Barrett,
This is interesting but doesnt work for us.
Best,
B
On 3/26/10 3:52 AM, "Barrett Brown" <barriticus@gmail.com> wrote:
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 doesnt sound right for us, but Ill let our
books blog know about the forthcoming book. Good luck with it.
All best,
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