Come on, Steve, try!
Just being grumbly about that mean old government won’t hack it. They did, after all, save some people from being drenched in blood and exploded genitalia before falling into the north atlantic like a stone, never to be heard from again.
The thing about cynicism is that it gestures toward an ideal that it does not explicitly commit itself to. It wallows in disappointment.
Nick
From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Steve Smith
Sent: Wednesday, May 15, 2013 1:25 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The AP kerfuffle
Nobody (or NLT at least) -
Everybody,
To prevent myself from bending a perfectly good thread on Wedtech, I am migrating it to FRIAM and putting my own spin on it.
I'm glad to hear that WedTech is a "Silly Talk" free zone. I'm doing my part by not being on the list (to the logical conclusion of not hearing about the talks when they happen!).
My mind is a fact-free zone on this issue, but here is my believed-in-imagining concerning how AP got the story. Somebody at CIA was enormously proud of what “his team” had accomplished and could not bear the idea that that such achievements would never be known. “What’s the harm?”he thought. The whole operation is over!” But, of course, the harm was potentially enormous. (I assume you don’t need me to spell that out.)
Now, stipulating …..STIPULATING …. That these facts are as I have imagined them, would you all agree that that person is dangerous and needs to be relieved of his/her duties … at least until s/he can be retrained?
And having agreed to that, what powers would you grant to the Government in their search for whoever that person is.
I think this is an academic (not in the to-be-dismissed-by-Doug-who-is-absent way) question since I think we have plenty of evidence that the US Government (and myriad other governments, large US corps and large multinational corps) does not wait to be granted *any* powers to do this kind of search (and destroy?) mission.
The only thing keeping Julian Assange (not a US Citizen, not acting on US soil) from being lynched *inside* the US is the capricious aid and protection he has received by a small but sovereign nation which has tasted the fruits of our "help" in the past. And the only thing keeping Bradley Manning (who patently IS a US Citizen, etc.) from being rendered (drawn and quartered?) to GitMo (or worse) is the publicity surrounding the whole situation. I'm conflicted on my support of these two characters, but I think if not for the high profile they attained domestic and international, they would be nothing but charred bodies hanging from a bridge somewhere friendly to our Black Ops friends.
And then we have Plaim and Wilson as poster children of "good intentions" vs "abuse of power" living in our midst.
Hmmm.... "relieved of duties" and "retrained"... I need to get my NewSpeak dictionary to look up the actual contemporary meaning of those words... I think they don't mean what you think they mean? <grin>
That off my chest, I think I appreciate your implied point, and I don't know the answer... which makes me think that *somehow* we are asking the wrong question(s)?
Just mumbling,
- Steve
(How many Megapixels can you fit on the head of a pin, I mean golfball?)
Just asking.
Nick
From: Wedtech [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Roger Critchlow
Sent: Wednesday, May 15, 2013 11:27 AM
To: WedTech
Subject: Re: [WedTech] Blind drop box server?
Funny you should ask, this just popped on my twitter feed:
It's a blind drop coded by Aaron Swartz for the New Yorker, of all the publications that needs secure anonymous tips to survive.
-- rec --
On Wed, May 15, 2013 at 11:09 AM, Tom Johnson <[hidden email]> wrote:
OK, so here's a project -- or at least a discussion topic -- for Wedtech:
Given the Dept.. of Justice "spying" on AP reporters, and no doubt others, how could we construct a web site drop box that would allow anyone to submit tips and documents in a manner that would not be traceable?
-tom johnson (in Uzbekistan)
--
==========================================
J. T. Johnson
Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA
<a href="tel:505.577.6482" target="_blank">505.577.6482(c) <a href="tel:505.473.9646" target="_blank">505.473.9646(h)
Twitter: jtjohnson
http://www.jtjohnson.com [hidden email]
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