Sunday, January 24, 2010

Obama Administration Anonymously Infiltrating Blogs?

Your tax dollars are at work stifling freedom of speech and disseminating propaganda through the internet to protect Obama.

THE PLAN
Obama confidant's spine-chilling proposal
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.

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."


Cass Sunstein's "solution" for "conspiracy theorists":

Governmental Responses
What can government do about conspiracy theories? Among the things it can do, what should it do? We can readily imagine a series of possible responses. (1) Government might ban conspiracy theorizing. (2) Government might impose some kind of tax, financial or otherwise, on those who disseminate such theories. (3) Government might itself engage in counterspeech, marshaling arguments to discredit conspiracy theories. (4) Government might formally hire credible private parties to engage in counterspeech. (5) Government might engage in informal communication with such parties, encouraging them to help. Each instrument has a distinctive set of potential effects, or costs and benefits, and each will have a place under imaginable conditions. However, our main policy idea is that government should engage in cognitive infiltration of the groups that produce conspiracy theories, which involves a mix of (3), (4) and (5).


So, has the Obama administration put Cas Sunstein's ideas to work?  You decide.

The Most Transparent Administration Ever?  Not at DOJ
Hans von Spakovsky
National Review Online
DoJ hires bloggers as propagandists and sock puppets
Clarice Feldman
AmericanThinker.com
Ellie Light:  Obama Astroturfer?
Patterico
HotAir.com

One "conspiracy theory" the Obama administration is definitely trying to squelch concerns his eligibility to serve as President.  Obama holds dual citizenship with the U.K. through his father, and therefore does not qualify as an Article II, Sec. 1 "natural born Citizen".  Also see these four graphics:  "Natural Born Citizen", "Citizen vs Natural Born Citizen", "Obama is a Usurper", "Obama: A Constitutional Crisis", and "Who Is Obama, The Chameleon?"

With the eager help of the left-wing media, and some apparent complicity with the RNC because of John McCain's eligibility status, Obama and his team have painted anyone who questions the definition of that term as a conspiratorial birther.  Furthermore, Obama enjoys the services provided by bloggers (probably paid) to infiltrate conservative blogs that push for full disclosure from the President.  The following article received comments from an Obama acolyte.  Paid or otherwise, we call commenters like him obots.

In the next article you will meet smrstrauss, who attempts to spread disinformation about Obama's eligibility in the comment section of the blog.  Also, if you do a keyword search for that username, you will find a large number of similar comments made by him across the conservative blogosphere.  He has spent an inordinate amount of time blogging on this issue.  One blogger claimed to have outed smrstrauss on RebootTheRepublic.com.  He had this to say about him:

"With a little bit of work, I was able to find out this O-bot was likely Obama Superdelegate from DC, Shadow Senator Paul Strauss."http://www.reboottherepublic.com/blog/currentevents/i-just-kod-an-obot-o-bot-on-the-birth-certificate-issue

If this blogger is correct, his discovery raises an important question:  Has this person been paid with tax dollars to spread disinformation and propaganda?

Here's the article:
Quo Warranto to Remove Obama From Office (view comment on 11/29/09 at 12:18 PM)
Erica at Jefferson's Rebels

Obama is a Coward
Click image to enlarge.