-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA512 BBC Blogs (Aug 8) - "BUGGER: Maybe The Real State Secret Is That Spies Aren't Very Good At Their Jobs and Don't Know Very Much About The World" by Adam Curtis: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/posts/BUGGER
It's really nice to see Adam Curtis weigh in on recent events from his high-bandwidth cybershell plugged directly into the BBC archives mainframe. As usual, the documentary filmmaker and media maestro presents an unconventional take on events in long form that will leave you confused or better informed and often both. In this installment, his long arc points out the manner in which secrecy breeds confusion, suspicion, and treachery; and contrasts that with the open force of love most of us are more familiar with. Or as he puts it, > In fact in many cases [the history of spies] is the story of > weirdos who have created a completely mad version of the world that > they then impose on the rest of us. He also has some trenchant warnings for journalists who tend to enjoy hearing and relaying fantastic stories: they may be serving to reinforce and perpetuate illusions of hidden power and secret knowledge, keeping intelligence budgets high even though the recipients are unable to demonstrate results (that's a state secret). More succinctly, Curtis cites one historian's description of a particularly credulous journalist's relationship with anonymous government sources: > "[He was a] kind of official urinal in which ministers and > intelligence and defence chiefs could stand patiently leaking." I'm reminded of AP reporter Adam Goldman's statement during the confusion sown by the Daily Beast's reporting on a top sekrit AQAP "Legion of Doom" conference call that turned out not to be a call at all: https://twitter.com/adamgoldmanap/status/365115189709910016 > As one former senior CIA official once told me: "Who says we can't > lie to reporters? It's not a crime." Yet despite the punking, Curtis leaves a piece of cheese for journalists at the end of his maze. HT Eugen Leitl via Cypherpunks (thanks!) gf - -- Gregory Foster || [email protected] @gregoryfoster <> http://entersection.com/ -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG/MacGPG2 v2.0.19 (Darwin) Comment: GPGTools - http://gpgtools.org iQIcBAEBCgAGBQJSCbRrAAoJEMaAACmjGtgjVvkQAJoofjCKrrvvLjPMDpL+KP/s oxE8CxO6pcS2QNjwvSIW7oTmd3xpPaOrU7SkMerWwxJMay4LoxO9gsZggm60fiho nl1tCYZp+T/rIoTF/fBXUJSQOFpW7eH0NwADv7ofbSfTKLcXNT3qXT50zkFwf09s sldqtzzFPERtJJkcz3YbqjilZA2WFbb4gaCTemEQz2ZnJ+18EnocDl/SyKipje7p xUEKwVgoLeIf0ynOWPNYop0hSsc6Dmsy2iNi02G4e1KdR5T39Qgg99Ucs4K4EseD wbIInqEA05GomOpV1PP5cChZ3sUykIfNxTN0J6ZQcN6iP9k/GxL/pXgfkuMR0j7p Gd333uDL85e+vmH/a7fvXggzXVYo9fJ0WCIgQy3pXbm3BJkm0JAY2Lp3BUbE/9Z6 PzlYkNZmTAUu6MPOBiC0vesxuVlYgMkkbLENBpCLw/NHVh++S/eP3kx2p3jgF8D+ fcyjJQ/3x13Aa/TfrmyoIZlgBGYdC5Ld0lan16de+apSPCPwC6dp+TGvYhsjRio7 lzfEN5eNTEU3nFk4VURB/wPT0ViB0W+0KpSMinL89DqtejVP5aeQP9m3+iue3sKV /ReSq1cyn7vOiOH+aP4gTV7wklQrTlft4TESd/ceMQMQraZOPidRN7R2HW/5Vhf0 y8npV0XyDdwT3vfqg+iF =w36q -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- Liberationtech is a public list whose archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at [email protected].
