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April 22, 2008 Democracy Now! Pentagon's Pundits: A Look at the Defense Department's Propaganda Program The New York Times has revealed new details on how the Pentagon recruited more than seventy-five retired military officers to appear on TV outlets as so-called military analysts ahead of the Iraq war to portray Iraq as an urgent threat. The Times reported the Pentagon continues to use the analysts in a propaganda campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration's wartime performance. We speak with Col. Sam Gardiner (Ret.) and Peter Hart of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. (excerpt)

"Or consider what American computer specialists are doing on the Internet, perhaps terrorist leaders' greatest safe haven, where they recruit, raise money, and plot future attacks on a global scale. American specialists have become especially proficient at forging the onscreen cyber-trademarks used by Al Qaeda to certify its Web statements, and are posting confusing and contradictory orders, some so virulent that young Muslims dabbling in jihadist philosophy, but on the fence about it, might be driven away."

Within a few weeks of 9/11, Poindexter was stationed at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Pentagon's research arm, and given the funds to develop a program he had been thinking about ever since he went to the Reagan White House 20 years earlier to modernize its technology. Total Information Awareness (TIA), whose logo featured a pyramid with an all-seeing eye, would use powerful computers to search all electronic data compiled about everyone, everywhere to hunt for hidden patterns that could indicate terrorist activity.