Re: Book excerpts - "Hot, Fat, and Clouded"
Subject: Re: Book excerpts - "Hot, Fat, and Clouded"
From: Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com>
Date: 3/26/10, 03:52
To: Blake Eskin <Blake_Eskin@newyorker.com>

Hi, Blake-


I wanted to try you for one more query. To recap, I write for Vanity Fair, Huffington Post, True/Slant, Skeptic, The Skeptical Inquirer, and some other things here and there, and my second book of political commentary is being released this summer. I've also just begun with The New York Observer since we last spoke.

You may be familiar with the organization Wikileaks, which has run into some trouble with the U.S. intelligence service as of late and which on the 15th of this month published a leaked secret Army Intel document describing the organization at length and proposing methods by which it might be deemed less effective. The admins sent out a series of messages two nights ago to the effect that one editor had been detained for 22 hours and shown photos taken of one of their production meetings, that two or more were tailed on their way out of Iceland by State Department-associated folks, and that all in all, some number of them had been the subject of an "aggressive" surveillance operation by U.S. and Icelandic intelligence operatives.

I wrote a piece on those particular goings-down yesterday for HuffPo and did a radio interview on it today for Antiwar, but I'm also about to write another piece on the material contained in the Army Intel, which has a number of interesting portions. Aside from the few sinister parts - "The identification, exposure, termination of employment, criminal prosecution, legal action against current or former insiders, leakers, or whistlblowers could potentially damage, or destroy this center of gravity and deter others considering similar actions from using the Wikileaks.org Web site." - there is quite a bit here that provides some insight into how Army Intel perceives aspects of the internet, as well as a number of accurate and occasionally insightful descriptions of those aspects. I would also provide some background into Wikileaks itself as well as Iceland's possible status as a safe haven for information that might be restricted elsewhere; Wikileaks admins are involved in preparing the proposed legislation in question, the Modern Media Initiative.

I also just did an e-mail interview with a key figure in the decentralized internet group known as Anonymous; this is the one who did the initial video warning to Scientology that prompted the other "members" to after the CoS and who maintained the associated websites from which the global protests and other actions were organized. Anonymous has no leaders or really any structure; this person just happens to have initiated the attack and helped to direct it afterwards. I've been able to verify that it's the same person as he or she has control over the YouTube account and sites in question. Part of the interview and the related matter of Anonymous could be used in the Wikileaks story.

Please let me know if you would have any interest in such an article.

Thanks,

Barrett Brown
Brooklyn, NY
512-560-2302

On Tue, Jan 19, 2010 at 6:37 PM, Blake Eskin <Blake_Eskin@newyorker.com> wrote:
Barrett,

Thanks for your query. This doesn’t sound right for us, but I’ll let our books blog know about the forthcoming book. Good luck with it.

All best,


--
Blake Eskin
Editor, newyorker.com




On 1/16/10 5:19 PM, "Barrett Brown" <barriticus@gmail.com> wrote:

Blake-

I wanted to check and see if The New Yorker's web site might have use for an excerpt from my second book, Caught, Fat, and Clouded <http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0982139144/ref=s9_simi_gw_s0_p14_i1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=1Z0RYG59CYBZAVNP0E6T&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=470938631&pf_rd_i=507846> , which will be released in April and which concerns the manner in which our nation's most respected columnists - Thomas Friedman, Charles Krauthammer, and Richard Cohen, for instance - have gained and maintained their positions of prominence despite having made all sorts of failed predictions, contradicted themselves on rather important issues, and otherwise contributed to the general public misunderstanding. Friedman might be of particular relevance to you guys insomuch as that The New York Times is his home base and I understand that your publication has long been in the habit of covering topics related to New York. Just throwing that out there. New York.

As for me, I'm a regular contributor to Vanity Fair, The Huffington Post, Skeptic, and True/Slant, and my other work has appeared in dozens of additional publications. My first book, Flock of Dodos: Behind Modern Creationism, Intelligent Design, and the Easter Bunny, was released in 2007 to praise from Alan Dershowitz of Harvard Law School and Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone, among other kindly folks. I give the odd lecture on philosophy and other subjects at New York-area universities such as Rutgers and also serve as director of communications for the political action committee Enlighten the Vote, on behalf of which I occasionally go on Fox News to argue with strange-looking ministers <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s12Z9slWq3A> .


Let me know if you'd like to see the manuscript or perhaps a selection of potential excerpts.

Thanks,

Barrett Brown
Brooklyn, NY
512-560-2302

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