Shadow Internet: Secret U.S. Effort Reportedly Aims To Help Dissidents

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration is leading a global effort to establish "shadow" Internet and cellphone systems to help dissidents undermine authoritarian governments, the New York Times reported Sunday.

The effort has quickened since former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's government shut down the country's Internet in the last days of his rule, said the Times report, which cited planning documents, classified diplomatic cables and sources.

The Internet has been used in recent months by anti-government protesters in North Africa and the Middle East to help coordinate demonstrations. Some governments have responded by disabling Internet access.

In one project, the U.S. State Department and Pentagon have spent at least $50 million to create an independent cellphone network in Afghanistan using towers on military bases in the country, the Times said, citing unnamed U.S. officials.

The operation is aimed at counteracting the Taliban insurgency's ability to shut down official Afghan services, the Times said.

The State Department is also financing creation of stealth wireless networks to enable activists to communicate beyond the reach of governments in countries like Iran, Syria and Libya, the Times said, citing participants in the projects.

Another project focuses on development of an "Internet in a suitcase" that could be smuggled across a border and deployed to allow wireless communication with a link to the global Internet, the Times reported.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is backing the U.S. effort, according to the report.

"We see more and more people around the globe using the Internet, mobile phones and other technologies to make their voices heard as they protest against injustice and seek to realize their aspirations," the Times quoted Clinton as saying in an email response to a query on the subject.

U.S. diplomats also are meeting with operatives who have been burying Chinese cellphones near the border with North Korea, where they can be dug up and used to make furtive calls, the Times reported. (Writing by Paul Simao; Editing by Eric Beech)

Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters. Click for Restrictions.

Comments

[josie klapper]

07:21 PM on 06/13/2011

Those of you whom find America bashing to be such an amusing sport need to read some history of what true imperialistic countries/regimes have done over the millennia. Will not only be quite enlightening, but will also sever to shut your spoiled middle class brats mouths' up.

[josie klapper]

07:13 PM on 06/13/2011

Unfortunately we in the USA need those sort of back-ups ourselves...

[H Seldon]

02:59 PM on 06/13/2011

Headline should read ..."Secret U.S Effort Reportedly Aims To Help THEMSELVES to USEFUL Dissidents"

[mulegino]

02:55 PM on 06/13/2011

Authoritarian government=Any nation strategically located or rich in natural resources whose government is unwilling to submit to IMF and/or USRAELI hegemony which is too weak to militarily defend itself.

[Ryan Bdallas]

05:13 AM on 07/12/2011

Hater

[rallen]

12:49 PM on 06/13/2011

I mean really, it rots my socks that the right out of the middle ages Afghans will have real broad band and we here in the the good old USA are 29th in the world in terms of band width. These tyrannical authoritarian controlled populaces will have greater access to broadband and greater bandwidth than we corpor-tanical corpor-tarian controlled 21st century american citizens, opps consumers, have and will ever have. So sad. WAKE-UP!

Maybe a social democracy wouldn't be so bad after-all.

[trueblueredstater]

01:03 PM on 06/13/2011

Hey, don't knock it. My son is in the Peace Corps in Azerbaijan, and his little village has better bandwidth than I do, and I am less than ten miles from downtown Tulsa, Oklahoma.

[Hypnos Rises]

08:16 PM on 06/13/2011

Hell yes!

[happyone6470]

12:44 PM on 06/13/2011

We have become the bully of the world .

[Connor Alexander]

12:07 PM on 06/13/2011

I have no doubt that while this technology may be employed for it's stated purposes that there is a planned flip side. By being the ones to introduce and control this tech, the U.S. wants to make sure that it can't be used by it's own people.

[trueblueredstater]

01:04 PM on 06/13/2011

Connor - such cynicism ill-becomes one of your tender years.

[Connor Alexander]

01:26 PM on 06/13/2011

Ha! Thanks for genuinely making me laugh out loud. It doesn't happen often in this forum. Cheers.

[liir thropp]

10:56 AM on 06/13/2011

http://www.islamicsolutions.com/never-again-ending-tyranny-in-egypt-and-around-the-world/

[dennisrs]

09:17 PM on 06/13/2011

Unless you are an Egyptian Christian then you have no protection.

[Lindytindy]

10:39 AM on 06/13/2011

My guess is, knowing the nefarious nature of our government and it's foreign policy, this is really designed to help the USA undermine leaders of other countries who won't go along with World Bank impoverishment policies. They will use the guise of helping democratic revolutions to implement this. What it will really be used for is to extend imperialistic policies by undermining nationalist leaders. It's the same nonsense our government uses to justify imperialistic wars, in the name of 'humanitarian' help or 'nation building'.

[Lattanka]

11:08 AM on 06/13/2011

You really think that hiding cell phones for North Koreans to find and use is part of an imperialist plot by the U.S? Or finding other creative ways for people living in authoritarian countries to communicate is part of a longer term U.S. plan for global hegemony? You seem convinced of your view but how about allowing for the possibility that you might be wrong, and that not everything the U.S. does is for nefarious purposes? It's easy to be cynical and see conspiracies where your instincts tell you to. It takes more work to see possibilities that don't confirm your world view, and that don't make good material for spy novels. If we were so interested in global domination we would have made much more overt steps in that direction many years ago.

[mulegino]

02:56 PM on 06/13/2011

Bingo!

[Pod-gers]

10:12 AM on 06/13/2011

Ha! So China was right about this!

[leutenizer banned twice]

04:10 PM on 06/13/2011

indeed. So was Iran.

[WascawyWabbit]

09:50 AM on 06/13/2011

Bad idea is bad, and expensive. Lets focus on the injustices occurring here within our own neighborhoods instead of investing in foreign infrastructure. because Dessert dwellers and mountain men without electricity and indoor plumbing are probably not the least bit concerned about cell phone towers and free internet.

[altohone]

09:44 AM on 06/13/2011

Nobody should worry that Palestinians, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia did not make the list.
Their pro-democracy activists are unworthy.

Besides, the corporate telecoms will still censor and block all the bad sites.

[gravit8]

09:40 AM on 06/13/2011

Wait, I'm CONFUSED:

How does this fit into the 'internet switch' I keep reading about conservative propaganda, you know, the one that will turn off all communications at the behest of the White House?

It doesn't fit into that? THERE IS NO SECRET SWITCH? (If it was a secret it's be on the front page of huffpost already, you say?)

I guess there's a good reason all those emails go directly into my junk mail folder, eh?

[dennisrs]

07:49 PM on 06/13/2011

It is inside the NSA and it is a program that is sent out to all the telecommunication net nodes switches. Off and on.
Read the book "Shadow Factory" for some real insight in how the whole system works and is monitored.

[advocatusdiaboli]

09:28 AM on 06/13/2011

Only those dissents that don't threaten governments, human-right abusing tyrants or monarchies, we approve of.

[rbenjamin]

09:26 AM on 06/13/2011

Great. How about a shadow internet and cell phone system in the USA? One that's as fast as the South Korean's would be really nice. Since we can't seem to allow genuine corporate competition anymore. Unless you want to move. Just asking. Thanks.

[Pod-gers]

10:13 AM on 06/13/2011

LOL F&F

[josie klapper]

07:15 PM on 06/13/2011

Ditto the F&F