After raising the historical evidence for activity on these lines, the article seems to understate it a little. For example: > The veil was briefly lifted in

After raising the historical evidence for activity on these lines, the article seems to understate it a little. For example: > The veil was briefly lifted in 2011, when a set of threat intelligence firms plotted to disrupt the hacktivist network LulzSec and attempt to discredit journalist Glenn Greenwald. The contractors, led by the now defunct firm HBGary, devised a plan to infiltrate left-leaning organizations using fake online identities, in a bid to win lucrative deals defending corporations facing public scrutiny. This oddly makes no mention of the more sensational HBGary bid to discredit Julian Assange directly (see: [1]). A little further down it reminds us that the Snowden documents > revealed that FBI and CIA spies had created fake personas to hunt for potential terror plots discussed in online games but that > Those initiatives fizzled after the intelligence agencies found little to no evidence of terror communications. Odd that this should fail to mention the slides[2] accompanying a GCHQ talk concerning the activities of HSOC and JTrig ("Human Science Operations Cell" and "Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group") which show a mature program of "Online Covert Activity" (with accreditation!) was at least planned, with "Full roll out complete by early 2013, 150 JTRIG and Ops staff fully trained" in (inter alia) infiltration and disruption of online communities. 1: https://www.computerworld.com/article/2470522/bank-of-america-using-three-intelligence-firms-to-attack-wikileaks.html https://www.computerworld.com/article/2470522/bank-of-americ... 2: https://theintercept.com/document/2014/02/24/art-deception-training-new-generation-online-covert-operations/ https://theintercept.com/document/2014/02/24/art-deception-t...