By Glenn Greenwald 24 Feb 2014, 6:25 PM EST
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A page from a GCHQ top
secret document prepared by its secretive JTRIG unit
One of the many pressing
stories that remains to be told from the Snowden archive is how western
intelligence agencies are attempting to manipulate and control online discourse
with extreme tactics of deception and reputation-destruction. It’s time to tell
a chunk of that story, complete with the relevant documents.
Over the last several weeks,
I worked with NBC News to publish a series of articles about “dirty
trick” tactics used by GCHQ’s previously secret unit, JTRIG (Joint
Threat Research Intelligence Group). These were based on four classified GCHQ documents presented
to the NSA and the other three partners in the English-speaking “Five
Eyes” alliance. Today, we at the Intercept are publishing another
new JTRIG document, in full, entitled “The Art of Deception: Training for
Online Covert Operations.”
By publishing these stories
one by one, our NBC reporting highlighted some of the key, discrete
revelations: the monitoring of YouTube and Blogger, the targeting of Anonymous
with the very same DDoS attacks they accuse “hacktivists” of using, the use of
“honey traps” (luring people into compromising situations using sex) and
destructive viruses. But, here, I want to focus and elaborate on the
overarching point revealed by all of these documents: namely, that these
agencies are attempting to control, infiltrate, manipulate, and warp online
discourse, and in doing so, are compromising the integrity of the internet
itself.
Among the core
self-identified purposes of JTRIG are two tactics: (1) to inject all
sorts of false material onto the internet in order to destroy the reputation of
its targets; and (2) to use social sciences and other techniques to
manipulate online discourse and activism to generate outcomes it considers
desirable. To see how extremist these programs are, just consider the tactics
they boast of using to achieve those ends: “false flag operations” (posting
material to the internet and falsely attributing it to someone else), fake
victim blog posts (pretending to be a victim of the individual whose reputation
they want to destroy), and posting “negative information” on various
forums. Here is one illustrative list of tactics from the latest GCHQ
document we’re publishing today:
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Other tactics aimed at
individuals are listed here, under the revealing title “discredit a target”:
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Then there are the tactics
used to destroy companies the agency targets:
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GCHQ describes the purpose
of JTRIG in starkly clear terms: “using online techniques to make something
happen in the real or cyber world,” including “information ops (influence or
disruption).”
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Critically, the “targets”
for this deceit and reputation-destruction extend far beyond the customary
roster of normal spycraft: hostile nations and their leaders, military
agencies, and intelligence services. In fact, the discussion of many of these
techniques occurs in the context of using them in lieu of “traditional law
enforcement” against people suspected (but not charged or convicted) of
ordinary crimes or, more broadly still, “hacktivism”, meaning those who use
online protest activity for political ends.
The title page of one of
these documents reflects the agency’s own awareness that it is “pushing the
boundaries” by using “cyber offensive” techniques against people who have nothing
to do with terrorism or national security threats, and indeed, centrally
involves law enforcement agents who investigate ordinary crimes:
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No matter your views on
Anonymous, “hacktivists” or garden-variety criminals, it is not difficult to
see how dangerous it is to have secret government agencies being able to target
any individuals they want – who have never been charged with, let alone
convicted of, any crimes – with these sorts of online,
deception-based tactics of reputation destruction and disruption. There is a
strong argument to make, as Jay
Leiderman demonstrated in the Guardian in the context of the Paypal 14
hacktivist persecution, that the “denial of service” tactics used by
hacktivists result in (at most) trivial damage (far less than the cyber-warfare
tactics favored
by the US and UK) and are far more akin to the type of political protest
protected by the First Amendment.
The broader point is that,
far beyond hacktivists, these surveillance agencies have vested themselves with
the power to deliberately ruin people’s reputations and disrupt their online
political activity even though they’ve been charged with no crimes, and even
though their actions have no conceivable connection to terrorism or even
national security threats. As Anonymous expert Gabriella Coleman of McGill
University told me, “targeting Anonymous and hacktivists amounts to targeting
citizens for expressing their political beliefs, resulting in the stifling of
legitimate dissent.” Pointing to this
study she published, Professor Coleman vehemently contested the
assertion that “there is anything terrorist/violent in their
actions.”
Government plans to monitor
and influence internet communications, and covertly infiltrate online
communities in order to sow dissension and disseminate false information, have
long been the source of speculation. Harvard Law Professor Cass Sunstein,
a close Obama adviser and the White House’s former head of the Office of
Information and Regulatory Affairs, wrote a controversial paper
in 2008 proposing that the US government employ teams of covert
agents and pseudo-”independent” advocates to “cognitively infiltrate”
online groups and websites, as well as other activist groups.
Sunstein also proposed
sending covert agents into “chat rooms, online social networks, or even
real-space groups” which spread what he views as false and damaging “conspiracy
theories” about the government. Ironically, the very same Sunstein was recently
named by Obama to serve as a member of the NSA review panel created by the
White House, one that – while disputing key NSA claims – proceeded to propose many
cosmetic reforms to the agency’s powers (most of which were ignored by
the President who appointed them).
But these GCHQ documents are
the first to prove that a major western government is using some of the most
controversial techniques to disseminate deception online and harm the
reputations of targets. Under the tactics they use, the state is deliberately
spreading lies on the internet about whichever individuals it targets,
including the use of what GCHQ itself calls “false flag operations” and emails
to people’s families and friends. Who would possibly trust a government to
exercise these powers at all, let alone do so in secret, with virtually no
oversight, and outside of any cognizable legal framework?
Then there is the use of
psychology and other social sciences to not only understand, but shape and
control, how online activism and discourse unfolds. Today’s newly published
document touts the work of GCHQ’s “Human Science Operations Cell,” devoted to
“online human intelligence” and “strategic influence and disruption”:
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Under the title “Online
Covert Action”, the document details a variety of means to engage in “influence
and info ops” as well as “disruption and computer net attack,” while dissecting
how human beings can be manipulated using “leaders,” “trust,” “obedience” and
“compliance”:
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The documents lay out theories of how humans interact with one another, particularly online, and then attempt to identify ways to influence the outcomes – or “game” it:
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We submitted numerous
questions to GCHQ, including: (1) Does GCHQ in fact engage in “false flag
operations” where material is posted to the Internet and falsely attributed to
someone else?; (2) Does GCHQ engage in efforts to influence or manipulate
political discourse online?; and (3) Does GCHQ’s mandate include targeting
common criminals (such as boiler room operators), or only foreign threats?
As usual, they ignored those
questions and opted instead to send their vague and nonresponsive boilerplate:
“It is a longstanding policy that we do not comment on intelligence matters.
Furthermore, all of GCHQ’s work is carried out in accordance with a strict
legal and policy framework which ensures that our activities are authorised,
necessary and proportionate, and that there is rigorous oversight, including
from the Secretary of State, the Interception and Intelligence Services
Commissioners and the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee. All our
operational processes rigorously support this position.”
These agencies’ refusal to
“comment on intelligence matters” – meaning: talk at all about anything and
everything they do – is precisely why whistleblowing is so urgent, the
journalism that supports it so clearly in the public interest, and the
increasingly unhinged attacks by these agencies so
easy to understand. Claims that government agencies are infiltrating online
communities and engaging in “false flag operations” to discredit targets are
often dismissed as conspiracy theories, but these documents leave no doubt they
are doing precisely that.
Whatever else is true, no
government should be able to engage in these tactics: what justification is
there for having government agencies target people – who have been charged with
no crime – for reputation-destruction, infiltrate online political communities,
and develop techniques for manipulating online discourse? But to allow those
actions with no public knowledge or accountability is particularly
unjustifiable.
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