Indymedia as target
Friend inside the beast | 22.08.2002 09:24
Indymedia-UK is one target of a working party of the intelligence services of this country. What follows is what has been leaked to me by a friend in another country's intelligence service.
Indymedia-UK is one target of a working party of the intelligence services of this country. What follows is what has been leaked to me by a friend in another country's intelligence service. How much truth it contains I have no way of knowing, but what was said to me made a lot of sense.
The strategies used with Indymedia include the following:
(1) real-time surveillance and permanent record of all activity on site; cataloguing of archive relative to posters, subjects, mapping of threads and correlation with other IMC sites; identification of posters on database via other signals intelligence; integration of intelligence with public order and anti-terrorism policing
(2) interference:
(a) posting "static": insertion of several postings of more or less relevance around posts which are viewed as dangerous; or simply to clog up the newswire
(b) weakening legitimacy of site (so it is viewed as eccentric and irrelevant by mainstream citizens and the mainstream media): insertions of inflammatory postings; extremist postings of the left and right; association of site with minority ultra-left parties
(3) active postings under pseudonyms to develop the internal contradictions within the left:
(a) promote tensions between the SWP and other parties of the Left and the anarchists: the more debate is built up within these elements, the less relevant the site will be to a wider public
(b) use class, race and gender to divide participants
(c) try to separate local politics from national and global foreign policy issues
(d) build up one or two voices on the medium so that in a crisis they can intervene to tip debate in one or another direction.
The strategies used with Indymedia include the following:
(1) real-time surveillance and permanent record of all activity on site; cataloguing of archive relative to posters, subjects, mapping of threads and correlation with other IMC sites; identification of posters on database via other signals intelligence; integration of intelligence with public order and anti-terrorism policing
(2) interference:
(a) posting "static": insertion of several postings of more or less relevance around posts which are viewed as dangerous; or simply to clog up the newswire
(b) weakening legitimacy of site (so it is viewed as eccentric and irrelevant by mainstream citizens and the mainstream media): insertions of inflammatory postings; extremist postings of the left and right; association of site with minority ultra-left parties
(3) active postings under pseudonyms to develop the internal contradictions within the left:
(a) promote tensions between the SWP and other parties of the Left and the anarchists: the more debate is built up within these elements, the less relevant the site will be to a wider public
(b) use class, race and gender to divide participants
(c) try to separate local politics from national and global foreign policy issues
(d) build up one or two voices on the medium so that in a crisis they can intervene to tip debate in one or another direction.
Friend inside the beast
Comments
Hide the following 20 comments
well if that is intelligence then...
22.08.2002 09:43
matilda
What a load of bollocks
22.08.2002 09:51
As if MI5's gonna start debates with the SWP! We anarchists are going to do that anyway because they're a bunch of fuckwits who are destroying the movement.
If this post has no evidence to back it up, it shouldn't be here.
@narcho
SWP propaganda
22.08.2002 10:10
Dan
part and parcel of life as we know it
22.08.2002 10:20
babsdebrawl
SWP bashing
22.08.2002 10:29
Marxist_Mike
in my experience
22.08.2002 10:37
check out cryptome.org for examples
don't know what level paranoia 'they' have about indymedia, probly quite high and yes they are probly watching you, it an easy enough thing for them to do(rather than being out there catching real crims or whatever they're supposed to do)
whether they are trying to subvert indy, i couldn't say but wouldn't have thought it would be worth their while..
nonetheless, goes without saying that on an open forum like this you should use your common sense about all news stories you see.
onemonkey
e-mail:
indy@onemonkey.org
It might make more sense than you think
22.08.2002 10:37
Anyone seriously interested in building a left opposition in this country knows that anarchists will have to work with the SWP with the other trotskist and maoist sectlets and with trade unionists and with people in the churches (Anglican, Catholic, methodist, quakers, Jews, Moslems) and with random grannies, liberals, and angry youth. It is clearly in the interest or our enemies to "split and wreck" this coalition-- and particularly prior to the Iraq War which everything is being bet on.
I don't see the original post as pro-SWP or anti-anarchist, it merely suggests that anti-anarchist, and even supposedly pro-SWP and supposedly pro-anarchist posts which direct energy towards the internal debates within the left could sometimes be driven by agent provacateurs who wish to take us away from attacking capitalism, the war machine etc. I think everyone knows the SWP has been fairly well infiltrated by the intelligence services for decades.
When you watch how people move and speak always ask yourself the old Latin question: "qui bono?"-- which is to say "who benefits?". You will know them by how they move.
Wondering
in my experience
22.08.2002 10:40
check out cryptome.org for examples
don't know what level paranoia 'they' have about indymedia, probly quite high and yes they are probly watching you, it an easy enough thing for them to do(rather than being out there catching real crims or whatever they're supposed to do)
whether they are trying to subvert indy, i couldn't say but wouldn't have thought it would be worth their while..
nonetheless, goes without saying that on an open forum like this you should use your common sense about all news stories you see.
onemonkey
e-mail:
indy@onemonkey.org
*
22.08.2002 11:07
Even if this post is bullshit - the lessons to be learned from it are real.
Posters such as Marxist_Mike, Lenin and Space Trotskyist could do with reading this article and thinking about it. The same could be said for their anarchist equivalent although I'm less enclined to name names with the anarchos (put it down to personal bias).
This site functions best when people don't waste space with abusive rants and turgid theoretical debates. Information about social/environmental issues from a perspective of resistance doesn't need to be so crude. It can be exciting, accesible even intelligent if we try.
I realy think the Trot. element should show more sensitivity to the fact that they are engaging with a resource which comes out of a wider community at indymedia. Respect the fact that the other people who contribute to sustaining indymedia don't want to be ranted at and don't want the service to be abused with irrelevant post. However, Trot bashing is easy and often counterproductive. The rest of us should have the confidence to dealwith them in a confident asertive manner without being reduced to name calling.
The security issue is one we should all be aware of and take responsibility for in a manner that makes sense to us individualy and in the groups we work with. Being aware of this is not paranoia it is just common sense.
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MI5/MI6/FRU borin wankers but..
22.08.2002 11:16
guessagain
reds under the bed?
22.08.2002 11:36
I don't mean to be rude but don't you think the SWP CC are probably a bit busy to spend all their time stirring on your website? Are y'all even aware there are actually a few people in the world who don't read IMC, or (shock horror) may not even have heard of it?
sceptical
Who is the SWP?
22.08.2002 12:09
Antidote
Well well well
22.08.2002 17:42
Thomas J
Put down molasses and down come the flies
22.08.2002 19:08
Keep your eyes open and walk good my friends
Entomologist
The SWP are paracites
22.08.2002 19:15
We can never work with the SWP because:
(i) They leach off the movement, trying to recruit people into their moribund sect.
and
(ii) They systematically sabotage any struggles they are associated with.
The SWP are like an anti political innoculation given to students to get the radical politics out of their system. So many people who may once have been good activists joined the SWP and are now no longer politically active. It is one of the biggest blocks to radical progress there is.
No movement which has links with them will last.
Steve Booth
e-mail:
grandlaf@lineone.net
ferchrissakes
22.08.2002 21:29
dh
You paranoid freaks!
22.08.2002 22:17
But if it's true : Stop wasting your time spys! There are terrorists to be caught! It's a question of PRIORITIES.
mossad agent. Ha ha
hey mossad agent haha
22.08.2002 23:30
dh
If you criticise authortity...
23.08.2002 00:37
Thomas J
Iagree with comments. something odd with this
23.08.2002 13:01
"association of site with minority ultra-left parties". Frankly, isnt the IMC supposed to catering for the needs of minority parties ? Isnt the term "ultra-left" a quick way of condemning anyone to the left of your own opinions ?
Doesnt it seem ludicrous to imagine that the 'security forces' would NOT be taking advantage of all this free info churning out by the day ? All YOU have to do is keep your own personal details private (as is your natural right)
Space-Trotskyist