Prism / NSA - Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo - Snowden

Military's 'sock puppet' software creates fake online identities to spread pro-American propaganda

The US military is developing software that will let it secretly manipulate social media sites by using fake online personas to influence internet conversations and spread pro-American propaganda.

A Californian corporation has been awarded a contract with United States Central Command (Centcom), which oversees US armed operations in the Middle East and Central Asia, to develop what is described as an "online persona management service" that will allow one US serviceman or woman to control up to 10 separate identities based all over the world.

The project has been likened by web experts to China's attempts to control and restrict free speech on the internet. Critics are likely to complain that it will allow the US military to create a false consensus in online conversations, crowd out unwelcome opinions and smother commentaries or reports that do not correspond with its own objectives.

Dick Cheney sympatiserar öppet med tankesmedjan PNAC:s agenda, att öka USA's ekonomiska och militära inflytandet runt om i världen. Den förre presidenten Jimmy Carter menade att Dick Cheney hade ett orimligt inflytande över utrikespolitiken

Däremot diskuteras inte mer traditionell underrättelseverksamhet eftersom Storbritannien insisterat på att EU inte har befogenhet att diskutera frågor om nationell säkerhet och underrättelsetjänst. Sverige stödde den brittiska inställningen.

Enligt källor till The Guardian ska Litauens regering, som nu tagit över ordförandeskapet för EU, ha kontaktat utrikesminister Carl Bildt för att få Sverige att ändra sig, men misslyckats.

Snowden: NSA is ‘in bed with the Germans’

US fugitive Edward Snowden has accused Germany and the US of partnering in spy intelligence operations, revealing that cooperation between the countries is closer than German indignation would indicate, Der Spiegel magazine reported.

“They are in bed with the Germans, just like with most other Western states,” the German magazine quotes Snowden as saying, adding that the NSA’s has a Foreign Affairs Directorate which is responsible for cooperation with other countries.

Partnerships are orchestrated in ways that allow other countries to “insulate their political leaders from the backlash,” according to Snowden, providing a buffer between politicians and the illegal methods of snooping. He accused the collaboration of grievously “violating global privacy.”

“Other agencies don't ask us where we got the information from and we don't ask them. That way they can protect their top politicians from the backlash in case it emerges how massively people's privacy is abused worldwide,” he said.