So, what is proposed? "Practically speaking", the authors write, "government might do well to maintain a more vigorous counter-disinformation establishment." (pg 19) They recommend that government officials respond "to more rather than fewer conspiracy theories [which] has a kind of synergy benefit: it reduces the legitimating effect of responding to any one of them, because it dilutes the contrast with unrebutted theories." (pgs 15, 29) Such advice assumes that all theories -- or aspects of a single theory -- are essentially equal in validity or lack of validity -- an odd position for legal minds supposedly sensitive to fine distinctions. But that would not matter when the point is simply to defeat citizen efforts.
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More menacing, however is that the authors suggest "planting doubts [to] undermine the crippled epistemology [through] cognitive infiltration" of groups by governmental agents or by forces appointed by government. (pgs 3, 14, 15, 22, 29)"Government agents (and their allies)", they write, "might enter chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups and attempt to undermine percolating conspiracy theories." In light of such proposals for dealing with citizens seeking truth, that Cass Sunstein is "one of America's leading constitutional scholars" (See above link to the White House announcement) is appalling.
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The authors contend that "crippled epistemology" arises from the "sharply limited number of (relevant) informational sources" used by conspiracy theorists, this making the theories "especially hard to undermine or dislodge; they have a self-sealing quality, rendering them particularly immune to challenge." (pg 3) This drips with irony, for information coming from the expertise found within the 9/11 Truth Movement, while both extensive and diverse, has been limited only through censoring by the U.S. Government. What's more, there has rarely been a "theory" more resistant to opposing information -- more absolutely and officially "self-sealing" -- than the mockery that is the official 9/11 Commission Report.
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As one reads through the Sunstein/Vermeule article it is clear that the authors, while aware of the now infamous Popular Mechanics article -- that absurd prop for the official governmental account (pg 18) -- have carefully avoided any relevant material from within the mountain of easily available credible information that would dash their thesis. For academics ostensibly wedded to truth this is shameful.
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Consider from page 20 the following misrepresentation of the position of the 9/11 Truth Movement:
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"After 9/11, one complex of conspiracy theories involved American Airlines Flight 77, which hijackers crashed into the Pentagon. Some theorists claimed that no plane had hit the Pentagon; even after the Department of Defense released video frames showing Flight 77 approaching the building and a later explosion cloud, theorists pointed out that the actual moment of impact was absent from the video, in order to keep alive their claim that the plane had never hit the building. (In reality the moment of impact was not captured because the video had a low number of frames per second."
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