant. The reason conspiracy theories resonate so much is precisely that people have learned -- rationally -- to distrust government actions and statements. Sunstein's proposed covert propaganda scheme is a perfect illustration of why that is. In other words, people don't trust the Government and "conspiracy theories" are so pervasive precisely because government is typically filled with people like Cass Sunstein, who think that systematic deceit and government-sponsored manipulation are justified by their own Goodness and Superior Wisdom.

UPDATE: I don't want to make this primarily about the Gruber scandal -- I cited that only as an example of the type of mischief that this mindset produces -- but just to respond quickly to the typical Gruber defenses already appearing in comments: (1) Gruber's work was only for HHS and had nothing to do with the White House (false); (2) he should have disclosed his payments, but the White House did nothing wrong (false: it repeatedly described him as "independent" and "objective" and constantly cited allied media stories based in Gruber's work); (3) Gruber advocated views he would have advocated anyway in the absence of payment (probably true, but wasn't that also true for life-long conservative Armstrong Williams, life-long social conservative Maggie Gallagher, and the pro-war Pentagon Generals, all of whom mounted the same defense?); and (4) Williams/Gallagher were explicitly paid to advocate particular views while Gruber wasn't (true: that's exactly the arrangement Sunstein advocates to avoid "embarrassment" in the event of disclosure, and it's absurd to suggest that someone being paid many hundreds of thousands of dollars is unaware of what their paymasters want said; that's why disclosure is so imperative).

The point is that there are severe dangers to the Government covertly using its resources to "infiltrate" discussions and to shape political debates using undisclosed and manipulative means. It's called "covert propaganda" and it should be opposed regardless of who is in control of it or what its policy aims are.

UPDATE II: Ironically, this is the same administration that recently announced a new regulation dictating that "bloggers who review products must disclose any connection with advertisers, including, in most cases, the receipt of free products and whether or not they were paid in any way by advertisers, as occurs frequently." Without such disclosure, the administration reasoned, the public may not be aware of important hidden incentives (h/t pasquin). Yet the same administration pays an MIT analyst hundreds of thousands of dollars to advocate their most controversial proposed program while they hold him out as "objective," and selects as their Chief Regulator someone who wants government agents to covertly mold political discussions "anonymously or even with false identities."

UPDATE III: Just to get a sense for what an extremist Cass Sunstein is (which itself is ironic, given that his paper calls for "cognitive infiltration of extremist groups," as the Abstract puts it), marvel at this paragraph:

So Sunstein isn't calling right now for proposals (1) and (2) -- having Government "ban conspiracy theorizing" or "impose some kind of tax on those who" do it -- but he says "each will have a place under imaginable conditions." I'd love to know the "conditions" under which the government-enforced banning of conspiracy theories or the imposition of taxes on those who advocate them will "have a place." That would require, at a bare minumum, a repeal of the First Amendment. Anyone who believes this should, for that reason alone, be barred from any meaningful government position.

UPDATE IV: Paul Krugman has replied to the part of this post which pertains to him and Jonathan Gruber; my response to that is here.