Reading some of the stuff progressives-supposed liberals--have been writing makes this sound more than plausible as current practice.

Pretty slick, using Greenwald to disseminate this obvious provocation. Now all the wacko conspiracy theorists out here in netland get confirmation that the gummint really is trying to manipulate them. Clev-er!

What's the aim? It must be a provocation. Somebody's going to react violently, giving the administration an excuse to declare martial law, suspend elections, and use their special powers to break up the big banks and implement single payer health care financing. Yay!

Heck, I knew I should've voted for Obama. Good thing all those real lefties took care of things while I was obsessing over sexism and democracy.

the 400 paid-bloggers we heard about in the primaries, they'll be easy to spot.

Lambert, I was reading your comment on 'CIs' over at Avedon with regard to David W., and it occured to me that the purpose of CIs is not so much to increase faith in the government -- they're not likely to succeed in most places -- but to massively waste the time of other posters and commenters in responding to their obvious cheerleading and jingoism.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24406.htm

Obama staffer wants ‘cognitive infiltration’ of 9/11 conspiracy groups

By Daniel Tencer

January 15, 2010 "Raw Story" --

By "crippled epistemology" Sunstein means that people who believe in conspiracy theories have a limited number of sources of information that they trust. Therefore, Sunstein argued in the article, it would not work to simply refute the conspiracy theories in public -- the very sources that conspiracy theorists believe would have to be infiltrated..Sunstein, whose article focuses largely on the 9/11 conspiracy theories, suggests that the government "enlist nongovernmental officials in the effort to rebut the theories. It might ensure that credible independent experts offer the rebuttal, rather than government officials themselves. There is a tradeoff between credibility and control, however. The price of credibility is that government cannot be seen to control the independent experts."

[snip]

"We expect such tactics from undercover cops, or FBI," Estrin writes at the Rag Blog, expressing surprise that "a high-level presidential advisor" would support such a strategy. Estrin notes that Sunstein advocates in his article for the infiltration of "extremist" groups so that it undermines the groups' confidence to the extent that "new recruits will be suspect and participants in the group’s virtual networks will doubt each other’s bona fides."

[snip]

Sunstein "wants to hold blogs and web hosting services accountable for the remarks of commenters on websites while altering libel laws to make it easier to sue for spreading 'rumors,'" wrote Ed Lasky at American Thinker.

Ugh!

======

Obama Information Czar Outlined Plan For Government To Infiltrate Conspiracy Groups

By Paul Joseph Watson

January 15, 2010 "Prison Planet" --

As we have often warned, chat rooms, social networks and particularly article comment sections are routinely “gamed” by trolls, many of whom pose as numerous different people in order to create a fake consensus, who attempt to debunk whatever information is being discussed, no matter how credible and well documented. We have seen this on our own websites for years and although some of those individuals were acting of their own accord, a significant number appeared to be working in shifts, routinely posting the same talking points over and over again.

[snip]

Countries like Israel have also admitted to creating an army of online trolls whose job it is to infiltrate anti-war websites and act as apologists for the Zionist state’s war crimes.

[snip]

“It’s easy to destroy groups with “cognitive diversity.” You just take up meeting time with arguments to the point where people don’t come back. You make protest signs which alienate 90% of colleagues. You demand revolutionary violence from pacifist groups.” This is what Sunstein is advocating when he writes of the need to infiltrate conspiracy groups and sow seeds of distrust amongst members in order to stifle the number of new recruits. This is classic “provocateur” style infiltration that came to the fore during the Cointelpro years, an FBI program from 1956-1971 that was focused around disrupting, marginalizing and neutralizing political dissidents.

[snip]

Sunstein has also called for making websites liable for comments posted in response to articles. His book, On Rumors: How Falsehoods Spread, Why We Believe Them, What Can Be Done, was criticized by some as “a blueprint for online censorship.”

DENIAL of collusion, projected outward onto those brave and savvy enuf to express truth to power. We have lost the second party to protect us, they are cya-ing even more. Extra-Orwellian with Obama et al.

to create a cadre of infiltrators bent on adding noise and dissension to sites discussing conspiracy theories, when you RELEASE A FUCKING PAPER ABOUT IT TO THE PUBLIC so your enemies find out that the conspiracy theory that agent provocateurs exist is real?

Or is the fact that existence of this paper will ramp up paranoia generally a feature, not a bug?