Bonum Certa Men Certa

Leaked Government Document Shows Investigative Journalists Classed Among “Terrorists”

Summary: The great enemy of authority turns out to be truth seekers

WIKILEAKS has a fantastic new addition, which is 2,389 pages of this manual [PDF, 39MB] from the UK Ministry of Defence.



For those who lack time to study this large volume of leaked material, here are some of the damning parts that prove we're supposed to be obedient, lacking curiosity, only to repeat conventional thoughts. Watch how the manual daemonises "investigative journalists" for example:

"The main threats of this type are posed by investigative journalists, pressure groups, investigation agencies, criminal elements, disaffected staff, dishonest staff and computer hackers. The types of threat from these sources can be categorized in six broad groups: a. Confidentiality. Compromise of politically sensitive information. This threat is presented by: (1) Pressure groups and investigative journalists attempting to obtain sensitive information. (2) Unauthorized disclosure of official information (leaks)..."

"Investigative journalists have exploited personal tax information; they also target commercial and financial information as do criminal elements seeking financial advantage. "

[..]

"The threat to operations against these targets is less likely to arise from positive acts of counter-espionage, than from leakage of information through disaffected members of staff, or as a result of the at tentions of an investigative journalist, or simply by accident or carelessness. 1706. In this wider definition of Threat, the "enemy" is unwelcome publicity of any kind, and through any medium. The most effective safeguard is to reinforce those aspects of security that minimise the risk of leakage of sensitive intelligence operations or product into the public domain - whether by accidental exposure or deliberate intent. The STRAP System aims to achieve this."

[..]

"The security measures in this chapter are aimed primarily to cover contacts made in CSSRAs and have been drawn up to protect the individual from action by FISs, extremist groups, investigative journalists and criminals."

[..]

"An Annual Threat Assessment (ATA) is issued to all Government Departments giving generic statements as to the main sources of Threat. This will include personnel who may be from or influenced by Foreign Intelligence Services (FIS), authorized users who, for whatever motive, may seek to gain access to official information they have no 'need to know', subversive or terrorist organizations, and investigative journalists."

[..]

"The threat from subversive or terrorist organisations, investigative journalists and others must also be considered."

"Experience has shown that at least half the attempts to hack into systems arise from this group and that external hackers use "social engineering" techniques to trick authorised users into revealing information which may aid an external penetration. 7. The Media. Investigative journalists are increasingly interested in State IT systems, particularly those operated by the police and the Security and Intelligence agencies. There has been evidence of premeditated attempts to acquire protectively marked information from IT systems. 8. Members of the Public. The fact that inform ation held electronically may be open to novel forms of surreptitious attack provides a special attraction to certain individuals, commonly known as 'hackers'. Whilst the efforts of hackers are unlikely to be directed specifically against protectively marked information, there is added kudos in breaking into Defence systems, so much information might be discovered fortuitously. "

"..The threat from subversive and terrorist organizations, criminal activity, investigative journalists, and members of the public cannot be discounted..."

"..Malicious software can originate from many sources such as disaffected staff, foreign intelligence services, investigative journalists or terrorists..."

[..]

"..The main elements of the Audio security threat are: a. The threat from deliberate attempts to overhear conversations posed by FIS (especially at locations overseas), sophisticated terrorist and subversive organisations and in particular from criminals, investigative journalists, private investigators and some members of the public..."

[..]

"..Identify possible threats to your site, such as from: Foreign Intelligence Services. Terrorist groups. Disaffected staff. Criminals. Investigative journalists."


It is all quite telling, is it not?

"[E]xtremist groups, investigative journalists and criminals..."

“The "enemy" is unwelcome publicity of any kind...”
      --Fewa
It's as though the above are all more or less the same. People who dare to investigate and form an independent opinion are almost like criminals. They are supposed to just parrot what large media sources say, even if it is misleading propaganda from the corporations that control this media (and other high interests, not necessarily financial).

"Free speech not allowed," remarks Fewa, "and the trend-setting media only acts after there is public outcry over something or someone with real power raises it [...] or unless it serves a state purpose. I wonder what type of person leaked it -- an insider or outsider."

"The "enemy" is unwelcome publicity of any kind," he continues, "and through any medium (aka the "enemy" is the truth) [...] or the public having any idea what their tax dollars are doing."

There is another great new addition to Wikileaks. David Gerard remarks on it as follows: "Someone's been selling the Orwellian aspirants in the EU some *seriously* strong snake oil."

This file, marked "confidential", describes development of an EU-funded intelligence gathering system ("INDECT work package 4") designed to comb webblogs, chat sites, newsreports, and social-networking sites to inorder to build up automatic dossiers on individuals, organizations and their relationships.


"Automatic dossiers..."

Yay!

Well, Microsoft still uses its PR agencies to do this, some of which (like Visible Technologies) found ways to automate the process.

Lo and behold -- Microsoft's lists are exposed.

It is probably an appropriate time to repost the following old skit from Carlin.



Ogg Theora





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