Barrett,

Thanks for letting me know where you stand, as well as explaining the cyber-industrial surveillance stuff.  I have to admit, it all sounds verrrry interesting, and I am getting stoked about the possibilities.  I do think that some combination of the formats I mentioned could work well, and I will meditate on that over the rest of this weekend.

In the meantime, I think it would be really helpful to gather some biographical information on you. We could start with a standard résumé or list of your publications/tv appearances, but if you've got time over the next week to put together a timeline of notable events/adventures in the course of your life, that'd be great!  It would be best if these were personal as well as professional, and if you could be as candid as possible... Your personality is a major selling point for the show, and I want to be able to highlight that as much as I can.  The timeline itself won't necessarily be part of the pitch, but if it's colorful enough, it might be valuable on its own.  At the very least, it might help us to determine which of your past exploits we want to include in our presentation.

I'll hit you back on Monday with more thoughts.  Have a great weekend!

-Christine

On Jul 7, 2012, at 10:14 AM, Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com> wrote:

Howdy again-

Sorry for the delay, have a guest in town. I think this is worth a
try. I'm guessing that in idea number one, you're referring to
"hacktivism" in general rather than straight hacking, in which case
that would be viable. Idea number three I'm fine with in terms of
commitment and being open about personal stuff, as I've been
notoriously transparent (read: loud-mouthed) in the year and a half or
so since I started getting covered in the media. I'm wondering if a
format built around number three but using elements of two - as in, a
bulk of an episode is me pursuing my work, but I also regularly talk
with other figures within the movement in a sort of pseudo-interview
segment pursuant to what I'm working on - might work best of all. Off
the top of my head, there are quite a few interesting people that
would fit the bill, all of whom are somewhat involved in the same kind
of issues that I've been centering on.

Not sure how much you know about what I've been up to, but aside from
net-facilitated activism I've also been increasingly focused on what's
now being referred to as the "cyber-industrial complex." Almost all of
my Guardian op-eds have dealt with that topic since early 2011, and
the group I run, Project PM, is based around investigating certain
aspects of the public-private surveillance/info operations alliance
that's been coming together in the last ten years. I got into the
subject by accident, although not really by coincidence, as being
involved in Anonymous put me in a position where I and others were
under a sort of active surveillance by a federal intelligence
contractor called HBGary Federal, which was also proposing some
aggressive and borderline illegal actions against Wikileaks and
certain other parties (before it was exposed and thus disrupted by a
hacker I used work with, which is a whole other bizarre story). As has
become clear since, any party that engages in activism is increasingly
at risk to the extent that some or another institution deems them a
threat, as some sizable sector of the "private intelligence" industry
is finding it profitable to hire out their services to whoever can
pay. The capabilities used for such things are almost  entirely
unknown outside of this niche industry and the intelligence community,
which makes them even more viable as a means to discredit or disrupt
not just things like Wikileaks or factions of Anon, but traditional
orgs and, in a couple of cases that we've seen, even journalists. So
this whole topic is very much tied in to the future of activism as a
whole, as I see it. More fundamentally, the information flow itself is
at severe risk from a range of automated disinformation capabilities
of the sort being produced by DARPA and other entities for various
purposes.

I do still remain involved in certain other facets of activism and get
in adventures and all that, so there should be some good material to
build on. For now, would you like me to send you some links to
existing video clips of/about me, or should we discuss another format
concept? You might also want to take a look at a couple of the entries
we've compiled on our wiki, Echelon2.org, to get a sense of that part
of what I pursue. Let me know how you'd like to proceed and what you
need from me at this point.

On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 5:53 PM, Barrett Brown <barriticus@gail .com> wrote:

Thanks for the summary. I'm going to give this some thought this
evening and then plan to get back to you tomorrow.

On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 3:39 PM, Christine Yoon <siege.yoon@gmail.com> wrote:

Hey, I've attached the pitch guidelines.  I'd like to put together a 5
minute video within the next few weeks... I can pull the majority of this
video from whatever YouTube clips you recommend, but perhaps I could also
record you on Skype to verify your interest.  (Unless you think you might be
in LA before the end of July, in which case I can just shoot you live.)

My company tends to focus on lighter fare (
http://authentictv.com/Productions ), but they do the occasional serious
one-off documentary, and they have relationships with a number of networks.
Of those, I imagine Sundance would be most receptive to a Barrett-based
show.  Having thought about this for entire minutes, I see three possible
angles at the moment:

1) Barrett as guide to the hacker underground.  You'd identify one or
several season-long hacker agendas, and attempt to document how they're
achieved.  You'd know whether this is feasible, but if it is, I think it'd
sell immediately.

2) Barrett as interviewer.  You'd interview whoever might interest you -
politicians, professors, whatever.  I personally think this is less viable,
but the company spent a shitload trying to get "Out of Character with Krista
Smith" on the air last year, so at least I know this format interests them.
If there were a particular way to focus the type of interviews you'd want to
do, then that would help, but it would have to be as little of a political
slant as possible.

3) Barrett as Barrett.  We'd focus on your individual objectives as
author/activist/spokesperson, and how you go about making those things
happen.  I also think this would sell, and it plays best to my company's
known production strengths, but the demands on you would obviously be
greater.  You'd have to be extremely open about a lot of personal shit.

Let me know whether any of this interests you...

-yoon


On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 1:07 PM, Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi, Christine-

So, what are you hoping to put together on this, and what's your
intent in terms of subject matter at this point?

On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 3:01 PM, Christine Yoon <siege.yoon@gmail.com>
wrote:

Yo, Barrett - I think maybe I gotta email you before we can chat

--
Regards,

Barrett Brown
512-560-2302

--
Regards,

Barrett Brown
512-560-2302

-- 
Regards,

Barrett Brown
512-560-2302