nobbis writes "In an article entitled 'How Covert Agents Infiltrate the Internet to Manipulate, Deceive, and Destroy Reputations' Glenn Greenwald publishes training material from the Snowden archive that illustrates how GCHQ uses "cyber-offensive techniques against people who have nothing to do with terrorism or national security threats", for example against "Hacktivism".
These techniques include disseminating deception on-line and harming the reputations of their targets with a honey trap , a blog from a purported victim of the target, or 'changing their photos on social media sites'. Similarly companies are discredited by leaking of confidential information, or posting negative information on appropriate forums. The covert agents' play book includes infiltration, false flag, disruption and sting operations.
When questioned GCHQ replied "It is a longstanding policy that we do not comment on intelligence matters""
(Score: 1) by nsa on Wednesday February 26 2014, @08:08AM
It may or may not ultimately be effective, but you could always try filing a lawsuit against us. If you go commercial, you could sue for damages, otherwise, perhaps for interference with free speech rights. If you could get some big names to get together for a class action, it may still effect social change even if ultimately losing in court. If the Snowden or other documents ever expose any sympathetic victims, they could sue under the eighth ammendment [wikipedia.org].
"Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted."
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Claims that government agencies are infiltrating online communities and engaging in 'false flag operations' to discredit targets are often dismissed as conspiracy theories, but these documents leave no doubt they are doing precisely that. [firstlook.org] Whatever else is true, no government should be able to engage in these tactics: what justification is there for having government agencies target people - who have been charged with no crime - for reputation-destruction, infiltrate online political communities, and develop techniques for manipulating online discourse? But to allow those actions with no public knowledge or accountability is particularly unjustifiable.
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The NSA Never Says Anything. The NSA Never Lies [washingtonpost.com]