An Un-holy spirit: Has AO (Artificial Omniscience) arrived - Mind Reading Part 4

Now scientists read your mind better than you can
Scan predicted 75 percent of behavior
REUTERS [Thomson-Reuters] - By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor - June 22, 2010
WASHINGTON - Brain scans may be able to predict what you will do better than you can yourself, and might offer a powerful tool for advertisers or health officials seeking to motivate consumers, researchers said on Tuesday.

They found a way to interpret "real time" brain images to show whether people who viewed messages about using sunscreen would actually use sunscreen during the following week.

The scans were more accurate than the volunteers were, Emily Falk and colleagues at the University of California Los Angeles reported in the Journal of Neuroscience.

"We are trying to figure out whether there is hidden wisdom that the brain contains," Falk said in a telephone interview.

"Many people 'decide' to do things, but then don't do them," Matthew Lieberman, a professor of psychology who led the study, added in a statement.

But with functional magnetic resonance imaging or fMRI, Falk and colleagues were able to go beyond good intentions to predict actual behavior.

FMRI uses a magnetic field to measure blood flow in the brain. It can show which brain regions are more active compared to others, but requires careful interpretation.

Falk's team recruited 20 young men and women for their experiment. While in the fMRI scanner they read and listened to messages about the safe use of sunscreen, mixed in with other messages so they would not guess what the experiment was about.

"On day one of the experiment, before the scanning session, each participant indicated their sunscreen use over the prior week, their intentions to use sunscreen in the next week and their attitudes toward sunscreen," the researchers wrote.

After they saw the messages, the volunteers answered more questions about their intentions, and then got a goody bag that contained, among other things, sunscreen towelettes."

"A week later we did a surprise follow up to find out whether they had used sunscreen," Falk said in a telephone interview.

About half the volunteers had correctly predicted whether they would use sunscreen. The research team analyzed and re-analyzed the MRI scans to see if they could find any brain activity that would do better.

Activity in one area of the brain, a particular part of the medial prefrontal cortex, provided the best information.

"From this region of the brain, we can predict for about three-quarters of the people whether they will increase their use of sunscreen beyond what they say they will do," Lieberman said.

"It is the one region of the prefrontal cortex that we know is disproportionately larger in humans than in other primates," he added. "This region is associated with self-awareness, and seems to be critical for thinking about yourself and thinking about your preferences and values."

Now, Falk said, the team is looking for other regions of the brain that might add to the accuracy of the technique.

While the findings can be important for advertisers seeking to hone a motivational message, they can be equally important for public health experts trying to persuade people to make healthier choices, Falk said.

The team is now preparing a report on experiments to predict whether people would quit smoking after seeing motivational messages.

(Editing by Sandra Maler)

Unedited :: Link to Original Posting
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN2214937420100622


'Mind-Reading' Brain-Scan Software Showcased in NY
Bet I Know What You're Thinking: 'Mind-Reading' Computer Uses Brain Scans to Guess at Thoughts
ASSOCIATED PRESS - By Samantha Gross - April 8, 2010
Mind reading may no longer be the domain of psychics and fortune tellers - now some computers can do it, too.

Software that uses brain scans to determine what items people are thinking about was among the technological innovations showcased Wednesday by Intel Corp., which drew back the curtain on a number of projects that are still under development.

The software analyzes functional MRI scans to determine what parts of a person's brain is being activated as he or she thinks. In tests, it guessed with 90 percent accuracy which of two words a person was thinking about, said Intel Labs researcher Dean Pomerleau.

Eventually, the technology could help the severely physically disabled to communicate. And Pomerleau sees it as an early step toward one day being able to control technology with our minds.

"The vision is being able to interface to information, to your devices and to other people without having an intermediary device," he said.

For now, the project's accomplishments are far more modest - it can only be used with prohibitively expensive and bulky fMRI equipment and hasn't yet been adapted to analyze abstract thoughts.

The system works best when a person is first scanned while thinking of dozens of different concrete nouns - words like "bear" or "hammer." When test subjects are then asked to pick one of two new terms and think about it, the software uses the earlier results as a baseline to determine what the person is thinking.

The software works by analyzing the shared attributes of different words. For example, a person who is thinking of a bear uses the same parts of the brain that light up when he or she thinks of a puppy or something else furry. A person thinking of a bear also shows activity in the amygdala - home of the fight-or-flight response.

While Intel primarily makes computer processors and other hardware, it often works to develop and demonstrate new technologies in an effort to stimulate the market and advance its reputation. Other innovations on display at Wednesday's Intel event in Manhattan included:

-Cell phone technology that would use motion, GPS and audio data gathered through users' cell phones to track what they're doing and who they're with. The technology can distinguish activities such as walking, giving a business presentation and driving. It also compares audio readings from different cell phones to determine who is in the same room.

This would allow users to share their activity information with their close friends and watch avatar versions of their friends throughout the day. It would also let users track and analyze data about how they spend their time.

-"Dispute Finder" technology that monitors users' conversations and Internet browsing to warn them when they encounter contested or inaccurate information. The software mines the Internet to find instances in which writers have claimed something is untrue. It then uses speech recognition technology to monitor conversations.

-A transparent holographic shopping display that could be used in department stores to point consumers to featured items. Shoppers could also use the giant screen to search the store's inventory, call up maps, and send item information to their cell phones.

-A TV set-top box that connects wirelessly to your laptop and monitors your Internet search history, as well as your TV viewing, to offer relevant video.

Edited :: See Original Report Here
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=10317171


Brain scan can read people's thoughts: researchers
AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE - March 11, 2010
WASHINGTON - A scan of brain activity can effectively read a person's mind, researchers said Thursday.
British scientists from University College London found they could differentiate brain activity linked to different memories and thereby identify thought patterns by using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).

The evidence suggests researchers can tell which memory of a past event a person is recalling from the pattern of their brain activity alone.
"We've been able to look at brain activity for a specific episodic memory -- to look at actual memory traces," said senior author of the study, Eleanor Maguire.

"We found that our memories are definitely represented in the hippocampus. Now that we've seen where they are, we have an opportunity to understand how memories are stored and how they may change through time." ...

The researchers say the new results move this line of research along because episodic memories -- recollections of everyday events -- are expected to be more complex, and thus more difficult to crack than spatial memory. ...

Edited :: See Original Report Here
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100311/hl_afp/scienceresearchusbritainpsychology_20100311174114

FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of religious, environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

An Un-holy spirit: Has AO (Artificial Omniscience) arrived - Mind Reading Part 3

Mind-reading systems could change air security
ASSOCIATED PRESS - By Michael Tarm - January 8, 2010
CHICAGO - [...] [S]ystems that aim to get inside an evildoer's head are among the proposals floated by security experts thinking beyond the X-ray machines and metal detectors used on millions of passengers and bags each year. ...
The ideas that have been offered by security experts for staying one step ahead include highly sophisticated sensors, more intensive interrogations of travelers by screeners trained in human behavior, and a lifting of the U.S. prohibitions against profiling.
Some of the more unusual ideas are already being tested. Some aren't being given any serious consideration. Many raise troubling questions about civil liberties. All are costly. ...
Here's a look at some of the ideas that could shape the future of airline security:

MIND READERS
The aim of one company that blends high technology and behavioral psychology is hinted at in its name, WeCU - as in "We See You."
The system that Israeli-based WeCU Technologies has devised and is testing in Israel projects images onto airport screens, such as symbols associated with a certain terrorist group or some other image only a would-be terrorist would recognize, said company CEO Ehud Givon.
The logic is that people can't help reacting, even if only subtly, to familiar images that suddenly appear in unfamiliar places. If you strolled through an airport and saw a picture of your mother, Givon explained, you couldn't help but respond.
The reaction could be a darting of the eyes, an increased heartbeat, a nervous twitch or faster breathing, he said.
The WeCU system would use humans to do some of the observing but would rely mostly on hidden cameras or sensors that can detect a slight rise in body temperature and heart rate. Far more sensitive devices under development that can take such measurements from a distance would be incorporated later.
If the sensors picked up a suspicious reaction, the traveler could be pulled out of line for further screening.
"One by one, you can screen out from the flow of people those with specific malicious intent," Givon said.
Some critics have expressed horror at the approach, calling it Orwellian and akin to "brain fingerprinting."
For civil libertarians, attempting to read a person's thoughts comes uncomfortably close to the future world depicted in the movie "Minority Report," where a policeman played by Tom Cruise targets people for "pre-crimes," or merely thinking about breaking the law.

LIE DETECTORS
One system being studied by Homeland Security is called the Future Attribute Screening Technology, or FAST, and works like a souped-up polygraph.
It would subject people pulled aside for additional screening to a battery of tests, including scans of facial movements and pupil dilation, for signs of deception. Small platforms similar to the balancing boards used in the Nintendo Wii would help detect fidgeting.
At a public demonstration of the system in Boston last year, project manager Robert Burns explained that people who harbor ill will display involuntary physiological reactions that others - such as those who are stressed out for ordinary reasons, such as being late for a plane - don't. ...

See Promotional Video for FAST
"FAST" Coming to an Airport near YOU! - Future Attribute Screening Technology: The Machine That Reads Minds!

THE ISRAELI MODEL
Some say the U.S. should take a page from Israel's book on security.
At Israeli airports, widely considered the most secure in the world, travelers are subjected to probing personal questions as screeners look them straight in the eye for signs of deception. Searches are meticulous, with screeners often scrutinizing every item in a bag, unfolding socks, squeezing toothpaste and flipping through books.
"All must look to Israel and learn from them. This is not a post-911 thing for them. They've been doing this since 1956," said Michael Goldberg, president of New York-based IDO Security Inc., which developed a device that can scan shoes while they are still on people's feet.
Israel also employs profiling: At Ben-Gurion Airport, Jewish Israelis typically pass through smoothly, while others may be taken aside for closer interrogation or even strip searches. Another distinquishing feature of Israeli airports is that they rely on concentric security rings that start miles from terminal buildings.
Rafi Ron, the former security director at Israel's famously tight Ben Gurion International Airport who now is a consultant for Boston's Logan International Airport, says U.S. airports also need to be careful not to overcommit to securing passenger entry points at airports, forgetting about the rest of the field.
"Don't invest all your efforts on the front door and leave the back door open," said Ron.
While many experts agree the United States could adopt some Israeli methods, few believe the overall model would work here, in part because of the sheer number of U.S. airports - more than 400, versus half a dozen in Israel.
Also, the painstaking searches and interrogations would create delays that could bring U.S. air traffic to a standstill. And many Americans would find the often intrusive and intimidating Israeli approach repugnant.

PROFILING
Some argue that policies against profiling undermine security.
Baum, who is also managing director of Green Light Limited, a London-based aviation security company, agrees profiling based on race and religion is counterproductive and should be avoided. But he argues that a reluctance to distinguish travelers on other grounds - such as their general appearance or their mannerisms - is not only foolhardy but dangerous.
"When you see a typical family - dressed like a family, acts like a family, interacts with each other like a family ... when their passport details match - then let's get them through," he said. "Stop wasting time that would be much better spent screening the people that we've get more concerns about." ...
Scrutinizing 80-year-old grandmothers or students because they might be carrying school scissors can defy common sense, Baum said. ...

Edited :: See Original Report Here
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20100108/D9D3HB101.html




Airports Could Get Mind-Reading Scanners
LIVE SCIENCE.com [Tech Media Network] - By Bill Christensen, Technovelgy.com - January 28, 2010
WeCU Technologies is building a mind-reading scanner that can tell if a given traveler is a potential danger - without the subject's knowledge. WeCU Technologies (pronounced "we see you") is creating a system that would essentially turn the public spaces in airports into vast screening grounds:.

"The system ... projects images onto airport screens, such as symbols associated with a certain terrorist group or some other image only a would-be terrorist would recognize, company CEO Ehud Givon said.

"The logic is that people can't help reacting, even if only subtly, to familiar images that suddenly appear in unfamiliar places. If you strolled through an airport and saw a picture of your mother, Givon explained, you couldn't help but respond.

"The reaction could be a darting of the eyes, an increased heartbeat, a nervous twitch or faster breathing, he said. The WeCU system would use humans to do some of the observing but would rely mostly on hidden cameras or covert biometric sensors that can detect a slight rise in body temperature and heart rate," as reported in Raw Story.

Science fiction writers have been playing with the idea of mind-reading machines for a long time. For example, you may recall the Veridicator from H. Beam Piper's 1962 novel Little Fuzzy:
"There was a bright conical helmet on his head, and electrodes had been clamped to various portions of his anatomy. On the wall behind him was a circular screen which ought to have been a calm turquoise blue, but which was flickering from dark blue through violet to mauve. That was simple nervous tension and guilt and anger at the humiliation of being subjected to veridicated interrogation. " ...

Edited :: See Original Report Here
http://www.livescience.com/technology/mind-reader-scanner-100128.html

AP writers Glen Johnson in Boston and Josef Federman in Jerusalem also contributed to this report.

FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of religious, environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

An Un-holy spirit: Has AO (Artificial Omniscience) arrived - Mind Reading Part 2

Mind Reading (Neural Decoding) Goes Mainstream
H+ MAGAZINE -
In the new movie, The Men Who Stare at Goats, reporter Bob Wilton confronts Special Forces operator Lyn Cassady, “I’ve heard that you’re a psychic spy.” Lyn later comments, “We’re Jedi. We don’t fight with our guns, we fight with our minds.” Mind reading - formerly the stuff of science fiction and crystal gazers - is rapidly becoming science fact. A recent CBS 60 Minutes story reports that “technology may soon ‘read’ your mind” in this video (courtesy of CBS):

Toys such as Mattel’s Mindflex™ and the Start Wars Force Trainer™ include brain wave detection technology and are now readily available at your local Target or Walmart stores. For a younger generation raised on telekinetic X-Men - from Professor Xavier to Magneto - these fascinating mind-over-matter toys offer limitless play time opportunities: [See Video: Geek Girl Uses Star Wars Force Trainer]

NeuroSky leads the market in creating inexpensive, consumer brain-computer interfaces. NeuroSky's brain-reading hardware and software headsets are being designed for the automotive, health care and education industries. Using their Mindset™ package you can become NeuroBoy™ and use your special telekinetic powers to push, pull, lift, or burn objects in a virtual world -- by thought alone. ...

In light of a recent announcement at the 2009 Society for Neuroscience conference in Chicago, “mind reading” has taken another scientific leap forward. Researchers are now able to determine what vowel and consonants a person is thinking of by recording activity from the surface of the brain. ...

Advances in research-enabling technologies, such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and computational neuroscience, are resulting in techniques that can better assess the neural basis of cognition and allow the visualization of brain processes -- as well as thought-directed control of prosthetics. Government-financed projects include neural control of mechanical arms, hands and legs. These intelligent artificial limbs will be controlled by your nervous system and will allow you to pitch a fastball, thread a needle or play a piano as well as you did before your loss.

These developments are raising concerns about the potential exploitation of "mind reading" technologies by advertisers or oppressive governments. So it's understandable that researchers are wary of having their work referred to as mind reading. Emphasizing its limitations, they call it neural decoding. ...

What was once speculative fiction -- the ability to read minds and to control the movement of objects using thought alone, sometimes called mind-over-matter -- is rapidly becoming neurotechnological fact. The upside of this technology will more freedom for the physically impaired -- imagine wheelchair-bound physicist Stephen Hawking able to control his wheelchair and capture and communicate his thoughts and sentences with a neuroheadset. The obvious downside is the potential dystopian nightmare of “thought police” strapping you to a chair to view the contents of your mind and gain a confession.

Edited :: See Original Report Here
http://www.hplusmagazine.com/articles/neuro/mind-reading-neural-decoding-goes-mainstream

The Army's Totally Serious Mind-Control Project
TIME [Time Warner] - By Mark Thompson - September 14, 2008
Soldiers barking orders at each other is so 20th Century. That's why the U.S. Army has just awarded a $4 million contract to begin developing "thought helmets" that would harness silent brain waves for secure communication among troops. Ultimately, the Army hopes the project will "lead to direct mental control of military systems by thought alone."

If this sounds insane, it would have been as recently as a few years ago. But improvements in computing power and a better understanding of how the brain works have scientists busy hunting for the distinctive neural fingerprints that flash through a brain when a person is talking to himself. The Army's initial goal is to capture those brain waves with incredibly sophisticated software that then translates the waves into audible radio messages for other troops in the field. "It'd be radio without a microphone, " says Dr. Elmar Schmeisser, the Army neuroscientist overseeing the program. "Because soldiers are already trained to talk in clean, clear and formulaic ways, it would be a very small step to have them think that way." ...

[...] The five-year contract it awarded last month to a coalition of scientists from the University of California at Irvine, Carnegie Mellon University, and the University of Maryland, seeks to "decode the activity in brain networks" so that a soldier could radio commands to one or many comrades by thinking of the message he wanted to relay and who should get it. Initially, the recipients would most likely hear transmissions rendered by a robotic voice via earphones. But scientists eventually hope to deliver a version in which commands are rendered in the speaker's voice and indicate the speaker's distance and direction from the listener.

"Having a soldier gain the ability to communicate without any overt movement would be invaluable both in the battlefield as well as in combat casualty care," the Army said in last year's contract solicitation. "It would provide a revolutionary technology for silent communication and orientation that is inherently immune to external environmental sound and light." ...

Edited :: See Original Report Here
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1841108,00.html

FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of religious, environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.


By Surfdaddy Orca - November 9, 2009

An Un-holy spirit: Has AO (Artificial Omniscience) arrived - Mind Reading Part 1

Ed note: This is part 1 of a compilation of articles on the topic of mind reading technology.

Psychic 'mind-reading' computer will show your thoughts on screen
LONDON DAILY MAIL [Associated Newspapers/DMGT] - By David Derbyshire - November 2, 2009 A mind-reading machine that can produce pictures of what a person is seeing or remembering has been developed by scientists.
The device studies patterns of brainwave activity and turns them into a moving image on a computer screen.
While the idea of a telepathy machine might sound like something from science fiction, the scientists say it could one day be used to solve crimes.
In a pioneering experiment, an American team scanned the brain activity of two volunteers watching a video and used the results to recreate the images they were seeing.
Although the results were crude, the technique was able to reproduce the rough shape of a man in a white shirt and a city skyline.
Professor Jack Gallant, who carried out the experiment at the University of California, Berkeley, said: 'At the moment when you see something and want to describe it you have to use words or draw it and it doesn't work very well.
'This technology might allow you to recover an eyewitness's memory of a crime.'
The experiment is the latest in a series of studies designed to show how brain scans can reveal our innermost thoughts. ...

Edited :: See Original Report Herehttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1224489/Psychic-plug-brain-thoughts-screen-developed.html?printingPage=true


British scientists develop 'brain to brain communication'
LONDON DAILY TELEGRAPH [Barclay] - By Andrew Hough - October 15, 2009A system that creates “brain to brain communication” has been developed by British scientists, it has been claimed.
The system, developed by a team at the University of Southampton, is said to be the first technology that would allow people to send thoughts, words and images directly to the minds of others, particularly people with a disability.
It has also been hailed as the future of the internet, which would provide a new way to communicate without the need for keyboards and telephones.
“This could be useful for those people who are locked into their bodies, who can’t speak, can’t even blink,” said the lead scientist Dr Christopher James.
The scientists claimed the research proved it could eventually be possible to create a system where people sent messages through their thoughts alone, although they conceded it was many years away.
Scientists used “brain-computer interfacing”, a technique that allows computers to analyse brain signals, that enabled them to send messages formed by a person’s brain signals though an internet connection to another person’s brain miles away. ...
“It’s not telepathy,” Dr James told the paper.
“There’s no conscious thought forming in one person’s head and another conscious thought appearing in another person’s mind. ...

Edited :: See Original Report Herehttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/6331511/British-scientists-develop-brain-to-brain-communication.html


Microsoft CEO: Computers will figure you out
The next focus of research, Ballmer tells Charlotte audience, is machines that intuit what user wants.
CHARLOTTE OBSERVER, Charlotte, North Carolina [McClatchy] - By Andrew Dunn - June 19, 2009In the next 10 years, computers as flexible as a sheet of paper will replace notepads and newspapers, while others will be able to intuit what you're trying to find online, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said Friday to a group of Charlotte technology workers.
Ballmer's speech and question-and-answer session kicked off the N.C. Technology Association conference in uptown Charlotte. He discussed topics including health care costs and the future of Microsoft's new search engine, Bing. ...
In 1999, fewer than half of households had desktop computers or cell phones, which are now ubiquitous. The next 10 years, Ballmer said, should see even more rapid changes.
He said a big part of the future of computing is in determining users' intent. For example, he said it's simple to ask his assistant to get him ready to visit Charlotte. But on a computer, it involves opening up his calendar, visiting several Web sites, printing out tickets, and so on. The two will become more similar, Ballmer said.
When you type the word “Chicago” into a search engine, it will be able to determine whether you meant the city, the band or the musical based on your Internet history.
Another part of the future is the development of a more natural interface. Users will be able to speak to, touch and gesture at their computers even more. ...
Edited :: See Original Report Herehttp://www.charlotteobserver.com/597/story/789108.html


Scientists able to read people's minds
Brain scanner translates thoughts of participants in maze experiment
THE INDEPENDENT, UK [APN / INM / O'Reilly] - By Steve Connor, Science Editor - March 13, 2009Having the ability to read someone's mind with a "thought machine" has come a step closer after scientists showed that they could guess a person's memory simply by looking at the electrical activity of their brain.

Scientists have found that spatial memories can be "read" by a brain scanner so that it is possible to predict automatically where someone imagines themselves to be (the exact location in a maze, for instance) without actually asking them.

"It's also a small step toward the idea of mind reading, because just by looking at neural activity, we are able to say what someone is thinking," said Demis Hassabis of University College London.

It may one day be possible to do the same with other types of memories and thoughts, although the possibility of using a mind-reading machine to solve crimes or to fight terrorism is still a distant prospect, Dr Hassabis said.

"It's at least 10 years, probably more, from getting anywhere near that kind of technology, where you could literally read someone's thoughts in a single short session when they don't want you to," he said. "We might be about 10 years away from doing that, so it might be useful to start having those ethical discussions in the near future in preparation for that – but we're still a long way from doing anything practical," Dr Hassabis said.

The study was led by UCL's Professor Eleanor Maguire who had already shown that a small area of the brain behind a region called the hippocampus is enlarged in male taxi drivers who had done "The Knowledge" – memorising the maze of London streets. Professor Maguire trained a different set of male volunteers to navigate themselves through a virtual maze on a computer while their brains were being scanned by a functional MRI machine. "We know that the hippocampus underpins our ability to navigate, to form and recollect memories and how to imagine the future. But how the activity across millions of hippocampal neurons supports the functions is a fundamental question in neuroscience," Professor Maguire said.

The scientists found that certain nerve cells in the brain's hippocampus, called "place cells", became stimulated in definite patterns of activity that the researchers could analyse to guess where in the maze each man imagined himself to be.

"Remarkably, using this technique we found that we could accurately predict the position of an individual within this virtual environment solely from the pattern of activity within their hippocampus," she said.

In contrast, previous research on animals suggested that there were no particular patterns of activity within the nerve cells of the hippocampus that could be used to predict spatial memory. "Our technique, which looks at the picture over many thousands of neurons, shows this cannot be the whole story," Professor Maguire said. "If we're able to predict spatial memories from brain activity, this means there must be a structure to how it is coded in the neurons." ...

Edited :: See Original Report Herehttp://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/scientists-able-to-read-peoples-minds-1643968.html


Breakthrough toy can read your mind, move objects
THE OTTAWA CITIZEN - By Vito Pilieci - January 8, 2009Giving new meaning to the phrase mind over matter, technology that gives people the ability to move objects by thinking will soon be available at North American toy stores.
Mattel Inc. has created a game that can read a child's mind and use thoughts to manoeuvre a small foam ball through a table-top obstacle course.
The Mind Flex uses technology that reads the electrical impulses (called bio-feedback) that occur within a brain while a person is thinking.

A device that looks like a pair of headphones sits on the child's head and tracks brain activity. Within the obstacle course are small fans that are activated when a child thinks. The more brain activity the child produces, the faster the fans blow. The goal is to have the child "think" the little foam ball through the obstacle course.
The toy, to be officially revealed this week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, is expected to be in stores later this year.

The Mind Flex is targeted at children eight and up and will retail for $80 U.S. Canadian pricing has not been released.
While the technology may sound straight from Star Trek, researchers have long been working on ways to use brain activity to direct machines.

"It all goes back to neurofeedback that has been around for 50 years, where you can record activity coming from the human brain through the scalp," said Melvyn Goodale, Canada Research Chair in Visual Neuroscience at the University of Western Ontario. "It has the outside look of a science-fiction theme. You are controlling things through mind waves. But things like this have been around in various science museums for some time." ...

Scientists are also delving into mind-over-matter technology, hoping to isolate specific brain activity with the goal of allowing people to interact with a computer or TV without a mouse, remote or a keyboard. The technology may also be used to help people who have lost their limbs control robotic prosthetics. ...

Edited :: See Original Report Herehttp://www.canada.com/topics/lifestyle/story.html?id=1152974

FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of religious, environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Major revelation: U.S. media deceitfully disseminates government propaganda

Prince of the power of the air[waves] SALON.com [Salon Media Group] - By Glenn Greenwald - April 20, 2008 This morning's "blockbuster" New York Times article by David Barstow, documenting the Pentagon and U.S. media's joint use of pre-programmed "military analysts" who posed as objective experts while touting the Government line and having extensive business interests in promoting those views, is very well-documented and well-reported. And credit to the NYT for having sued to compel disclosure of the documents on which the article is based. There are significant elements of the story that exemplify excellent investigative journalism. At the same time, though, in light of questions on this very topic raised even by the NYT back in 2003, it is difficult to take the article's underlying points seriously as though they are some kind of new revelation. And ultimately, to the extent there are new revelations here, they are a far greater indictment of our leading news organizations than the government officials on whom it focuses. In 2002 and 2003, when Americans were relentlessly subjected to their commentary, news organizations were hardly unaware that these retired generals were mindlessly reciting the administration line on the war and related matters. To the contrary, that's precisely why our news organizations -- which themselves were devoted to selling the war both before and after the invasion by relentlessly featuring pro-war sources and all but excluding anti-war ones -- turned to them in the first place. To its credit, the article acknowledges that "at least nine" of the Pentagon's trained military analysts wrote Op-Eds for the NYT itself, but many of those same sources were also repeatedly quoted -- and still are routinely quoted -- in all sorts of NYT news articles on Iraq and other "War on Terrorism" issues, something the article fails to note. What the article also does not disclose, but should have, is that the NYT itself already published, back on March 25, 2003, right after the invasion of Iraq, an article by John Cushman raising the thorny questions posed by the media's extensive reliance on retired generals as "military analysts": Old soldiers, it turns out, don't just fade away not when a war is being carried live on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News and the broadcast networks. Instead, a whole constellation of retired one-, two-, three- and four-star generals -- including many who led the recent wars in Afghanistan, Kosovo and the Persian Gulf -- can be seen night and day across the television firmament, navigation aids for viewers lost in a narrative that can be foggier than war itself. . . . But the generals' performances raise some questions, including how much they really know and whether they are disclosing more than they should. Some receive occasional briefings from the Pentagon, but like most reporters, they stay current by checking with their friends in the military and studying all the public information they can gather. On the other hand, their evident sympathies with the current commanders, not to mention their respect for the military and immersion in its doctrines,sometimes seem to immunize them to the self-imposed skepticism of the news organizations that now employ them. Rarely, unless pressed, do the generals bluntly criticize the conduct of the war, a detailed review of their recent remarks discloses. Instead, they tend gravely to point out the timeless risks of combat. That 2003 article, at the very beginning, highlighted the obvious conflicts raised by this morning's article, as it quoted Gen. Greg Newbold on ABC News as praising the invasion as follows: "If things haven't gone exactly according to script, they've gone according to plan," even though Newbold himself "until late last year [] was helping to draw up those plans as the director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff." In fact, that 2003 article noted that while Wesley Clark had said on CNN that he wished there were more troops used for the invasion, retired Generals were reliably praising the war and the administration's strategies. That article even quoted one of the retired Generals cited in this morning's article as one of those on the Pentagon's list of puppets -- Wayne Downing -- to illustrate the type of pro-government commentary typically spouted by these "military analysts": More typical was a description by Gen. Wayne A. Downing, a former Army leader of the Special Operations Command and a gulf war commander in 1991, of Gen. Tommy R. Franks, the Iraq war's overall regional commander. "Tommy started off as an enlisted helicopter door gunner in Vietnam," General Downing said, rattling off the story of his old comrade's career as if by rote. "He's not going to go down there and mess with his people. Not only is Tommy comfortable and well liked by his superiors, which a lot of people are, but Tommy hasn't made his money by looking up. He's made his money by looking down." That 2003 article didn't seem to give any of these news outlets -- including the NYT itself -- the slightest pause about continuing to use these sources as "objective" analysts. It's true that the 2003 article did not raise the added conflict that many military analysts were simultaneously working for corporations in the defense industry which stood to profit from the war policies they were praising, but is that really news to anyone? It's long been clear and obvious that these retired generals were used by the U.S. media to provide an authoritative and artificially objective stamp of approval to the Bush administration's positions. In his book Lapdogs, Eric Boehlert cited numerous examples of that, including: And for viewers that night who didn't get a strong enough sense of just how obediently in-step the press corps was with the White House, there was the televised post-press conference analysis. On MSNBC, for instance, "Hardball's" Chris Matthews hosted a full hour of discussion. In order to get a wide array of opinion, he invited a pro-war Republican senator (Saxby Chambliss, from Georgia), a pro-war former Secretary of State (Lawrence Eagleburger), a pro-war retired Army general (Montgomery Meigs), pro-war retired Air Force general (Buster Glosson), a pro-war Republican pollster (Frank Luntz), as well as, for the sake of balance, somebody who, twenty-five years earlier, once worked in Jimmy Carter's White House (Pat Caddell). Meigs was one of the retired Generals on whom the NYT article this morning focused (and as a frequent and highly respected guest on MSNBC, here's the type of propagandizing commentary he routinely spewed, consistent with what the Sainted David Petraeus was doing at the same time). Doing whatever they could to promote the Government line on the "War on Terrorism" was a central function of our propagandizing press corps; the use of allegedly objective retired generals was a critical instrument in their arsenal; and the NYT article this morning, while commendably disclosing new evidence to prove that, does not reveal anything not previously known. The most incredible aspect of the NYT story is that most of the news organizations which deceived their readers and viewers by using these "objective" analysts -- CBS, NBC, Fox -- simply refused to comment on what they knew about any of this or what their procedures are for safeguarding against it. Just ponder what that says about these organizations -- there is a major expose in the NYT documenting that these news outlets misleadingly shoveled government propaganda down the throats of their viewers on matters of war and terrorism and they don't feel the least bit obliged to answer for what they did or knew about any of it. (And it doesn't appear that Barstow even asked the NYT itself to comment about what they knew or what their procedures were when using these sources). CNN did answer by claiming they were unaware of these relationships and rely on their sources to disclose them. The single most significant factor in American political culture is the incestuous, extensive overlap between our media institutions and government officials. The former is a dependent appendage of the latter far more than they are anything else. This article discloses some new details and proof of how that toxic process functions, but the fact that our major news organizations -- with some exceptions -- largely serve as government propaganda outlets is not news. It's the central fact of American political life, and the NYT itself -- along with every other news organization -- more than five years ago was obviously aware of this specific problem but not particularly concerned about it. http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/04/20/nyt/index.html FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of religious, environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. 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Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand

Prince of the power of the air[waves] NEW YORK TIMES [NYTimes Group/Sulzberger] - By DAVID BARSTOW - April 20, 2008 Corrections Appended The administration’s communications experts responded swiftly. Early one Friday morning, they put a group of retired military officers on one of the jets normally used by Vice President Dick Cheney and flew them to Cuba for a carefully orchestrated tour of Guantánamo. To the public, these men are members of a familiar fraternity, presented tens of thousands of times on television and radio as “military analysts” whose long service has equipped them to give authoritative and unfettered judgments about the most pressing issues of the post-Sept. 11 world. Hidden behind that appearance of objectivity, though, is a Pentagon information apparatus that has used those analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance, an examination by The New York Times has found. The effort, which began with the buildup to the Iraq war and continues to this day, has sought to exploit ideological and military allegiances, and also a powerful financial dynamic: Most of the analysts have ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess on air. Those business relationships are hardly ever disclosed to the viewers, and sometimes not even to the networks themselves. But collectively, the men on the plane and several dozen other military analysts represent more than 150 military contractors either as lobbyists, senior executives, board members or consultants. The companies include defense heavyweights, but also scores of smaller companies, all part of a vast assemblage of contractors scrambling for hundreds of billions in military business generated by the administration’s war on terror. It is a furious competition, one in which inside information and easy access to senior officials are highly prized. Records and interviews show how the Bush administration has used its control over access and information in an effort to transform the analysts into a kind of media Trojan horse - an instrument intended to shape terrorism coverage from inside the major TV and radio networks. Analysts have been wooed in hundreds of private briefings with senior military leaders, including officials with significant influence over contracting and budget matters, records show. They have been taken on tours of Iraq and given access to classified intelligence. They have been briefed by officials from the White House, State Department and Justice Department, including Mr. Cheney, Alberto R. Gonzales and Stephen J. Hadley. In turn, members of this group have echoed administration talking points, sometimes even when they suspected the information was false or inflated. Some analysts acknowledge they suppressed doubts because they feared jeopardizing their access. A few expressed regret for participating in what they regarded as an effort to dupe the American public with propaganda dressed as independent military analysis. “It was them saying, ‘We need to stick our hands up your back and move your mouth for you,’ ” Robert S. Bevelacqua, a retired Green Beret and former Fox News analyst, said. Kenneth Allard, a former NBC military analyst who has taught information warfare at the National Defense University, said the campaign amounted to a sophisticated information operation. “This was a coherent, active policy,” he said. As conditions in Iraq deteriorated, Mr. Allard recalled, he saw a yawning gap between what analysts were told in private briefings and what subsequent inquiries and books later revealed. “Night and day,” Mr. Allard said, “I felt we’d been hosed.” The Pentagon defended its relationship with military analysts, saying they had been given only factual information about the war. “The intent and purpose of this is nothing other than an earnest attempt to inform the American people,” Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, said. It was, Mr. Whitman added, “a bit incredible” to think retired military officers could be “wound up” and turned into “puppets of the Defense Department.” Many analysts strongly denied that they had either been co-opted or had allowed outside business interests to affect their on-air comments, and some have used their platforms to criticize the conduct of the war. Several, like Jeffrey D. McCausland, a CBS military analyst and defense industry lobbyist, said they kept their networks informed of their outside work and recused themselves from coverage that touched on business interests. “I’m not here representing the administration,” Dr. McCausland said. Some network officials, meanwhile, acknowledged only a limited understanding of their analysts’ interactions with the administration. They said that while they were sensitive to potential conflicts of interest, they did not hold their analysts to the same ethical standards as their news employees regarding outside financial interests. The onus is on their analysts to disclose conflicts, they said. And whatever the contributions of military analysts, they also noted the many network journalists who have covered the war for years in all its complexity. Five years into the Iraq war, most details of the architecture and execution of the Pentagon’s campaign have never been disclosed. But The Times successfully sued the Defense Department to gain access to 8,000 pages of e-mail messages, transcripts and records describing years of private briefings, trips to Iraq and Guantánamo and an extensive Pentagon talking points operation. These records reveal a symbiotic relationship where the usual dividing lines between government and journalism have been obliterated. Internal Pentagon documents repeatedly refer to the military analysts as “message force multipliers” or “surrogates” who could be counted on to deliver administration “themes and messages” to millions of Americans “in the form of their own opinions.” Though many analysts are paid network consultants, making $500 to $1,000 per appearance, in Pentagon meetings they sometimes spoke as if they were operating behind enemy lines, interviews and transcripts show. Some offered the Pentagon tips on how to outmaneuver the networks, or as one analyst put it to Donald H. Rumsfeld, then the defense secretary, “the Chris Matthewses and the Wolf Blitzers of the world.” Some warned of planned stories or sent the Pentagon copies of their correspondence with network news executives. Many - although certainly not all - faithfully echoed talking points intended to counter critics. “Good work,” Thomas G. McInerney, a retired Air Force general, consultant and Fox News analyst, wrote to the Pentagon after receiving fresh talking points in late 2006. “We will use it.” Again and again, records show, the administration has enlisted analysts as a rapid reaction force to rebut what it viewed as critical news coverage, some of it by the networks’ own Pentagon correspondents. For example, when news articles revealed that troops in Iraq were dying because of inadequate body armor, a senior Pentagon official wrote to his colleagues: “I think our analysts - properly armed - can push back in that arena.” The documents released by the Pentagon do not show any quid pro quo between commentary and contracts. But some analysts said they had used the special access as a marketing and networking opportunity or as a window into future business possibilities. John C. Garrett is a retired Marine colonel and unpaid analyst for Fox News TV and radio. He is also a lobbyist at Patton Boggs who helps firms win Pentagon contracts, including in Iraq. In promotional materials, he states that as a military analyst he “is privy to weekly access and briefings with the secretary of defense, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and other high level policy makers in the administration.” One client told investors that Mr. Garrett’s special access and decades of experience helped him “to know in advance - and in detail - how best to meet the needs” of the Defense Department and other agencies. In interviews Mr. Garrett said there was an inevitable overlap between his dual roles. He said he had gotten “information you just otherwise would not get,” from the briefings and three Pentagon-sponsored trips to Iraq. He also acknowledged using this access and information to identify opportunities for clients. “You can’t help but look for that,” he said, adding, “If you know a capability that would fill a niche or need, you try to fill it. “That’s good for everybody.” At the same time, in e-mail messages to the Pentagon, Mr. Garrett displayed an eagerness to be supportive with his television and radio commentary. “Please let me know if you have any specific points you want covered or that you would prefer to downplay,” he wrote in January 2007, before President Bush went on TV to describe the surge strategy in Iraq. Conversely, the administration has demonstrated that there is a price for sustained criticism, many analysts said. “You’ll lose all access,” Dr. McCausland said. With a majority of Americans calling the war a mistake despite all administration attempts to sway public opinion, the Pentagon has focused in the last couple of years on cultivating in particular military analysts frequently seen and heard in conservative news outlets, records and interviews show. Some of these analysts were on the mission to Cuba on June 24, 2005 - the first of six such Guantánamo trips - which was designed to mobilize analysts against the growing perception of Guantánamo as an international symbol of inhumane treatment. On the flight to Cuba, for much of the day at Guantánamo and on the flight home that night, Pentagon officials briefed the 10 or so analysts on their key messages - how much had been spent improving the facility, the abuse endured by guards, the extensive rights afforded detainees. The results came quickly. The analysts went on TV and radio, decrying Amnesty International, criticizing calls to close the facility and asserting that all detainees were treated humanely. “The impressions that you’re getting from the media and from the various pronouncements being made by people who have not been here in my opinion are totally false,” Donald W. Shepperd, a retired Air Force general, reported live on CNN by phone from Guantánamo that same afternoon. The next morning, Montgomery Meigs, a retired Army general and NBC analyst, appeared on “Today.” “There’s been over $100 million of new construction,” he reported. “The place is very professionally run.” Within days, transcripts of the analysts’ appearances were circulated to senior White House and Pentagon officials, cited as evidence of progress in the battle for hearts and minds at home. Charting the Campaign By early 2002, detailed planning for a possible Iraq invasion was under way, yet an obstacle loomed. Many Americans, polls showed, were uneasy about invading a country with no clear connection to the Sept. 11 attacks. Pentagon and White House officials believed the military analysts could play a crucial role in helping overcome this resistance. Torie Clarke, the former public relations executive who oversaw the Pentagon’s dealings with the analysts as assistant secretary of defense for public affairs, had come to her job with distinct ideas about achieving what she called “information dominance.” In a spin-saturated news culture, she argued, opinion is swayed most by voices perceived as authoritative and utterly independent. And so even before Sept. 11, she built a system within the Pentagon to recruit “key influentials” - movers and shakers from all walks who with the proper ministrations might be counted on to generate support for Mr. Rumsfeld’s priorities. In the months after Sept. 11, as every network rushed to retain its own all-star squad of retired military officers, Ms. Clarke and her staff sensed a new opportunity. To Ms. Clarke’s team, the military analysts were the ultimate “key influential” - authoritative, most of them decorated war heroes, all reaching mass audiences. The analysts, they noticed, often got more airtime than network reporters, and they were not merely explaining the capabilities of Apache helicopters. They were framing how viewers ought to interpret events. What is more, while the analysts were in the news media, they were not of the news media. They were military men, many of them ideologically in sync with the administration’s neoconservative brain trust, many of them important players in a military industry anticipating large budget increases to pay for an Iraq war. Even analysts with no defense industry ties, and no fondness for the administration, were reluctant to be critical of military leaders, many of whom were friends. “It is very hard for me to criticize the United States Army,” said William L. Nash, a retired Army general and ABC analyst. “It is my life.” Other administrations had made sporadic, small-scale attempts to build relationships with the occasional military analyst. But these were trifling compared with what Ms. Clarke’s team had in mind. Don Meyer, an aide to Ms. Clarke, said a strategic decision was made in 2002 to make the analysts the main focus of the public relations push to construct a case for war. Journalists were secondary. “We didn’t want to rely on them to be our primary vehicle to get information out,” Mr. Meyer said. The Pentagon’s regular press office would be kept separate from the military analysts. The analysts would instead be catered to by a small group of political appointees, with the point person being Brent T. Krueger, another senior aide to Ms. Clarke. The decision recalled other administration tactics that subverted traditional journalism. Federal agencies, for example, have paid columnists to write favorably about the administration. They have distributed to local TV stations hundreds of fake news segments with fawning accounts of administration accomplishments. The Pentagon itself has made covert payments to Iraqi newspapers to publish coalition propaganda. Rather than complain about the “media filter,” each of these techniques simply converted the filter into an amplifier. This time, Mr. Krueger said, the military analysts would in effect be “writing the op-ed” for the war. Assembling the Team From the start, interviews show, the White House took a keen interest in which analysts had been identified by the Pentagon, requesting lists of potential recruits, and suggesting names. Ms. Clarke’s team wrote summaries describing their backgrounds, business affiliations and where they stood on the war. “Rumsfeld ultimately cleared off on all invitees,” said Mr. Krueger, who left the Pentagon in 2004. (Through a spokesman, Mr. Rumsfeld declined to comment for this article.) Over time, the Pentagon recruited more than 75 retired officers, although some participated only briefly or sporadically. The largest contingent was affiliated with Fox News, followed by NBC and CNN, the other networks with 24-hour cable outlets. But analysts from CBS and ABC were included, too. Some recruits, though not on any network payroll, were influential in other ways - either because they were sought out by radio hosts, or because they often published op-ed articles or were quoted in magazines, Web sites and newspapers. At least nine of them have written op-ed articles for The Times.

The group was heavily represented by men involved in the business of helping companies win military contracts. Several held senior positions with contractors that gave them direct responsibility for winning new Pentagon business. James Marks, a retired Army general and analyst for CNN from 2004 to 2007, pursued military and intelligence contracts as a senior executive with McNeil Technologies. Still others held board positions with military firms that gave them responsibility for government business. General McInerney, the Fox analyst, for example, sits on the boards of several military contractors, including Nortel Government Solutions, a supplier of communication networks. Several were defense industry lobbyists, such as Dr. McCausland, who works at Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney, a major lobbying firm where he is director of a national security team that represents several military contractors. “We offer clients access to key decision makers,” Dr. McCausland’s team promised on the firm’s Web site. Dr. McCausland was not the only analyst making this pledge. Another was Joseph W. Ralston, a retired Air Force general. Soon after signing on with CBS, General Ralston was named vice chairman of the Cohen Group, a consulting firm headed by a former defense secretary, William Cohen, himself now a “world affairs” analyst for CNN. “The Cohen Group knows that getting to ‘yes’ in the aerospace and defense market - whether in the United States or abroad - requires that companies have a thorough, up-to-date understanding of the thinking of government decision makers,” the company tells prospective clients on its Web site. There were also ideological ties. Two of NBC’s most prominent analysts, Barry R. McCaffrey and the late Wayne A. Downing, were on the advisory board of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, an advocacy group created with White House encouragement in 2002 to help make the case for ousting Saddam Hussein. Both men also had their own consulting firms and sat on the boards of major military contractors. Many also shared with Mr. Bush’s national security team a belief that pessimistic war coverage broke the nation’s will to win in Vietnam, and there was a mutual resolve not to let that happen with this war. This was a major theme, for example, with Paul E. Vallely, a Fox News analyst from 2001 to 2007. A retired Army general who had specialized in psychological warfare, Mr. Vallely co-authored a paper in 1980 that accused American news organizations of failing to defend the nation from “enemy” propaganda during Vietnam. “We lost the war - not because we were outfought, but because we were out Psyoped,” he wrote. He urged a radically new approach to psychological operations in future wars - taking aim at not just foreign adversaries but domestic audiences, too. He called his approach “MindWar” - using network TV and radio to “strengthen our national will to victory.” The Selling of the War From their earliest sessions with the military analysts, Mr. Rumsfeld and his aides spoke as if they were all part of the same team. In interviews, participants described a powerfully seductive environment - the uniformed escorts to Mr. Rumsfeld’s private conference room, the best government china laid out, the embossed name cards, the blizzard of PowerPoints, the solicitations of advice and counsel, the appeals to duty and country, the warm thank you notes from the secretary himself. “Oh, you have no idea,” Mr. Allard said, describing the effect. “You’re back. They listen to you. They listen to what you say on TV.” It was, he said, “psyops on steroids” - a nuanced exercise in influence through flattery and proximity. “It’s not like it’s, ‘We’ll pay you $500 to get our story out,’ ” he said. “It’s more subtle.” The access came with a condition. Participants were instructed not to quote their briefers directly or otherwise describe their contacts with the Pentagon. In the fall and winter leading up to the invasion, the Pentagon armed its analysts with talking points portraying Iraq as an urgent threat. The basic case became a familiar mantra: Iraq possessed chemical and biological weapons, was developing nuclear weapons, and might one day slip some to Al Qaeda; an invasion would be a relatively quick and inexpensive “war of liberation.” At the Pentagon, members of Ms. Clarke’s staff marveled at the way the analysts seamlessly incorporated material from talking points and briefings as if it was their own. “You could see that they were messaging,” Mr. Krueger said. “You could see they were taking verbatim what the secretary was saying or what the technical specialists were saying. And they were saying it over and over and over.” Some days, he added, “We were able to click on every single station and every one of our folks were up there delivering our message. You’d look at them and say, ‘This is working.’ ” On April 12, 2003, with major combat almost over, Mr. Rumsfeld drafted a memorandum to Ms. Clarke. “Let’s think about having some of the folks who did such a good job as talking heads in after this thing is over,” he wrote. By summer, though, the first signs of the insurgency had emerged. Reports from journalists based in Baghdad were increasingly suffused with the imagery of mayhem. The Pentagon did not have to search far for a counterweight. It was time, an internal Pentagon strategy memorandum urged, to “re-energize surrogates and message-force multipliers,” starting with the military analysts. The memorandum led to a proposal to take analysts on a tour of Iraq in September 2003, timed to help overcome the sticker shock from Mr. Bush’s request for $87 billion in emergency war financing. The group included four analysts from Fox News, one each from CNN and ABC, and several research-group luminaries whose opinion articles appear regularly in the nation’s op-ed pages. The trip invitation promised a look at “the real situation on the ground in Iraq.” The situation, as described in scores of books, was deteriorating. L. Paul Bremer III, then the American viceroy in Iraq, wrote in his memoir, “My Year in Iraq,” that he had privately warned the White House that the United States had “about half the number of soldiers we needed here.” “We’re up against a growing and sophisticated threat,” Mr. Bremer recalled telling the president during a private White House dinner. That dinner took place on Sept. 24, while the analysts were touring Iraq. Yet these harsh realities were elided, or flatly contradicted, during the official presentations for the analysts, records show. The itinerary, scripted to the minute, featured brief visits to a model school, a few refurbished government buildings, a center for women’s rights, a mass grave and even the gardens of Babylon. Mostly the analysts attended briefings. These sessions, records show, spooled out an alternative narrative, depicting an Iraq bursting with political and economic energy, its security forces blossoming. On the crucial question of troop levels, the briefings echoed the White House line: No reinforcements were needed. The “growing and sophisticated threat” described by Mr. Bremer was instead depicted as degraded, isolated and on the run. “We’re winning,” a briefing document proclaimed. One trip participant, General Nash of ABC, said some briefings were so clearly “artificial” that he joked to another group member that they were on “the George Romney memorial trip to Iraq,” a reference to Mr. Romney’s infamous claim that American officials had “brainwashed” him into supporting the Vietnam War during a tour there in 1965, while he was governor of Michigan. But if the trip pounded the message of progress, it also represented a business opportunity: direct access to the most senior civilian and military leaders in Iraq and Kuwait, including many with a say in how the president’s $87 billion would be spent. It also was a chance to gather inside information about the most pressing needs confronting the American mission: the acute shortages of “up-armored” Humvees; the billions to be spent building military bases; the urgent need for interpreters; and the ambitious plans to train Iraq’s security forces. Information and access of this nature had undeniable value for trip participants like William V. Cowan and Carlton A. Sherwood. Mr. Cowan, a Fox analyst and retired Marine colonel, was the chief executive of a new military firm, the wvc3 Group. Mr. Sherwood was its executive vice president. At the time, the company was seeking contracts worth tens of millions to supply body armor and counterintelligence services in Iraq. In addition, wvc3 Group had a written agreement to use its influence and connections to help tribal leaders in Al Anbar Province win reconstruction contracts from the coalition. “Those sheiks wanted access to the C.P.A.,” Mr. Cowan recalled in an interview, referring to the Coalition Provisional Authority. Mr. Cowan said he pleaded their cause during the trip. “I tried to push hard with some of Bremer’s people to engage these people of Al Anbar,” he said. Back in Washington, Pentagon officials kept a nervous eye on how the trip translated on the airwaves. Uncomfortable facts had bubbled up during the trip. One briefer, for example, mentioned that the Army was resorting to packing inadequately armored Humvees with sandbags and Kevlar blankets. Descriptions of the Iraqi security forces were withering. “They can’t shoot, but then again, they don’t,” one officer told them, according to one participant’s notes. “I saw immediately in 2003 that things were going south,” General Vallely, one of the Fox analysts on the trip, recalled in an interview with The Times. The Pentagon, though, need not have worried. “You can’t believe the progress,” General Vallely told Alan Colmes of Fox News upon his return. He predicted the insurgency would be “down to a few numbers” within months. “We could not be more excited, more pleased,” Mr. Cowan told Greta Van Susteren of Fox News. There was barely a word about armor shortages or corrupt Iraqi security forces. And on the key strategic question of the moment - whether to send more troops - the analysts were unanimous. “I am so much against adding more troops,” General Shepperd said on CNN.

Access and Influence Inside the Pentagon and at the White House, the trip was viewed as a masterpiece in the management of perceptions, not least because it gave fuel to complaints that “mainstream” journalists were ignoring the good news in Iraq. “We’re hitting a home run on this trip,” a senior Pentagon official wrote in an e-mail message to Richard B. Myers and Peter Pace, then chairman and vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Its success only intensified the Pentagon’s campaign. The pace of briefings accelerated. More trips were organized. Eventually the effort involved officials from Washington to Baghdad to Kabul to Guantánamo and back to Tampa, Fla., the headquarters of United States Central Command. The scale reflected strong support from the top. When officials in Iraq were slow to organize another trip for analysts, a Pentagon official fired off an e-mail message warning that the trips “have the highest levels of visibility” at the White House and urging them to get moving before Lawrence Di Rita, one of Mr. Rumsfeld’s closest aides, “picks up the phone and starts calling the 4-stars.” Mr. Di Rita, no longer at the Defense Department, said in an interview that a “conscious decision” was made to rely on the military analysts to counteract “the increasingly negative view of the war” coming from journalists in Iraq. The analysts, he said, generally had “a more supportive view” of the administration and the war, and the combination of their TV platforms and military cachet made them ideal for rebutting critical coverage of issues like troop morale, treatment of detainees, inadequate equipment or poorly trained Iraqi security forces. “On those issues, they were more likely to be seen as credible spokesmen,” he said. For analysts with military industry ties, the attention brought access to a widening circle of influential officials beyond the contacts they had accumulated over the course of their careers. Charles T. Nash, a Fox military analyst and retired Navy captain, is a consultant who helps small companies break into the military market. Suddenly, he had entree to a host of senior military leaders, many of whom he had never met. It was, he said, like being embedded with the Pentagon leadership. “You start to recognize what’s most important to them,” he said, adding, “There’s nothing like seeing stuff firsthand.” Some Pentagon officials said they were well aware that some analysts viewed their special access as a business advantage. “Of course we realized that,” Mr. Krueger said. “We weren’t naïve about that.” They also understood the financial relationship between the networks and their analysts. Many analysts were being paid by the “hit,” the number of times they appeared on TV. The more an analyst could boast of fresh inside information from high-level Pentagon “sources,” the more hits he could expect. The more hits, the greater his potential influence in the military marketplace, where several analysts prominently advertised their network roles. “They have taken lobbying and the search for contracts to a far higher level,” Mr. Krueger said. “This has been highly honed.” Mr. Di Rita, though, said it never occurred to him that analysts might use their access to curry favor. Nor, he said, did the Pentagon try to exploit this dynamic. “That’s not something that ever crossed my mind,” he said. In any event, he argued, the analysts and the networks were the ones responsible for any ethical complications. “We assume they know where the lines are,” he said. The analysts met personally with Mr. Rumsfeld at least 18 times, records show, but that was just the beginning. They had dozens more sessions with the most senior members of his brain trust and access to officials responsible for managing the billions being spent in Iraq. Other groups of “key influentials” had meetings, but not nearly as often as the analysts. An internal memorandum in 2005 helped explain why. The memorandum, written by a Pentagon official who had accompanied analysts to Iraq, said that based on her observations during the trip, the analysts “are having a greater impact” on network coverage of the military. “They have now become the go-to guys not only on breaking stories, but they influence the views on issues,” she wrote. Other branches of the administration also began to make use of the analysts. Mr. Gonzales, then the attorney general, met with them soon after news leaked that the government was wiretapping terrorism suspects in the United States without warrants, Pentagon records show. When David H. Petraeus was appointed the commanding general in Iraq in January 2007, one of his early acts was to meet with the analysts. “We knew we had extraordinary access,” said Timur J. Eads, a retired Army lieutenant colonel and Fox analyst who is vice president of government relations for Blackbird Technologies, a fast-growing military contractor. Like several other analysts, Mr. Eads said he had at times held his tongue on television for fear that “some four-star could call up and say, ‘Kill that contract.’ ” For example, he believed Pentagon officials misled the analysts about the progress of Iraq’s security forces. “I know a snow job when I see one,” he said. He did not share this on TV. “Human nature,” he explained, though he noted other instances when he was critical. Some analysts said that even before the war started, they privately had questions about the justification for the invasion, but were careful not to express them on air. Mr. Bevelacqua, then a Fox analyst, was among those invited to a briefing in early 2003 about Iraq’s purported stockpiles of illicit weapons. He recalled asking the briefer whether the United States had “smoking gun” proof. “ ‘We don’t have any hard evidence,’ ” Mr. Bevelacqua recalled the briefer replying. He said he and other analysts were alarmed by this concession. “We are looking at ourselves saying, ‘What are we doing?’ ” Another analyst, Robert L. Maginnis, a retired Army lieutenant colonel who works in the Pentagon for a military contractor, attended the same briefing and recalled feeling “very disappointed” after being shown satellite photographs purporting to show bunkers associated with a hidden weapons program. Mr. Maginnis said he concluded that the analysts were being “manipulated” to convey a false sense of certainty about the evidence of the weapons. Yet he and Mr. Bevelacqua and the other analysts who attended the briefing did not share any misgivings with the American public. Mr. Bevelacqua and another Fox analyst, Mr. Cowan, had formed the wvc3 Group, and hoped to win military and national security contracts. “There’s no way I was going to go down that road and get completely torn apart,” Mr. Bevelacqua said. “You’re talking about fighting a huge machine.” Some e-mail messages between the Pentagon and the analysts reveal an implicit trade of privileged access for favorable coverage. Robert H. Scales Jr., a retired Army general and analyst for Fox News and National Public Radio whose consulting company advises several military firms on weapons and tactics used in Iraq, wanted the Pentagon to approve high-level briefings for him inside Iraq in 2006. “Recall the stuff I did after my last visit,” he wrote. “I will do the same this time.” Pentagon Keeps Tabs As it happened, the analysts’ news media appearances were being closely monitored. The Pentagon paid a private contractor, Omnitec Solutions, hundreds of thousands of dollars to scour databases for any trace of the analysts, be it a segment on “The O’Reilly Factor” or an interview with The Daily Inter Lake in Montana, circulation 20,000. Omnitec evaluated their appearances using the same tools as corporate branding experts. One report, assessing the impact of several trips to Iraq in 2005, offered example after example of analysts echoing Pentagon themes on all the networks. “Commentary from all three Iraq trips was extremely positive over all,” the report concluded. In interviews, several analysts reacted with dismay when told they were described as reliable “surrogates” in Pentagon documents. And some asserted that their Pentagon sessions were, as David L. Grange, a retired Army general and CNN analyst put it, “just upfront information,” while others pointed out, accurately, that they did not always agree with the administration or each other. “None of us drink the Kool-Aid,” General Scales said. Likewise, several also denied using their special access for business gain. “Not related at all,” General Shepperd said, pointing out that many in the Pentagon held CNN “in the lowest esteem.” Still, even the mildest of criticism could draw a challenge. Several analysts told of fielding telephone calls from displeased defense officials only minutes after being on the air. On Aug. 3, 2005, 14 marines died in Iraq. That day, Mr. Cowan, who said he had grown increasingly uncomfortable with the “twisted version of reality” being pushed on analysts in briefings, called the Pentagon to give “a heads-up” that some of his comments on Fox “may not all be friendly,” Pentagon records show. Mr. Rumsfeld’s senior aides quickly arranged a private briefing for him, yet when he told Bill O’Reilly that the United States was “not on a good glide path right now” in Iraq, the repercussions were swift. Mr. Cowan said he was “precipitously fired from the analysts group” for this appearance. The Pentagon, he wrote in an e-mail message, “simply didn’t like the fact that I wasn’t carrying their water.” The next day James T. Conway, then director of operations for the Joint Chiefs, presided over another conference call with analysts. He urged them, a transcript shows, not to let the marines’ deaths further erode support for the war. “The strategic target remains our population,” General Conway said. “We can lose people day in and day out, but they’re never going to beat our military. What they can and will do if they can is strip away our support. And you guys can help us not let that happen.” “General, I just made that point on the air,” an analyst replied. “Let’s work it together, guys,” General Conway urged. The Generals’ Revolt The full dimensions of this mutual embrace were perhaps never clearer than in April 2006, after several of Mr. Rumsfeld’s former generals - none of them network military analysts - went public with devastating critiques of his wartime performance. Some called for his resignation. On Friday, April 14, with what came to be called the “Generals’ Revolt” dominating headlines, Mr. Rumsfeld instructed aides to summon military analysts to a meeting with him early the next week, records show. When an aide urged a short delay to “give our big guys on the West Coast a little more time to buy a ticket and get here,” Mr. Rumsfeld’s office insisted that “the boss” wanted the meeting fast “for impact on the current story.” That same day, Pentagon officials helped two Fox analysts, General McInerney and General Vallely, write an opinion article for The Wall Street Journal defending Mr. Rumsfeld. “Starting to write it now,” General Vallely wrote to the Pentagon that afternoon. “Any input for the article,” he added a little later, “will be much appreciated.” Mr. Rumsfeld’s office quickly forwarded talking points and statistics to rebut the notion of a spreading revolt. “Vallely is going to use the numbers,” a Pentagon official reported that afternoon. The standard secrecy notwithstanding, plans for this session leaked, producing a front-page story in The Times that Sunday. In damage-control mode, Pentagon officials scrambled to present the meeting as routine and directed that communications with analysts be kept “very formal,” records show. “This is very, very sensitive now,” a Pentagon official warned subordinates. On Tuesday, April 18, some 17 analysts assembled at the Pentagon with Mr. Rumsfeld and General Pace, then the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. A transcript of that session, never before disclosed, shows a shared determination to marginalize war critics and revive public support for the war. “I’m an old intel guy,” said one analyst. (The transcript omits speakers’ names.) “And I can sum all of this up, unfortunately, with one word. That is Psyops. Now most people may hear that and they think, ‘Oh my God, they’re trying to brainwash.’ ” “What are you, some kind of a nut?” Mr. Rumsfeld cut in, drawing laughter. “You don’t believe in the Constitution?” There was little discussion about the actual criticism pouring forth from Mr. Rumsfeld’s former generals. Analysts argued that opposition to the war was rooted in perceptions fed by the news media, not reality. The administration’s overall war strategy, they counseled, was “brilliant” and “very successful.” “Frankly,” one participant said, “from a military point of view, the penalty, 2,400 brave Americans whom we lost, 3,000 in an hour and 15 minutes, is relative.” An analyst said at another point: “This is a wider war. And whether we have democracy in Iraq or not, it doesn’t mean a tinker’s damn if we end up with the result we want, which is a regime over there that’s not a threat to us.” “Yeah,” Mr. Rumsfeld said, taking notes. But winning or not, they bluntly warned, the administration was in grave political danger so long as most Americans viewed Iraq as a lost cause. “America hates a loser,” one analyst said. Much of the session was devoted to ways that Mr. Rumsfeld could reverse the “political tide.” One analyst urged Mr. Rumsfeld to “just crush these people,” and assured him that “most of the gentlemen at the table” would enthusiastically support him if he did. “You are the leader,” the analyst told Mr. Rumsfeld. “You are our guy.” At another point, an analyst made a suggestion: “In one of your speeches you ought to say, ‘Everybody stop for a minute and imagine an Iraq ruled by Zarqawi.’ And then you just go down the list and say, ‘All right, we’ve got oil, money, sovereignty, access to the geographic center of gravity of the Middle East, blah, blah, blah.’ If you can just paint a mental picture for Joe America to say, ‘Oh my God, I can’t imagine a world like that.’ ” Even as they assured Mr. Rumsfeld that they stood ready to help in this public relations offensive, the analysts sought guidance on what they should cite as the next “milestone” that would, as one analyst put it, “keep the American people focused on the idea that we’re moving forward to a positive end.” They placed particular emphasis on the growing confrontation with Iran. “When you said ‘long war,’ you changed the psyche of the American people to expect this to be a generational event,” an analyst said. “And again, I’m not trying to tell you how to do your job...” “Get in line,” Mr. Rumsfeld interjected. The meeting ended and Mr. Rumsfeld, appearing pleased and relaxed, took the entire group into a small study and showed off treasured keepsakes from his life, several analysts recalled. Soon after, analysts hit the airwaves. The Omnitec monitoring reports, circulated to more than 80 officials, confirmed that analysts repeated many of the Pentagon’s talking points: that Mr. Rumsfeld consulted “frequently and sufficiently” with his generals; that he was not “overly concerned” with the criticisms; that the meeting focused “on more important topics at hand,” including the next milestone in Iraq, the formation of a new government. Days later, Mr. Rumsfeld wrote a memorandum distilling their collective guidance into bullet points. Two were underlined: “Focus on the Global War on Terror - not simply Iraq. The wider war - the long war.” “Link Iraq to Iran. Iran is the concern. If we fail in Iraq or Afghanistan, it will help Iran.” But if Mr. Rumsfeld found the session instructive, at least one participant, General Nash, the ABC analyst, was repulsed. “I walked away from that session having total disrespect for my fellow commentators, with perhaps one or two exceptions,” he said. View From the Networks Two weeks ago General Petraeus took time out from testifying before Congress about Iraq for a conference call with military analysts. Mr. Garrett, the Fox analyst and Patton Boggs lobbyist, said he told General Petraeus during the call to “keep up the great work.” “Hey,” Mr. Garrett said in an interview, “anything we can do to help.” For the moment, though, because of heavy election coverage and general war fatigue, military analysts are not getting nearly as much TV time, and the networks have trimmed their rosters of analysts. The conference call with General Petraeus, for example, produced little in the way of immediate coverage. Still, almost weekly the Pentagon continues to conduct briefings with selected military analysts. Many analysts said network officials were only dimly aware of these interactions. The networks, they said, have little grasp of how often they meet with senior officials, or what is discussed. “I don’t think NBC was even aware we were participating,” said Rick Francona, a longtime military analyst for the network. Some networks publish biographies on their Web sites that describe their analysts’ military backgrounds and, in some cases, give at least limited information about their business ties. But many analysts also said the networks asked few questions about their outside business interests, the nature of their work or the potential for that work to create conflicts of interest. “None of that ever happened,” said Mr. Allard, an NBC analyst until 2006. “The worst conflict of interest was no interest.” Mr. Allard and other analysts said their network handlers also raised no objections when the Defense Department began paying their commercial airfare for Pentagon-sponsored trips to Iraq - a clear ethical violation for most news organizations. CBS News declined to comment on what it knew about its military analysts’ business affiliations or what steps it took to guard against potential conflicts. NBC News also declined to discuss its procedures for hiring and monitoring military analysts. The network issued a short statement: “We have clear policies in place to assure that the people who appear on our air have been appropriately vetted and that nothing in their profile would lead to even a perception of a conflict of interest.” Jeffrey W. Schneider, a spokesman for ABC, said that while the network’s military consultants were not held to the same ethical rules as its full-time journalists, they were expected to keep the network informed about any outside business entanglements. “We make it clear to them we expect them to keep us closely apprised,” he said. A spokeswoman for Fox News said executives “refused to participate” in this article. CNN requires its military analysts to disclose in writing all outside sources of income. But like the other networks, it does not provide its military analysts with the kind of written, specific ethical guidelines it gives its full-time employees for avoiding real or apparent conflicts of interest. Yet even where controls exist, they have sometimes proven porous. CNN, for example, said it was unaware for nearly three years that one of its main military analysts, General Marks, was deeply involved in the business of seeking government contracts, including contracts related to Iraq. General Marks was hired by CNN in 2004, about the time he took a management position at McNeil Technologies, where his job was to pursue military and intelligence contracts. As required, General Marks disclosed that he received income from McNeil Technologies. But the disclosure form did not require him to describe what his job entailed, and CNN acknowledges it failed to do additional vetting. “We did not ask Mr. Marks the follow-up questions we should have,” CNN said in a written statement. In an interview, General Marks said it was no secret at CNN that his job at McNeil Technologies was about winning contracts. “I mean, that’s what McNeil does,” he said. CNN, however, said it did not know the nature of McNeil’s military business or what General Marks did for the company. If he was bidding on Pentagon contracts, CNN said, that should have disqualified him from being a military analyst for the network. But in the summer and fall of 2006, even as he was regularly asked to comment on conditions in Iraq, General Marks was working intensively on bidding for a $4.6 billion contract to provide thousands of translators to United States forces in Iraq. In fact, General Marks was made president of the McNeil spin-off that won the huge contract in December 2006. General Marks said his work on the contract did not affect his commentary on CNN. “I’ve got zero challenge separating myself from a business interest,” he said. But CNN said it had no idea about his role in the contract until July 2007, when it reviewed his most recent disclosure form, submitted months earlier, and finally made inquiries about his new job. “We saw the extent of his dealings and determined at that time we should end our relationship with him,” CNN said. This article has been revised to reflect the following correction: Correction: April 22, 2008 An article on Sunday about the Pentagon’s relationship with news media military analysts misidentified the military affiliation of one analyst, John C. Garrett. He retired as a colonel from the Marines, not the Army. This article has been revised to reflect the following correction: Correction: April 24, 2008 The continuation of an article on Sunday about a Pentagon effort to use military analysts to generate favorable news coverage carried 10 paragraphs that were partly obscured in some editions by a chart. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/washington/20generals.html?ex=1366689600&en=eefc8e0bdd6ffc91&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

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