| Subject: Re: Suffolk Poll |
| From: Jason Potteiger <jpotteiger@gmail.com> |
| Date: 5/4/11, 11:02 |
| To: Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com> |
Barrett,
This is really interesting stuff, thanks for all the background it's
really helpful in helping me to formulate a question. The issue with
these polls, especially a national poll, is that people get confused
really easily and they don't know all that much, either. I'd love to
ask a question similar to what you asked, but unfortunately I don't
think many people would know who HBGary is. I think the best way to
approach this might be a more general question about intelligence vs.
privacy or security vs. liberty. Something like:
- Generally speaking, when it comes to gathering intelligence here at
home, do you think the the government (and private corporations hired
by the government) has too much power to gather information, not
enough or is it about right?
- How would you rate your feelings about the following statement: The
more power to gather intelligence the government has the safer we are.
Strongly agree, agree, disagree strongly disagree.
Something like above could be the impetus for a news story that would
tie in current issues about intelligence into the second paragraph
etc. You could even craft a nice press release to connect all the
dots.
On Tue, May 3, 2011 at 1:27 AM, Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi, Jason-
Thanks for getting in touch on this. The best question I can think of would
be something along the lines of, "In the wake of the HBGary scandal, do you
think that Congress should review the manner in which the federal government
outsources intelligence operations to contractors?" In general, I'm hoping
to prompt more investigation into all of this, as well as into what we've
termed "Metal Gear," a name we use to describe an array of surveillance,
data compilation, and manipulation procedures that have lately come into use
by CENTCOM and presumably various intelligence agencies and federal
contractors who develop these things at the behest of governments and large
corporations. We've been investigating the issue for the last two month in
conjunction with some of my journalist contacts and other parties, and it's
frankly the most frightening thing I've ever come across. This is a website
we've put together by which to compile our data and make it readily
available; note the link to our wiki, which we're using to better show the
relationships between the parties
involved: http://opmetalgear.zxq.net/OMG/Home.html. We came to this via the
HBGary e-mails and have since been put in the right direction by several
informants associated with Booz Allen Hamilton and U.S. and Canadian
military intelligence, confirming everything via intensive research. We've
prompted some articles in Forbes, Guardian, and Tech Herald and I talked
about it on Russia Today when we first began looking into Booz Allen's role;
I'm also making a point of bringing it up in interviews and to the
documentary crews that have been covering me lately, and am otherwise very
intent on bringing more attention to the whole thing. Let me know if you
want to discuss further; I'd be happy to chat via phone, as there are a
number of ins and outs; for instance, I and a few others spent three weeks
working under the tutelage of a fellow who's close to many of those who were
involved in the early development of these things, and whose father, William
Friedman, has an NSA auditorium named after him (the guy is also fucking
nuts). Long story short, we've come upon a lot of bizarre yet verifiable
things recently and I'd like to bring more people into this; I'd also like
to develop this into a sort of "crowd-sourced investigation" to serve as a
model for others of the sort.
On Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 7:22 AM, Jason Potteiger <jpotteiger@gmail.com>
wrote:
Hi Barrett,
I believe Alex may have mentioned this to you, but I wanted to give you a
heads up so that it's on your radar. I also work for Suffolk U. as a
political analyst and we're fielding our first national poll sometime within
the next month. I'm pushing to add questions on "digital issues" such as net
neutrality, ddos and anon. If you have any input let me know, or if you know
of anyone working in media or policy who'd be interested in adding a
question/ suggesting a topic along these lines feel free to pass along my
contact info.
Good luck on the campaign!
Best,
Jason
--
Jason Potteiger
e: JPotteiger@gmail.com
c: 603.440.8070
--
Regards,
Barrett Brown
512-560-2302