R.M.P Marotta Long Island

Heavy Use of NSA Electronics, Actual Crimes

We need to try and act proactively. Beyond the physical protection of individuals in strategic situations, part of the solution would be to free ourselves from our addiction to digital technology or to learn to use it sensibly and objectively. However, this goal seems unattainable today… The development of critical thinking, the verification of information, mistrust of content shared on the Internet, and disconnection as often as possible offer another protection, fallible but already useful… however, can it be imposed?

For military personnel, political figures and strategic industrial players, who are the first targets of short-term cognitive actions, it is possible to resort to specific and adapted awareness-raising campaigns. The Gecko project1 aims to develop systems for exploring cognitive warfare in fictitious crisis situations, to prepare civilian and military decision-makers and operational staff involved in national security operations in France and overseas for the risks involved. In some cases, the use of digital decision support or decision monitoring tools could also prove effective. We are still in the early stages of identifying weapons, and therefore of combating this new form of warfare.

We need to discuss the ethical dimensions of this type of cognitive action. A democracy is vulnerable to this kind of attack… but can it simply carry one out itself? Interview by Anne Orliac