I wanted to introduce myself and send along a query. I write for Vanity Fair, The New York Observer, Huffington Post, Skeptic, The Skeptical Inquirer, and some other things here and there, and my second book of political commentary is being released this summer.
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