DOD Document Dump: Who Needs Ethics?

[maddezmom]

DOD Document Dump: Who Needs Ethics?

Remember that Pentagon program, revealed last month, that fed talking points to supposedly objective military analysts to push the Bush administration's line on Iraq? The Department of Defense just released thousands of documents from the program, so we asked Government Executive correspondent and TNR contributor Alyssa Rosenberg to sift through the documents and see what she can find:

The U.S. government defines "Psychological Operations (PSYOPS)" as "planned operations to convey selected information and indicators to foreign audiences to influence their emotions, motives, objective reasoning." These propaganda strategies, however, are not allowed to "target U.S. citizens at any time, in any location globally, or under any circumstances," on the directions of Executive Order S-12333.

All this makes me wonder: Did the military analysts program--which The New York Times describes as efforts "to exploit ideological and military allegiances"--constitute an illegal psychological operation against the American public? There is a thin line between disseminating legitimate information (the function of any government public relations office) and conducting a psychological operation. But given the lack of disclosure about the program and the pressure placed on analysts to provide favorable coverage or lose access to sources and information, I'd say the program veers into murky territory.

The answer probably lies partially in the intentions of Defense Department officials (which are likely beyond the reach of anything but a subpoena) and partially in the morass of documents released by the military to The New York Times. But the administration's attempts at information control aren't just clear in the talking points, but also in the way they were released.

more:http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_plank/archive/2008/05/16/dod-document-dump-who-needs-ethics.aspx