Yo yo-
Thanks again for getting involved.
I told the publisher to have a review copy sent to you as soon as those are made available, though I don't think that will br (I'm meeting with them tomorrow afternoon but have been a bit out of the loop regarding all the details). I've gone ahead and attached the manuscript as a Word document; there are a bunch of editor's notes off to the side, some of which are fairly amusing. Again, I appreciate your offer to blurb it.
I'll get back to you a little later this week with more info on Anonymous and the interlocking directorate. Off the bat, one important thing to know about it is that it's amorphous and is thus best thought of as a distributed collective with no central leadership or established direction. Having said that, it can be divided into two factions - one which is nihilistic (or at least takes on nihilism in their and which is only willing to participate in various actions to the extent that such an action can be considered a viscous prank and which is opposed to using the group for any beneficial end, and one that is intent on channeling the group's vast numbers and the collected skill sets and real world power/positions of its individual members in order to further various causes, often related to information freedom or opposition to some institution or both. The person I mentioned with whom I've been corresponding is the de facto leader of the latter faction by virtue of having launched the Scientology raids (known as Project Chanology) and then provided a degree of leadership and coordination by way of a website he set up afterwards which was used to plan specific protests and other actions and disseminate that info by way of a number of other existing mediums. As he still retains that site, the YouTube account, and other assets, he has the ability to prompt a great deal of action to the extent that such an action is seen as worthy and viable by a critical mass of Anons, who would then make this action known to the interlocking directorate.
The characteristic that's common to Anonymous is fundamentally the same as it is for any "nation" - a shared linguistic and cultural heritage. In this case, Anonymous has about eight years of quickly-evolving memes, some being known by virtually all of them and others being known to pockets of them. Anon and most of these memes grew out of the site
4chan.org, but over time the culture spread out to other centers such as
7chan.org, Encyclopedia Dramatica, and even reddit, and some memes - rickrolling, lolcats, the terms "fail" and "win," - eventually go mainstream, though not necessarily by intention (in fact, a lot of Anons find it irritating). These memes tend to be extraordinarily layered insomuch as that they are subject to the variations of a great number of participants. Think of the manner in which early pottery designs began simply and then evolved over hundreds of years into more complicated designs; a similar process goes on at sites like 4chan, except with a rapidity that's orders of magnitude greater.
The number of people who would self-identity as Anonymous is impossible to calculate, as is the number - more relevant to our purposes - of folks willing to participate in any operations. The former runs at least into the hundreds of thousands, and then there are millions of others who read one of the nodes in the interlocking directorate and perhaps enjoy some of the content but do not interact in the dynamic themselves.
I'm going to be talking to the Chanology fellow more soon about integrating his people into Project PM on a covert basis that wouldn't be visibly connected to us. Incidentally, I don't know his real name and wouldn't bother asking. Anons don't self-identify publicly, and this particular person is essentially in hiding as the Church of Scientology would absolutely destroy him since he's done more than any other individual to disrupt their operations, and they've already gone after protesters whom they've been able to identify; you've probably heard the term "fair game" and know about the CoS's dealings with those whom they deem to be threats. Anyway, we'll call this person Chanology Chan. I'm still determining how we would go about making use of that particular apparatus for our ends, but will have more info on which to base that at some point in the near future.
Anyway, I'll keep you updated. Meeting with my publisher tomorrow to discuss the book, mainly, but have also filled him in on certain aspects of PM and we'll be talking about how we might be able to advance it in conjunction with the promotional campaign. Let me know if I can be of any assistance to you in any regard; if you're looking for more outlets, for instance, I have a long list of contact info for various editors. Also tell me if you have any specific questions regarding any of this in the meanwhile.
Thanks again,
Barrett Brown
Brooklyn, NY
512-560-2302
On Fri, Mar 26, 2010 at 10:43 AM, Barrett Brown
<barriticus@gmail.com> wrote:
Michael-
Thanks for getting back to me so quickly. I was wondering if you'd heard anything regarding what appears to be rendition flights being conducted (or at least previously conducted) by Vision Airlines, Inc. out of Nevada (previously just Vision Air) in conjunction with Capital Airways and McNeil Technologies Inc. It's not necessarily involved in rendition flights, but do indeed convey intel personnel at the very least; one of its planes has been spotted landing in Romania, there are photos and other corroborating info. Just wanted to check and see if you've heard anything; you may be aware of the class action suit regarding hazard pay that's been sealed (perhaps forever) by the judge in question on the grounds that certain info is a matter of "national security" and unrelated to the payment matter.
I've told the publisher to send you a copy; let me know if you want me to go ahead and send you the manuscript as a text file as well. Thanks for offering to blurb, that would be extraordinarily helpful. Let me know if I can be of any assistance.
I also want to talk to you about Project PM and related matters; will get back to you at greater length on that as soon as the Wikileaks thing winds down a bit.
Thanks again,
Barrett Brown
Brooklyn, NY
512-560-2302
On Fri, Mar 26, 2010 at 9:45 AM, Michael Hastings
<mhastings@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Barrett, thanks for the note, and the kind words in your post. Happy to help if I can, let me know what you're looking into. Feel free to email or call. (Unrelated: I'm very interested in your new book, and if you could have your publisher send me a review copy that would be great--but I also give you my word I will buy a copy when it comes out, too! It's kind of a karmic policy of mine.)
best and thanks,
mh
--
Michael Hastings
GQ Contributor