Isis online

In its ever expanding war against Syria, now under the broader pretext of ‘fighting Isis,” the US government has employed a variety of tactics. From arming terrorists whom it dishonestly labels “moderates,” to encouraging Turkey and Jordan to host jihadi training centers, to the CIA working with the Muslim Brotherhood to funnel weapons and fighters into Syria, the US and its allies have demonstrated the multi-faceted approach they’re taking to fighting Isis, extremism, and the Syrian government.
The war, once believed to be relegated solely to Syria and Iraq, has now been broadened to a regional, and indeed, a global war with no geographical boundaries or time limits. And now, the Obama administration has announced that its war will also be waged in cyberspace. As the NY Times reported:
“At the heart of the plan is expanding a tiny State Department agency, the Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications, to harness all the existing attempts at countermessaging by much larger federal departments, including the Pentagon, Homeland Security and intelligence agencies. The center would also coordinate and amplify similar messaging by foreign allies and nongovernment agencies, as well as by prominent Muslim academics, community leaders and religious scholars who oppose the Islamic State.”
While the use of social media and other online platforms is nothing new, the coordinated nature of the program demonstrates the broader capacity the US state department and intelligence agencies are going to employ in penetrating cyberspace to, in theory, counter Isis and other extremists groups’ propaganda. But is this all they’ll be doing? There is good reason to doubt the seemingly innocuous sounding mission of the Centre for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications (CSCC).
It is clear that the US government is actively going to expand its social media and cyberspace presence vis-à-vis online extremism. According to the expressly stated goal, the CSCC is intended to:
“…coordinate, orient, and inform government-wide foreign communications activities targeted against terrorism and violent extremism… CSCC is comprised of three interactive components. The integrated analysis component leverages the Intelligence Community and other substantive experts to ensure CSCC communicators benefit from the best information and analysis available. The plans and operations component draws on this input to devise effective ways to counter the terrorist narrative. The Digital Outreach Team actively and openly engages in Arabic, Urdu, Punjabi, and Somali.”
Although the description makes the programme seem harmless enough, a close reading should raise very serious questions about just what exactly the CSCC will be involved in. The so-called ‘integrated analysis’ and ‘plans and operations’ components provide an ambiguously worded description of collaboration with US intelligence agencies – CIA, DIA, DHS, and NSA undoubtedly among them. These agencies, aside from gathering intelligence and performing surveillance in every corner of the globe, are also involved in everything from espionage to ‘black ops’ and ‘dirty ops’ and other shadowy activities.
In effect, the CSCC will act in concert with these agencies both in the realm of information and activity. Does anyone seriously doubt, especially in light of the Snowden revelations about the all-encompassing nature of US surveillance and counterintelligence capabilities, that ultimately part of the CSCC’s responsibilities will be to act as a de facto arm of US intelligence in the cyberspace realm, with specific attention to global hotspots such as Syria, Iran, Pakistan, Libya etc?
As for the so-called ‘Digital Outreach Team’, it could rightly be described as a cyberwar unit, one that will be able to operate both openly and anonymously in a variety of capacities online. And therein lay the danger. As Richard Stengel, Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs told the Times, “[CSCC] would use more than 350 State Department Twitter accounts, combining embassies, consulates, media hubs, bureaus and individuals, as well as similar accounts operated by the Pentagon, the Homeland Security Department and foreign allies.” Now of course, if this much has been admitted publicly, there is undoubtedly a much larger cyber capacity being developed covertly. The question then becomes: how will this capacity be used?
If history is any indicator, then activists, political radicals, dissidents, and many others will be targeted online. The revelations about Cointelpro documented by the Church Committee demonstrated the way in which ‘intelligence gathering’ becomes counterintelligence with all the attendant repression, subversion, entrapment, and more. As William C. Sullivan, former head of the FBI’s intelligence operations was quoted in the Church Committee report:
“This is a rough, tough, dirty business, and dangerous. It was dangerous at times. No holds were barred… We have used [these techniques] against Soviet agents. They have used [them] against us… [The same methods were] brought home against any organization against which we were targeted. We did not differentiate. This is a rough, tough business.”
Sullivan quite bluntly explained how the line between foreign and domestic counterintelligence became completely blurred as the repression of political radicals became equated with fighting the cold war. Of course, anyone seriously examining today’s world cannot help but draw parallels between the aggressive rhetoric about the Soviet threat during the cold war, and that around the ‘terrorist threat’ of ‘radical Islam’ today. It would be folly to think that, in light of the exponentially more powerful and all-encompassing surveillance architecture (to say nothing of the draconian laws such as the Patriot Act, National Defense Authorization Act, etc.), the government would not employ similar, and perhaps more severe and repressive, tactics today against any individuals and groups challenging dominant narratives, organising antiwar/anti-imperialist activities, building economic and political alternatives, and much more.
It should come as no surprise that there is a voluminous documented record of online information manipulation and propaganda designed to achieve political ends. Recent examples specific to the war on Syria are endlessly instructive about some of the tactics one should be prepared for.
So, we know that US intelligence has the ability to create an endless supply of Facebook, Twitter, and other social media accounts. In light of this information, it is not terribly difficult to see the danger of allowing a centralised, intergovernmental ‘counterterrorism centre’ from engaging in an online spook war with the alleged threat of Isis online. It is entirely plausible that this is yet another manufactured pretext for still further penetration of social media by US intelligence for the purposes of infiltrating and subverting online activists, independent journalists, and others.
Excerptyed from: ‘A Pretext for Cyber Cointelpro?’.
Courtesy: Counterpunch.org