Truthers Infiltrated by Gubmint?

This post at Raw Story is attracting a lot of attention.

In a 2008 academic paper, President Barack Obama's appointee to head the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs advocated "cognitive infiltration" of groups that advocate "conspiracy theories" like the ones surrounding 9/11.

Cass Sunstein, a Harvard law professor, co-wrote an academic article entitled "Conspiracy Theories: Causes and Cures," in which he argued that the government should stealthily infiltrate groups that pose alternative theories on historical events via "chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups and attempt to undermine" those groups.

Of course if you read deeper, the idea is that kooks only get information from kook sources, and that the government's efforts to counter those sources is doomed to failure because kooks will discount any information provided by the government.

The paper itself, or an early draft, can be downloaded here. The problem I see is that Sunstein appears to believe some of the wilder poll results out there are valid, like the claim that 36% of Americans believe the government actually participated in the attacks or at a minimum did nothing to stop them. But of course these questions are loosely worded; did the government do anything to stop the attacks? Not really, but that doesn't mean that they knew about them beforehand.

But yes, I do suspect that the government has infiltrated the Truthers. Let the finger-pointing begin!