Reflections on a world with too much spying

Author’s Note: This got really long. In fact, rather than get shorter, what typically happens when I am interrupted over and over again when writing these, it got longer. I don’t know what that means exactly. But what I am wondering is, especially after watching the premiere of the new Hulu show The Patient, is if I’m not just under compulsion to do this. It makes sense, over a decade of zersetzung is gonna do something to you for sure. But was that intentional on someone’s part? — Reminder that when you see “Olson” here I’m referring to his 2006 book Fair Play: The Moral Dilemmas of Spying by James M. Olson, who spent decades as a CIA officer and now teaches. His operation GTTAW (tapping an underground Soviet communication system) is maybe one of my favorites of all time. Reminds me of what I imagined this whole thing was about as a kid. I’m on scenario #38 which is basically paying a Canadian oil and energy data consulting firm employee to be a source to CIA. The further question

It was worth it just to learn from sleight-of-hand — This is a slight departure. I don’t expect this is terribly important overall, but maybe a few of the principles of the con artist, the persuasion criminal—occupations that are close to what spies do and sometimes they cross paths and overlap—might be helpful. There were I think three trips in all to France. Two of them were the same vacation, we had simply gone to visit friends in Denmark between, and/or maybe Amsterdam. As such, I cannot remember precisely which of these happened during which trip    or which leg of the one longer trip. My general recollection is that the tea shop trip and the “guide” were both the last one, 2008 I think. But I can’t be certain. Like I said, this probably means nothing overall. But it did remind me of “Brian” in that he had visited the outside of a Russian intelligence school once, without ever intending to, and after shopping at Mariage Frères in Paris, I somehow found myself outside waiting for m

Watched Running With the Devil: The Wild World of John McAfee last night on Netflix . I’m going to do something I pretty much never do. I’m completely scrapping what I wrote late night after watching this documentary. I’m scrapping it because it was so awful that even I, lazy writer that I am, just couldn’t post it. I am, however, pulling a few things I noted there and trying to make some sense of them. Preface: Most of this relates to Hillary Clinton. If you want to understand why I’m tepid about defending her, you need only read the mostly nothing burgers that came from the DNC hack. If there were ever an American politician who is half conservative and half liberal, it is she. (See: “18 revelations from Wikileaks’ hacked Clinton emails,” BBC , 26 October 2016). But see, that’s the point. This crap coming from the GOP is that she’s SOOOOOO far left (she isn’t) and SOOOOOO Communist (you have to be intensely stupid or insane or mis/disinformed to believe that) puts you in a position,

If I had any sense whatsoever, I’d avoid this entire topic altogether. No good it seems ever comes from trying to explain things when emotions and biases run high, and this is the most that topic in the history of the world. As if that weren’t enough, I’m bringing up the Cheney stuff again. Safely past (I assume) the statute of limitations for much of what happened (though technically it only ended recently, I’m referring to how it began), I guess it’s less dangerous to do so. As I’ve mentioned many, many times, in addition to pointing out how several other Bush administration officials revealed Valerie Plame’s identity to reporters before it was public knowledge, and how that should have also been subject to Fitzgerald’s probe, I attended an event in NYC whose main purpose and topic was the impeachment of Dick Cheney, hosted by then Congressman Robert Wexler (D-FL). Wexler opened up with a joke about why a Florida Congressman was hosting an event in NY by stating that his district bei

I am—and at the same time am not, thanks to events—running out of stuff to talk about. This is one I’ve been thinking about for a long while but still aren’t sure how to phrase and approach. This is in part because the main revelation regarding this occurred earlier this year. This is also in part because I don’t know what the **** it was. But the short version is, one day this year I simply stopped waking up in a rage. This is a departure from the previous dozen years or so. What changed? In order to know that, I’d have to know what it was. Electronic? Pharmaceutical/neurological substance? Psychology and/or subliminal suggestion? No idea really. The only clues are the pervasiveness for over a decade and it’s suddenly stopping. Like overnight. What are the implications? There was that time I escaped the grocery in Minneapolis where a cop stationed there was acting loopy and I suddenly had an urge to punch him. As I’ve stated many times, I had plenty of reasons to be angry. But at that

A black boot diaries entry. One of the murkier and little explored memories of Minneapolis. This must have been Summer of 2010 because I was in line at the Hennepin County Human Services & Public Health department (probably; there was also a visit to Social Security Administration at some point to get a new card so I could work). This is murky. It’s murky because I was drugged out of my effing mind. What I do recall is that there were three things I perceived as odd. What I also recall is only two of those three things. The first was a man behind the glass, not the for the line I was in but one further to my right probably two windows over. He looked a lot like an actor I knew at Murray State University. Or like him in disguise. And much older. I hadn’t seen him in a long, long time. Last I heard he was running a community theater back in Kentucky. He had taken a run at Los Angeles and Hollywood and appeared in one or two of Troma’s films. As I moved up in the line and was capable