I've seen you've been blitzing the TrapWire issue on Twitter and I do understand why people have latched on to it.
My criticism of the thing wasn't so much about the level of concern -- more the misinformation. It got to the point where I was seeing people with tens of thousands of followers tweeting things that really just were not accurate, fabricated out of nowhere, and I felt I had to deal with that. You know the sort of work I do, and you know that there is a great deal about the surveillance-security industrial complex that I find deeply problematic and worrying. But I am very strong on the importance of accuracy, and so felt it was crucial to inject a bit of sobriety into what I seen as a genuine kind of snowballing hysteria (particularly on Saturday/Sunday).
The interesting thing for me is that I've reported on kinds of surveillance technology that I view as far more controversial than TrapWire, but there has not been the same outpouring of anger. I'd say that what's going on at the FBI's Domestic Communications Assistance Center, and at the 72 Fusion Centers across the States, is far more notable, for instance.
Perhaps it's that "TrapWire" just sounds so sinister, I'm not sure. I think what's happening is that people have used (and are using) TrapWire to project all their fears and anxieties about surveillance and vent it all out. I think it is perhaps being used as a sort of symbol regardless of what the TrapWire technology in itself is actually capable of. TrapWire is interesting and worthy of attention, don't get me wrong, but there are far bigger fish in the pond.
I must say, I do think that the Australian media you reference in your blog post certainly made an error in scrubbing the articles from the web. The more sensible thing to do would have been to have edited the piece, or to have made a clarification or correction. They should have at the very least left up a page explaining why it was taken down... foolish, unprofessional, and not transparent to just scrub the thing.
Anyway, good to share these thoughts with you.
P.S. This article from yesterday might be interesting to you: http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2012/08/how_governments_and_telecom_companies_work_together_on_surveillance_laws_.html
> Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2012 09:43:44 -0500
> Subject: Re:
> From: barriticus@gmail.com
> To: ryan.gallagher@hotmail.com
>
> Howdy, Ryan-
>
> Hope all is well. Read your Trapwire piece and thought it was valid
> criticism of at least some of the takes/levels of concern over the
> whole thing.
>
> I and several friends have been unusually energetic in looking
> through info on Trapwire, Abraxas, Cubic, and other Cubic subsidiaries
> and their relationships, the last three of which we have a limited but
> telling body of research on, going back to when we first dug into them
> on persona management involvement in march 2011. Besides that, I've
> collected several other docs, including tax and merger filings, that
> illustrate the extent of Cubic's involvement with their other
> subsidiaries (admittedly going on a small sample, only have info on
> three of dozens of the damn things - one of the most interesting of
> which they created out of Abraxas itself, incidentally, just 2-3 years
> back, to win CENTCOM/USAF persona management contract. Anyway, you're
> one of about three people I go to these days on things I think are
> most important, so would like you to read this partly silly thing I
> wrote last night, in part because it draws on several new or just
> obscure facts that I think color this incident, especially in light of
> the initially unexplained (and now poorly explained) disappearance of
> an article syndicated in at least six or seven Australian outlets
> including Sydney Herald a day after it appeared, apparently due to
> some nature of legal threat or objection from the very powerful and
> well-connected consortium that, among other things, has deep ties to
> Australia's defense sector and increasingly civilian security (which
> figures into why Cubic was so inclined to act, I suspect).
>
> Thanks and cheers.
> http://barrettbrown.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-facts-on-cubic-and-trapwire-abraxas.html
>
> On Sun, Aug 5, 2012 at 2:24 AM, Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Great to hear, let me know when the piece is cleared. All's well here,
> > working on a couple of interesting projects that may help move things
> > forward with the general info campaign on cyber and also did this
> > Bloomberg/Businessweek panel on the subject:
> >
> > http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-08-02/how-the-experts-would-fix-cyber-security
> >
> > On Wed, Aug 1, 2012 at 7:51 PM, Ryan Gallagher
> > <ryan.gallagher@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >> Hi Barrett,
> >>
> >> Just wanted to let you know the long-delayed Raytheon thing is in motion. I
> >> re-wrote the piece for a UK publication. No idea what we are looking at
> >> timescale wise, as I've still got to deal with editors and lawyers, etc. But
> >> anyway, I just thought I should send an update and let you know I've not
> >> forgotten about this and it's high on my agenda. Will send more news when I
> >> have it, which will hopefully be sooner rather than later.
> >>
> >> Hope all's well at your end.
> >>
> >> Best,
> >>
> >> Ryan
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Regards,
> >
> > Barrett Brown
> > 512-560-2302
>
>
>
> --
> Regards,
>
> Barrett Brown
> 512-560-2302