Can you create cutting edge \u201cdeep fake\u201d videos, spy on people using household appliances, and make massive data dragnets? If so, the Pentagon wants to hear from you so it can amp up its manipulation efforts.
US Special Operations Command (US SOCOM) has issued proposal requests for a whole host of dodgy services, according to new documents obtained by The Intercept.
Specifically, the Pentagon is looking for \u201cnext generation capability to \u2018takeover\u2019 Internet of Things (IoT) devices in order to collect data and information from local populaces to enable a breakdown of what messaging might be popular and accepted through sifting of data once received.\u201d
For what purpose? \u201cThis would enable MISO [Military Information Support Operations] to craft and promote messages that may be more readily received by the local populace in relevant peer\/near peer environments,\u201d according to the document.
Despite publicly obsessing over others\u2019 foreign interference and propaganda, Washington is now openly admitting that it is actively seeking these new technologies for its own \u201cinfluence operations, digital deception, communication disruption, and disinformation campaigns at the tactical edge and operational levels.\u201d You know, exactly the same kind of thing, over which it drums up fear as a threat to freedom and democracy among the general public.
Earlier this year, a Washington-based advisory firm OODA published a report warning that Chinese-made household items could not only be spying on you, but basically fronting for the Chinese government. The report\u2019s author called for the British government to act on claims that Chinese-made Internet of Things appliances, and even car components, can collect and transmit data through cellular 5G networks to Chinese companies, which could then be ordered to pass it on to the government. The story was hysterically splashed across British media.
OODA describes itself as a \u201cglobal strategic advisory firm with deep DNA in global security, technology and intelligence issues.\u201d The genetics run deep, indeed: straight to the Pentagon and Western intelligence communities where its executives, experts and advisers have past or current working relationships.
So now it looks like calls to ban Chinese household appliances for their spying potential have turned into Washington wanting to get in on the action by obtaining the best possible front row seat as you stand in front of your refrigerator at midnight, chugging chocolate milk straight from the carton.
The Pentagon also wants to be able to create \u201cdeep fake\u201d videos that can realistically portray fake events as real, in an attempt to manipulate the target viewer(s). Or, as the Pentagon puts it, to \u201cgenerate messages and influence operations via non-traditional channels in relevant peer\/near peer environments.\u201d It\u2019s hard to imagine a more glaring example of actual fake news, yet the Pentagon wants to produce it in the way that Netflix makes movies and TV shows.
Finally, the Pentagon says that they want to get their hands on \u201ca next generation capability to collect disparate data through public and open source information streams such as social media, local media, etc. to enable MISO to craft and direct influence operations and messages in relevant peer\/near peer environments.\u201d
Some might be tempted to just shrug this off as conventional practice because, when the military is tracking down bad guys, they\u2019re obviously going to want to use every possible tool available at their disposal \u2013 and constantly seek to expand that tool box. But recent evidence suggests that military-grade collection and subversion tools targeting online and conventional information platforms have largely been turned on the average citizen for the purpose of protecting the establishment and its various narratives from dissent rather than for reasons of national security.
Last December, for example, Twitter CEO Elon Musk worked with a journalist to reveal the collusion between US government authorities and the social media platform to manipulate and censor public debate over the Covid-19 pandemic. According to internal Twitter documents, one of the first meetings that the Biden Administration requested with Twitter executives was on the topic of Covid vaccines and specific high-profile accounts that deviated from the official narrative. According to the journalist, David Zweig, \u201cTwitter did suppress views \u2013 many from doctors and scientific experts \u2013 that conflicted with the official positions of the White House. As a result, legitimate findings and questions that would have expanded the public debate went missing.\u201d He added that, \u201cWith Covid, this bias bent heavily toward establishment dogmas,\u201d and cited examples of various experts, including prominent epidemiologists, whose views were censored as a result of being qualified by the Twitter staff as Covid \u201cmisinformation.\u201d
Earlier this year, a British whistleblower also revealed that critics of Covid-19-related lockdowns and vaccine mandates \u2013 including prominent journalists and politicians \u2013 were monitored by the UK army\u2019s information warfare brigade. The 77th Brigade, created in 2015 and described by the media at the time as composed of \u201cwarriors who don’t just carry weapons, but who are also skilled in using social media such as Twitter and Facebook, and the dark arts of \u2018psyops\u2019\u201d.
The Canadian military was also caught using propaganda techniques honed on the battlefield in Afghanistan to shape the Covid debate by boosting the government\u2019s narrative and attempting to head off any civil unrest over the harsh mandates.
The Pentagon\u2019s latest wish list raises concerns that these tools will also be deployed on average Americans or Westerners for purposes of control and manipulation. Last September, the Pentagon vowed to review its secret psyops, but only after public outrage when a group of researchers suggested collusion between US government entities and American online platforms like Twitter and Facebook to control online narratives with fake accounts. Was the lesson learned to stop deploying psyops on average citizens? Or was it just to do a better job of keeping it secret?
Not that there\u2019s any shortage of Western establishment cheerleaders demanding even more psychological manipulation efforts by the US government, if only to counter \u201cdisinformation\u201d from foreign adversaries.
It seems that we\u2019ve now come to the point where sticking it to Russia and China means actively cheerleading the increasingly militarized efforts by our self-styled defenders of freedom and democracy to brainwash their own people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n