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Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Today's Internets - "First rule... keep moving." - Q&C

"With apparent plans to build a Bourne-like franchise around Ellen Page, 20th Century Fox are currently looking to sign the actress up for spy thriller, Queen and Country. The film, or indeed films, will be based on the Oni Press comics by Greg Rucka and various artists. According to Variety the filmmakers will be using a screenplay by Leverage creator John Rogers..."

"Based on the comic book by Greg Rucka, the story follows Tara Chace, a British Intelligence agent who tries to stop an international terrorist plot after her identity is compromised and as her personal demons spiral out of control. Peter Chernin is producing through his Chernin Entertainment banner, along with Jenno Topping. John Rogers is penning the script."


 "According to a press release from the United States Department of Justice, Chad Dixon will spend eight months in stir "for his role in a scheme to deceive the federal government during polygraph examinations conducted as part of federal security background investigations." He didn't rig the machines or bribe test administrators; he just taught "countermeasures"—instructions that the feds insist are a crime. But, considering that innocent people have gone to prison because polygraphs falsely said they were lying, and the National Academies of Science believe "the general quality of the evidence for judging polygraph validity is relatively low," learning how not to stress out when taking a wrongly named "lie-detector test" would seem to be just good, sensible preparation. Inconveniencing the government may be the true crime...

McClatchy reported last month that the federal government is in a full-court press against polygraph counselors, mostly because it's heavily invested in using the controversial devices to screen job applicants. It uses the devices even though most courts won't admit polygraph results because they consider them completely unreliable...

Dixon's real crime seems to have been to raise questions about the federal government's commitment to what may well be junk science. It's junk science that the feds rely on to intimidate employees and would-be hires during an unprecedented war against whistleblowers."



"Keeping secrets is an act of loyalty as much as anything else, and that sort of loyalty is becoming harder to find in the younger generations. If the NSA and other intelligence bodies are going to survive in their present form, they are going to have to figure out how to reduce the number of secrets. As the writer Charles Stross has explained, the old way of keeping intelligence secrets was to make it part of a life-long culture. The intelligence world would recruit people early in their careers and give them jobs for life. It was a private club, one filled with code words and secret knowledge.

Those days are gone. Yes, there are still the codenames and the secret knowledge, but a lot of the loyalty is gone. Many jobs in intelligence are now outsourced, and there is no job-for-life culture in the corporate world any more. Workforces are flexible, jobs are interchangeable and people are expendable. Sure, it is possible to build a career in the classified world of government contracting, but there are no guarantees. Younger people grew up knowing this: there are no employment guarantees anywhere. They see it in their friends. They see it all around them....

Many will also believe in openness, especially the hacker types the NSA needs to recruit. They believe that information wants to be free, and that security comes from public knowledge and debate. Yes, there are important reasons why some intelligence secrets need to be secret, and the NSA culture reinforces secrecy daily. But this is a crowd that is used to radical openness. They have been writing about themselves on the internet for years. They have said very personal things on Twitter; they have had embarrassing photographs of themselves posted on Facebook. They have been dumped by a lover in public. They have overshared in the most compromising ways -- and they have got through it. It is a tougher sell convincing this crowd that government secrecy trumps the public's right to know.

...Snowden is 30 years old; Manning 25. They are members of the generation we taught not to expect anything long-term from their employers. As such, employers should not expect anything long-term from them. It is still hard to be a whistleblower, but for this generation it is a whole lot easier."






"...and let yourself go."



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