The Great Speckled Bird, the publication not the song, was an underground newspaper put out in Atlanta, 1968-1976, notable among Discordians and Robert Anton Wilson fans for the fact that it ran quite a few articles by Kerry Thornley.
Jesse Walker has just discovered that there is an online collection of Great Speckled Bird, accessible to all.
Jesse writes, "Kerry Thornley wrote regularly for them, both under his own name and as "Ho Chi Zen." The search function seems to work pretty well."
Vice has just interviewed Jesse about his new book (out August 20, preorders available at the usual places),The United States of Paranoia. (Jesse did considerable research on Discordianism and RAW for his book. A chapter of the book is entitled "Operation Mindfuck.")
Thursday, June 13, 2013
Wednesday, June 12, 2013
Various links
Rebels: A Journey Underground (Canadian documentary series on counterculture, features RAW, William Burroughs, Timothy Leary, etc.) Dangerous Minds posting via Robert Anton Wilson Fans on Reddit.
Depictions of the Necronomicon, from Dan Clore's personal library.
Arnold Kling on NSA snooping.
The rush to demonize Edward Snowden (Matt Welch at Reason Hit and Run, via Jesse Walker.)
Timothy Leary biographer John Higgs, on the implications of NSA snooping for future biographers. Higgs has added dates to his RAW tour.
Paul Krassner on creating the term "Yippie" and other contributions to linguistics. (Via Roman Tsivkin.)
Me, on the NSA stuff, here and here.
Depictions of the Necronomicon, from Dan Clore's personal library.
Arnold Kling on NSA snooping.
The rush to demonize Edward Snowden (Matt Welch at Reason Hit and Run, via Jesse Walker.)
Timothy Leary biographer John Higgs, on the implications of NSA snooping for future biographers. Higgs has added dates to his RAW tour.
Paul Krassner on creating the term "Yippie" and other contributions to linguistics. (Via Roman Tsivkin.)
Me, on the NSA stuff, here and here.
Tuesday, June 11, 2013
Eric Wagner on 'Tale of the Tribe'
TSOG is, in my opinion, not one of Robert Anton Wilson's best books, but it does have its moments, in particular a section at the back that provides an outline for Tale of the Tribe, the book about the Internet that Wilson planned to write but never finished.
Eric Wagner points out that there is a Tale of the Tribe discussion thread at the Maybe Logic Academy forum (open to everyone.) Wagner notes, "Fly, Dr. Johnson and myself, along with many others, have done a lot of work over the past decade pondering Bob's unwritten Tale of the Tribe. My new book will hopefully provide a look at my part of that process, especially in terms of Joyce and Bob." (Eric is referring to his work in progress, Straight Outta Dublin.)
Here is another observation from Eric, posted over at Overweening Generalist: ""On another note, I've changed my perception of Bob's Tale of the Tribe. I used to regard it as an unwritten work. Now I regard it as a perfect fragment, like the fragments the Romantics liked so much. (I love Charles Rosen's discussion of Romantic fragments in his The Romantic Generation.) We live in that perfect fragment, The Tale of the Tribe. (Well, you and I seem to live in that fragment. Perhaps our whole culture, our whole tribe, does.)
"One can see 'Kubla Khan' as another such, um, complete fragment, a successful poem about incompletion.
"I remember Bob telling me he had a conversation in 1968 in Chicago with Ginsberg and Burroughs about The Cantos, and they decided it seemed appropriate for the epic of the 20th century to end in fragments."
Eric Wagner points out that there is a Tale of the Tribe discussion thread at the Maybe Logic Academy forum (open to everyone.) Wagner notes, "Fly, Dr. Johnson and myself, along with many others, have done a lot of work over the past decade pondering Bob's unwritten Tale of the Tribe. My new book will hopefully provide a look at my part of that process, especially in terms of Joyce and Bob." (Eric is referring to his work in progress, Straight Outta Dublin.)
Here is another observation from Eric, posted over at Overweening Generalist: ""On another note, I've changed my perception of Bob's Tale of the Tribe. I used to regard it as an unwritten work. Now I regard it as a perfect fragment, like the fragments the Romantics liked so much. (I love Charles Rosen's discussion of Romantic fragments in his The Romantic Generation.) We live in that perfect fragment, The Tale of the Tribe. (Well, you and I seem to live in that fragment. Perhaps our whole culture, our whole tribe, does.)
"One can see 'Kubla Khan' as another such, um, complete fragment, a successful poem about incompletion.
"I remember Bob telling me he had a conversation in 1968 in Chicago with Ginsberg and Burroughs about The Cantos, and they decided it seemed appropriate for the epic of the 20th century to end in fragments."
Monday, June 10, 2013
Iain M. Banks 1954-2013
Well, this has been a bad couple of weeks for literature. First Jack Vance, now Iain M. Banks has died. As I wrote previously, Banks was a great favorite of mine.
Here is a good appreciation of the Culture novels, by Edward Champion. Here is a piece from the Telegraph. As of this writing, no New York Times piece, but I will check again Monday. In the meantime, the Guardian's obit is here.
It's simply a scandal that this guy never won a Hugo or Nebula. No toy rocket ship for Excession? Or Look to Windward? Or Matter?
The New York Times obit for Jack Vance is here.
Sunday, June 9, 2013
'High Castle' vs. 'Illuminatus!'
Re-reading The Man in the High Castle after many years certainly offers a glimpse of why Dick fans like RAW's work, and vice-versa. High Castle is written from the point of view of several characters. They struggle to figure out what the hell is going on, particularly because in many cases things are not what they seem. (Are the "genuine" American artifacts the Americans sell to the Japanese for high prices all a bunch of fakes? In one scene that made a big impression on me the first time I read the book, a Japanese presents a Mickey Mouse watch to the visiting Mr. Baynes, and Baynes wonders whether the gift is serious or a joke.) The characters are very paranoid, with good reason. They can never tell whether another character is telling them the truth, or bullshitting them. The characters live in one universe but are aware there could be others with a different reality. They can change their realities by simply moving to another area in the U.S. It's a really eerie novel.
The Man in the High Castle won the Hugo award (Dick's only Hugo!) at Discon 1, the World Science Fiction Convention held in 1963 in Washington, D.C. One can't help but feel a rush of affection for the Hugo voters for honoring this fine, weird novel. (The other nominees that year were The Sword of Aldones, Marion Zimmer Bradley; A Fall of Moondust, Arthur C. Clarke; Little Fuzzy, H. Beam Piper, and Sylva, Jean Bruller. Perhaps Dick was helped by a relatively weak field.)
The Man in the High Castle won the Hugo award (Dick's only Hugo!) at Discon 1, the World Science Fiction Convention held in 1963 in Washington, D.C. One can't help but feel a rush of affection for the Hugo voters for honoring this fine, weird novel. (The other nominees that year were The Sword of Aldones, Marion Zimmer Bradley; A Fall of Moondust, Arthur C. Clarke; Little Fuzzy, H. Beam Piper, and Sylva, Jean Bruller. Perhaps Dick was helped by a relatively weak field.)
Saturday, June 8, 2013
Today's Illuminatus links!
(1) Jesse Walker posts about the same topic as yesterday's post. Somebunall will want to read Jesse's post and follow the links to the excellent Greenwald and Schneier pieces. Everyone who is an Illuminatus! fan will want to see the cartoon Jesse found to illustrate the piece.
(2) Illuminatus! opens with a quote from Ishmael Reed's novel, Mumbo Jumbo: "The history of the world is the history of the warfare between secret societies." It is on sale this month as an Amazon Kindle book for $2.99.
Hat tip, Michael Johnson for this:
The interview where RAW mentions Reed and Illuminatus and Gravity's Rainbow is the Conspiracy Digest interview #2 in Illuminati Papers:
CD: Was black writer Ishmael Reed's _Mumbo Jumbo_the inspiration for _Illuminatus!_? Could you give us your reaction to Mumbo Jumbo?
RAW: I didn't read Mumbo Jumbo until about three years after Illuminatus! was finished. The same is true of Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow. The astonishing resemblances between those three books are coincidence, or synchronicity, or Higher Intelligence (take your pick). I love everything Ishmael Reed writes, and I once sent him an official Discordian certificate making him a Pope in the Legion of Dynamic Discord. -p.44 in my olde edition
(2) Illuminatus! opens with a quote from Ishmael Reed's novel, Mumbo Jumbo: "The history of the world is the history of the warfare between secret societies." It is on sale this month as an Amazon Kindle book for $2.99.
Hat tip, Michael Johnson for this:
The interview where RAW mentions Reed and Illuminatus and Gravity's Rainbow is the Conspiracy Digest interview #2 in Illuminati Papers:
CD: Was black writer Ishmael Reed's _Mumbo Jumbo_the inspiration for _Illuminatus!_? Could you give us your reaction to Mumbo Jumbo?
RAW: I didn't read Mumbo Jumbo until about three years after Illuminatus! was finished. The same is true of Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow. The astonishing resemblances between those three books are coincidence, or synchronicity, or Higher Intelligence (take your pick). I love everything Ishmael Reed writes, and I once sent him an official Discordian certificate making him a Pope in the Legion of Dynamic Discord. -p.44 in my olde edition
Friday, June 7, 2013
Government spying -- it's worse than you thought
On June 1, my newspaper, The Sandusky (Ohio) Register, published my long article on privacy, surveillance and government repression of the peace movement. (Go figure, my editor assigned the office libertarian to do the piece.) As part of my research, I interviewed Julian Sanchez of the Cato Institute, and I asked his opinion on how much spying on Americans the NSA actually does. Excerpt from the article:
One important question for privacy advocates is just how many email messages and telephone calls are intercepted by the National Security Agency, the NSA, Sanchez said. It’s difficult to find out if the NSA is sucking up vast amounts of information, although in theory the NSA is only supposed to intercept communications with people in other countries.
In practice, it’s not always easy to tell if a Gmail message is between two people in California, or between someone in Pakistan and someone in Yemen, Sanchez said.
“It’s plausible to me they are vacuuming up a lot of stuff,” he said.
Well, those paragraphs turned out pretty well, don't you think? If you can't tell what I'm talking about see this piece in Slate and this posting by Sanchez. See also this Wall Street Journal article. All of this began with Glenn Greenwald's scoop at the Guardian. If you want to keep up with this topic, I suggest paying attention to Sanchez on Twitter. Jesse Walker is also good.
My boss at work gave me permission to post my June 1 article here; perhaps sombunall of you will be interested.
By TOM JACKSON
jackson@sanduskyregister.com
SANDUSKY
It’s the Golden Age for communication.
A generation ago, long-distance messaging consisted of letter-writing and phone calls from a telephone anchored to the wall.
These days, thanks to cell phones and the Internet, anyone can communicate from almost anywhere to almost anyone, using technology that sounded like science fiction 20 years ago. On Twitter, or on Skype, it makes little difference if you’re in Milan in Italy or in Milan in Ohio.
But with all these blessings come many curses.
That is, it’s also the Golden Age for surveillance. If you fall under suspicion, there are new ways for the government to track you and learn all about you.
Your cell phone is a tracking device. Your email tells where you are when you compose a message. And in many cases, local, state or federal law enforcement officials can obtain the information without ever obtaining a warrant.
It’s definitely a double-edged sword.
The police have new tools for keeping law abiding people safe — that’s good — but privacy advocates worry government surveillance is becoming more common, particularly under a secretive Obama administration that apparently has no qualms about spying on reporters or citizens who advocate for unpopular political causes.
The Internet has become a “surveillance state,” technology security expert Bruce Schneier wrote in a March 16 article for CNN.com. Private companies routinely track Internet users and compile vast amounts of information, which can then often be accessed by the government, he wrote.
“Whether we admit it to ourselves or not, and whether we like it or not, we’re being tracked all the time. Google tracks us, both on its pages and on other pages it has access to. Facebook does the same; it even tracks non-Facebook users. Apple tracks us on our iPhones and iPads. One reporter used a tool called Collusion to track who was tracking him; 105 companies tracked his Internet use during one 36-hour period,” Schneier wrote.
There’s little the average person can do about it.
“There are simply too many ways to be tracked. The Internet, e-mail, cell phones, web browsers, social networking sites, search engines: these have become necessities, and it’s fanciful to expect people to simply refuse to use them just because they don’t like the spying, especially since the full extent of such spying is deliberately hidden from us and there are few alternatives being marketed by companies that don’t spy,” he wrote.
Follow that phone
The advantage of the new surveillance technology became clear in February, when police tracked down and arrested Robert Lee Jackson Jr., a suspect accused of using a gun for a bank robbery in Monroeville and a gas station robbery in Norwalk.
Norwalk police tracked Jackson’s cell phone signal as he headed back to Huron. Officers stationed themselves along major highways and nabbed him at U.S. 20 and Ohio 58.
This kind of cell tracking is used for serious cases, not for snooping or for minor criminals, Sandusky police Chief John Orzech said.
“There’s a whole lot of paperwork you have to fill out,” Orzech said. “You have to have a hearing in front of a judge.”
In the last 10 years, Sandusky police have used cell phone tracking five times, at most, he said.
“It’s for those people who are wanted on pretty severe charges, like murder, attempted murder, stuff like that,” he said.
Erie County Sheriff Paul Sigsworth said cell phone tracking may also be used to track people who are threatening to harm themselves, or to find someone suffering from dementia but who has a cell phone.
A far more common police technique is to obtain records for phone calls, showing the numbers called from a particular phone. This is routine, Orzech said, and it’s usually done several times a week. The records show incoming and outgoing calls — showing who was talking to who — and the time of the calls.
The records are usually obtained for felony investigations, although they’re also useful for misdemeanor harassment cases, Orzech said.
The traditional safeguard against excessive snooping is the court system. For some kinds of surveillance, investigators have to obtain a warrant, which means going before a judge and explaining there’s evidence of crime and evidence a specific person may be guilty.
But for collecting some kinds of evidence, only a subpoena is required. Officials can fill out a piece of paper at the courthouse, without getting permission from anyone.
Two attorneys at the Erie County public defender’s office, Jeff Whitacre and Chris Carroll, said that some phone companies demand a warrant before they’ll hand over cell phone records, but others only want a subpoena.
Death of anonymity
The ability of authorities to easily obtain phone records — even for people who aren’t accused of a crime — became public knowledge when the Obama administration, apparently searching for the source of a national security leak, seized thousands of phone company call records for 20 separate Associated Press phone lines over a two-month period. The AP revealed on May 13 the government had secretly seized the records.
The reporters actually had more protections than ordinary people would have, Washington Post technology columnist Timothy Lee wrote in a May 14 article for the paper’s “Wonkblog” section.
“Before an FBI agent can seek a journalist’s call records, they must get special approval from the attorney general. But that’s merely a Justice Department policy, not a constitutional requirement,” Lee wrote. “The rest of the country doesn’t get even the modest procedural protection the government affords to journalists.”
Lee said the government can obtain records of “cloud” email services such as Gmail without a warrant.
“The FBI likely didn’t need a warrant to obtain e-mail records that led to the identification of Paula Broadwell as the mistress of Gen. David Petraeus last year,” Lee wrote.
The law still makes a sharp distinction between tracking records for emails or for phone calls and actually listening in on the calls and reading the emails. Google would require a warrant before it would hand over the actual contents of Gmail messages, said Julian Sanchez, a research fellow at the Cato Institute.
But the records of the messages, or the records of phone calls, can reveal a lot, Lee said, as the FBI demonstrated when it tracked down the identity of Petraeus’ secret mistress.
“Broadwell logged into her anonymous email account from multiple hotels. The feds subpoenaed the email provider to get the IP addresses from which she’d logged in, and then correlated those with hotel checkin records. She was the only one who’d checked into all the hotels,” Lee explained in an email to the Sandusky Register.
In his piece, Schneier pointed out that Broadwell had tried hard to cover her tracks: “She never logged in to her anonymous e-mail service from her home network. Instead, she used hotel and other public networks when she e-mailed him.”
Lots of potluck
Recent revelations about the Obama administration’s spying on journalists and antiwar activists have raised questions about whether the federal government still behaves much as it did in the 1960s, when J. Edgar Hoover was the director of the FBI and the government routinely monitored activists.
Antiwar.com, a pro-peace news and advocacy site, discovered in 2011 that the FBI was investigating the site and its editors. When Freedom of Information Act requests from the site’s lawyers produced nothing, the site filed a lawsuit on May 21 this year, demanding information about the FBI surveillance.
Eric Garris, one of Antiwar.com’s founders, said the FBI’s investigation of the site is “very scary.”
“We’re a news organization and we definitely have a point of view, as probably most news organizations do, to some extent. Clearly, what we do should be, and is, protected by the First Amendment,” Garris said.
He said the site’s ability to survive has been damaged by the revelation that FBI agents are tracking it. The site exists on donations, and three important donors stopped giving money because they’re afraid of becoming the subjects of an FBI investigation.
The FBI carried out raids on Sept. 24, 2010, in several Midwestern states in the homes of peace activists in the Freedom Road Socialist organization, said Tom Burke, a member of the group and a self-described peace activist.
Burke’s home wasn’t raided, but as he drove to find an Internet cafe so he could write a press release about the event, he noticed that a black SUV was following him after he made two left turns. He made a third turn, and the SUV again turned behind him.
The SUV turned out to be an FBI vehicle. Agents served him with a grand jury subpoena, demanding testimony about the group’s alleged support of terrorist groups abroad. Burke and other members of the group refused to testify, and the investigation into the group continues.
Burke said his group holds potluck dinners to raise money and then donates to groups such as a Palestinian women’s health group or a union in Colombia. He insists his group gives no money to terror groups.
“We hold protests to try to change U.S. policies toward the countries of Colombia and Palestine,” he said.
Terrorism is a convenient label to repress speech, contends Burke, who notes that Nelson Mandela was labeled a terrorist by the U.S. government until 2007.
Federal impunity
Erie County’s homegrown peaceniks haven’t felt threatened by the government, said Larry Smith, of Huron, a retired English professor and a member of Voices for Peace and Justice, which formed in 1985.
“We might have been watched. We never felt invaded,” Smith said. “We were a peace group. We were not advocating any type of violence.”
One important question for privacy advocates is just how many email messages and telephone calls are intercepted by the National Security Agency, the NSA, Sanchez said. It’s difficult to find out if the NSA is sucking up vast amounts of information, although in theory the NSA is only supposed to intercept communications with people in other countries.
In practice, it’s not always easy to tell if a Gmail message is between two people in California, or between someone in Pakistan and someone in Yemen, Sanchez said.
“It’s plausible to me they are vacuuming up a lot of stuff,” he said.
Because of the secrecy and actions of the Obama administration, it’s difficult for reporters and advocacy organizations to serve as watchdogs to determine if federal officials are following the law.
The Sandusky Register has found it’s much easier to get local officials on the phone to obtain local records under Ohio’s public records law, as compared to obtaining federal records or getting federal officials to speak on the record.
The U.S. Border Patrol, for example, has refused to answer questions for years about its activities in Erie County and surrounding counties.
This past week, the FBI raided the Outlaws bike clubhouse on Dewitt Avenue in Perkins Township. The FBI’s Cleveland office refused to provide information on the raid, and the search warrant was filed under seal.
This mirrors the actions of the U.S. Department of Agriculture late last year, when armed agents from the Farm Service Agency raided Hermes Winery. The Farm Service Agency refused to provide information on the raid, and the agency has since shot down the Register’s requests for documentation on the raid.
Sanchez said he is still waiting for a response to a Freedom of Information Act request he filed in July 2012 to obtain a semiannual report, required by law, on wiretaps the NSA carries out under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA.
Government officials told Sanchez they could not confirm the existence of such a report. When Sanchez pointed out the reports were required by law, the officials conceded they understood the request.
“We’re pushing a year here,” Sanchez said. “I obviously haven’t gotten anything.”
One important question for privacy advocates is just how many email messages and telephone calls are intercepted by the National Security Agency, the NSA, Sanchez said. It’s difficult to find out if the NSA is sucking up vast amounts of information, although in theory the NSA is only supposed to intercept communications with people in other countries.
In practice, it’s not always easy to tell if a Gmail message is between two people in California, or between someone in Pakistan and someone in Yemen, Sanchez said.
“It’s plausible to me they are vacuuming up a lot of stuff,” he said.
Well, those paragraphs turned out pretty well, don't you think? If you can't tell what I'm talking about see this piece in Slate and this posting by Sanchez. See also this Wall Street Journal article. All of this began with Glenn Greenwald's scoop at the Guardian. If you want to keep up with this topic, I suggest paying attention to Sanchez on Twitter. Jesse Walker is also good.
My boss at work gave me permission to post my June 1 article here; perhaps sombunall of you will be interested.
By TOM JACKSON
jackson@sanduskyregister.com
SANDUSKY
It’s the Golden Age for communication.
A generation ago, long-distance messaging consisted of letter-writing and phone calls from a telephone anchored to the wall.
These days, thanks to cell phones and the Internet, anyone can communicate from almost anywhere to almost anyone, using technology that sounded like science fiction 20 years ago. On Twitter, or on Skype, it makes little difference if you’re in Milan in Italy or in Milan in Ohio.
But with all these blessings come many curses.
That is, it’s also the Golden Age for surveillance. If you fall under suspicion, there are new ways for the government to track you and learn all about you.
Your cell phone is a tracking device. Your email tells where you are when you compose a message. And in many cases, local, state or federal law enforcement officials can obtain the information without ever obtaining a warrant.
It’s definitely a double-edged sword.
The police have new tools for keeping law abiding people safe — that’s good — but privacy advocates worry government surveillance is becoming more common, particularly under a secretive Obama administration that apparently has no qualms about spying on reporters or citizens who advocate for unpopular political causes.
The Internet has become a “surveillance state,” technology security expert Bruce Schneier wrote in a March 16 article for CNN.com. Private companies routinely track Internet users and compile vast amounts of information, which can then often be accessed by the government, he wrote.
“Whether we admit it to ourselves or not, and whether we like it or not, we’re being tracked all the time. Google tracks us, both on its pages and on other pages it has access to. Facebook does the same; it even tracks non-Facebook users. Apple tracks us on our iPhones and iPads. One reporter used a tool called Collusion to track who was tracking him; 105 companies tracked his Internet use during one 36-hour period,” Schneier wrote.
There’s little the average person can do about it.
“There are simply too many ways to be tracked. The Internet, e-mail, cell phones, web browsers, social networking sites, search engines: these have become necessities, and it’s fanciful to expect people to simply refuse to use them just because they don’t like the spying, especially since the full extent of such spying is deliberately hidden from us and there are few alternatives being marketed by companies that don’t spy,” he wrote.
Follow that phone
The advantage of the new surveillance technology became clear in February, when police tracked down and arrested Robert Lee Jackson Jr., a suspect accused of using a gun for a bank robbery in Monroeville and a gas station robbery in Norwalk.
Norwalk police tracked Jackson’s cell phone signal as he headed back to Huron. Officers stationed themselves along major highways and nabbed him at U.S. 20 and Ohio 58.
This kind of cell tracking is used for serious cases, not for snooping or for minor criminals, Sandusky police Chief John Orzech said.
“There’s a whole lot of paperwork you have to fill out,” Orzech said. “You have to have a hearing in front of a judge.”
In the last 10 years, Sandusky police have used cell phone tracking five times, at most, he said.
“It’s for those people who are wanted on pretty severe charges, like murder, attempted murder, stuff like that,” he said.
Erie County Sheriff Paul Sigsworth said cell phone tracking may also be used to track people who are threatening to harm themselves, or to find someone suffering from dementia but who has a cell phone.
A far more common police technique is to obtain records for phone calls, showing the numbers called from a particular phone. This is routine, Orzech said, and it’s usually done several times a week. The records show incoming and outgoing calls — showing who was talking to who — and the time of the calls.
The records are usually obtained for felony investigations, although they’re also useful for misdemeanor harassment cases, Orzech said.
The traditional safeguard against excessive snooping is the court system. For some kinds of surveillance, investigators have to obtain a warrant, which means going before a judge and explaining there’s evidence of crime and evidence a specific person may be guilty.
But for collecting some kinds of evidence, only a subpoena is required. Officials can fill out a piece of paper at the courthouse, without getting permission from anyone.
Two attorneys at the Erie County public defender’s office, Jeff Whitacre and Chris Carroll, said that some phone companies demand a warrant before they’ll hand over cell phone records, but others only want a subpoena.
Death of anonymity
The ability of authorities to easily obtain phone records — even for people who aren’t accused of a crime — became public knowledge when the Obama administration, apparently searching for the source of a national security leak, seized thousands of phone company call records for 20 separate Associated Press phone lines over a two-month period. The AP revealed on May 13 the government had secretly seized the records.
The reporters actually had more protections than ordinary people would have, Washington Post technology columnist Timothy Lee wrote in a May 14 article for the paper’s “Wonkblog” section.
“Before an FBI agent can seek a journalist’s call records, they must get special approval from the attorney general. But that’s merely a Justice Department policy, not a constitutional requirement,” Lee wrote. “The rest of the country doesn’t get even the modest procedural protection the government affords to journalists.”
Lee said the government can obtain records of “cloud” email services such as Gmail without a warrant.
“The FBI likely didn’t need a warrant to obtain e-mail records that led to the identification of Paula Broadwell as the mistress of Gen. David Petraeus last year,” Lee wrote.
The law still makes a sharp distinction between tracking records for emails or for phone calls and actually listening in on the calls and reading the emails. Google would require a warrant before it would hand over the actual contents of Gmail messages, said Julian Sanchez, a research fellow at the Cato Institute.
But the records of the messages, or the records of phone calls, can reveal a lot, Lee said, as the FBI demonstrated when it tracked down the identity of Petraeus’ secret mistress.
“Broadwell logged into her anonymous email account from multiple hotels. The feds subpoenaed the email provider to get the IP addresses from which she’d logged in, and then correlated those with hotel checkin records. She was the only one who’d checked into all the hotels,” Lee explained in an email to the Sandusky Register.
In his piece, Schneier pointed out that Broadwell had tried hard to cover her tracks: “She never logged in to her anonymous e-mail service from her home network. Instead, she used hotel and other public networks when she e-mailed him.”
Lots of potluck
Recent revelations about the Obama administration’s spying on journalists and antiwar activists have raised questions about whether the federal government still behaves much as it did in the 1960s, when J. Edgar Hoover was the director of the FBI and the government routinely monitored activists.
Antiwar.com, a pro-peace news and advocacy site, discovered in 2011 that the FBI was investigating the site and its editors. When Freedom of Information Act requests from the site’s lawyers produced nothing, the site filed a lawsuit on May 21 this year, demanding information about the FBI surveillance.
Eric Garris, one of Antiwar.com’s founders, said the FBI’s investigation of the site is “very scary.”
“We’re a news organization and we definitely have a point of view, as probably most news organizations do, to some extent. Clearly, what we do should be, and is, protected by the First Amendment,” Garris said.
He said the site’s ability to survive has been damaged by the revelation that FBI agents are tracking it. The site exists on donations, and three important donors stopped giving money because they’re afraid of becoming the subjects of an FBI investigation.
The FBI carried out raids on Sept. 24, 2010, in several Midwestern states in the homes of peace activists in the Freedom Road Socialist organization, said Tom Burke, a member of the group and a self-described peace activist.
Burke’s home wasn’t raided, but as he drove to find an Internet cafe so he could write a press release about the event, he noticed that a black SUV was following him after he made two left turns. He made a third turn, and the SUV again turned behind him.
The SUV turned out to be an FBI vehicle. Agents served him with a grand jury subpoena, demanding testimony about the group’s alleged support of terrorist groups abroad. Burke and other members of the group refused to testify, and the investigation into the group continues.
Burke said his group holds potluck dinners to raise money and then donates to groups such as a Palestinian women’s health group or a union in Colombia. He insists his group gives no money to terror groups.
“We hold protests to try to change U.S. policies toward the countries of Colombia and Palestine,” he said.
Terrorism is a convenient label to repress speech, contends Burke, who notes that Nelson Mandela was labeled a terrorist by the U.S. government until 2007.
Federal impunity
Erie County’s homegrown peaceniks haven’t felt threatened by the government, said Larry Smith, of Huron, a retired English professor and a member of Voices for Peace and Justice, which formed in 1985.
“We might have been watched. We never felt invaded,” Smith said. “We were a peace group. We were not advocating any type of violence.”
One important question for privacy advocates is just how many email messages and telephone calls are intercepted by the National Security Agency, the NSA, Sanchez said. It’s difficult to find out if the NSA is sucking up vast amounts of information, although in theory the NSA is only supposed to intercept communications with people in other countries.
In practice, it’s not always easy to tell if a Gmail message is between two people in California, or between someone in Pakistan and someone in Yemen, Sanchez said.
“It’s plausible to me they are vacuuming up a lot of stuff,” he said.
Because of the secrecy and actions of the Obama administration, it’s difficult for reporters and advocacy organizations to serve as watchdogs to determine if federal officials are following the law.
The Sandusky Register has found it’s much easier to get local officials on the phone to obtain local records under Ohio’s public records law, as compared to obtaining federal records or getting federal officials to speak on the record.
The U.S. Border Patrol, for example, has refused to answer questions for years about its activities in Erie County and surrounding counties.
This past week, the FBI raided the Outlaws bike clubhouse on Dewitt Avenue in Perkins Township. The FBI’s Cleveland office refused to provide information on the raid, and the search warrant was filed under seal.
This mirrors the actions of the U.S. Department of Agriculture late last year, when armed agents from the Farm Service Agency raided Hermes Winery. The Farm Service Agency refused to provide information on the raid, and the agency has since shot down the Register’s requests for documentation on the raid.
Sanchez said he is still waiting for a response to a Freedom of Information Act request he filed in July 2012 to obtain a semiannual report, required by law, on wiretaps the NSA carries out under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA.
Government officials told Sanchez they could not confirm the existence of such a report. When Sanchez pointed out the reports were required by law, the officials conceded they understood the request.
“We’re pushing a year here,” Sanchez said. “I obviously haven’t gotten anything.”
Thursday, June 6, 2013
The I Ching in Illuminatus! and The Man in the High Castle
On page 24 of the Illuminatus! trilogy, the computer programmed with the I Ching and other forecasting methods and data issues Hexagram 23, Breaking Apart.
It was not the first time the I Ching has been used in a work of fiction. As Ted Hand has pointed out, it likely was first used in a novel in Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle, which I've been re-reading. (Just as when I first read it as a teenager, I'm struck by how great it is.) In the first three chapters, Dick's characters consult the I Ching several times. Hand has just posted a link to the text of the I Ching that Dick used.
Just for fun, I decided to try the online version of the I Ching. I asked it, "What does the future hold for the RAWIllumination.net blog?"
I got Hexagram 20, "Contemplation."
Cast Hexagram:
20 - Twenty
Kuan / Contemplation
The gentle Wind roams the Earth:
The Superior Person expands his sphere of influence as he expands his awareness.
Deeply devoted to his pursuit of clarity and wisdom, he is unconscious of the inspiring, positive example he is setting for others to emulate.
You have cleansed yourself; now stand ready to make your humble, devout offering.
SITUATION ANALYSIS:
The situation marks a rising to new heights.
As you climb for a better view of the panorama, you make yourself more conspicuous to those below.
This hexagram is also known as the Watchtower, because the shape formed by its lines resembles the ancient guardposts manned by Chinese soldiers.
These towers were placed on mountainsides to give a better vantage point.
To those below, the watchtowers served as landmarks to help them find their way.
The quality of your search for clarity in this situation serves as such a guidepost for others along the Way.
The "Dick text's" version of my hexagram is here.
It was not the first time the I Ching has been used in a work of fiction. As Ted Hand has pointed out, it likely was first used in a novel in Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle, which I've been re-reading. (Just as when I first read it as a teenager, I'm struck by how great it is.) In the first three chapters, Dick's characters consult the I Ching several times. Hand has just posted a link to the text of the I Ching that Dick used.
Just for fun, I decided to try the online version of the I Ching. I asked it, "What does the future hold for the RAWIllumination.net blog?"
I got Hexagram 20, "Contemplation."
Cast Hexagram:
20 - Twenty
Kuan / Contemplation
The gentle Wind roams the Earth:
The Superior Person expands his sphere of influence as he expands his awareness.
Deeply devoted to his pursuit of clarity and wisdom, he is unconscious of the inspiring, positive example he is setting for others to emulate.
You have cleansed yourself; now stand ready to make your humble, devout offering.
SITUATION ANALYSIS:
The situation marks a rising to new heights.
As you climb for a better view of the panorama, you make yourself more conspicuous to those below.
This hexagram is also known as the Watchtower, because the shape formed by its lines resembles the ancient guardposts manned by Chinese soldiers.
These towers were placed on mountainsides to give a better vantage point.
To those below, the watchtowers served as landmarks to help them find their way.
The quality of your search for clarity in this situation serves as such a guidepost for others along the Way.
The "Dick text's" version of my hexagram is here.
Wednesday, June 5, 2013
Oz Fritz reviews the new Timothy Leary biography
I'm still getting caught up on my Timothy Leary education. By contrast, Oz Fritz already knows a lot about Leary, and he recommends the new, free Timothy Leary book, Timothy Leary's Trip Through Time by R.U. Sirius (free download is here.)
Oz has a long, thoughtful review at his blog. Oz thinks Sirius' book is an ideal introduction for people who little nothing about Leary aside from the media caricature of Leary as a drug-addled clown. But it's also for well-informed Leary fans, says Oz, who cites specific bits of the book that surprised and pleased him. (Oz has read the other two Leary bios and also apparently has read all of Leary's books that provide biographical information.)
Sample quote from Oz's review: "All of the bases are covered here. However, to flesh out the picture, I highly recommend reading the other two biographies, as well. I Have America Surrounded by John Higgs gives a sympathetic, sometimes empathic presentation of Leary's life without shying away from some of the darker aspects. Timothy Leary: A Biography by Robert Greenfield, though also well written, often comes across as a butcherous hack job by someone who clearly appears jealous and envious of his subject and so feels the need to put him down as much as possible. It reminds me of John Symond's biography of Aleister Crowley, The Great Beast. Yet, Greenfield's bio has much useful material when sifting out his bias. Toward the end of TLTTT Sirius accurately points out the flaws in Greenfield's book but also acknowledges his debt to it."
Oz has a long, thoughtful review at his blog. Oz thinks Sirius' book is an ideal introduction for people who little nothing about Leary aside from the media caricature of Leary as a drug-addled clown. But it's also for well-informed Leary fans, says Oz, who cites specific bits of the book that surprised and pleased him. (Oz has read the other two Leary bios and also apparently has read all of Leary's books that provide biographical information.)
Sample quote from Oz's review: "All of the bases are covered here. However, to flesh out the picture, I highly recommend reading the other two biographies, as well. I Have America Surrounded by John Higgs gives a sympathetic, sometimes empathic presentation of Leary's life without shying away from some of the darker aspects. Timothy Leary: A Biography by Robert Greenfield, though also well written, often comes across as a butcherous hack job by someone who clearly appears jealous and envious of his subject and so feels the need to put him down as much as possible. It reminds me of John Symond's biography of Aleister Crowley, The Great Beast. Yet, Greenfield's bio has much useful material when sifting out his bias. Toward the end of TLTTT Sirius accurately points out the flaws in Greenfield's book but also acknowledges his debt to it."
Tuesday, June 4, 2013
The Man in the High Castle
Back in high school, before I went to college and discovered Robert Anton Wilson, I read Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle, which won a Hugo award. It's the current title in the Philip K. Dick Reading Club I mentioned a few days ago. I'm re-reading it and I'll try to submit a couple of comments at the reading club website.
Monday, June 3, 2013
A good quote
Many people I follow on Twitter like to send out quotes from RAW. Mark (midnight 138) sent out a good one the other day: ""When the politics of lying becomes normal, paranoia and alienation become the 'normality' of the day."
I asked for a citation, not recognizing the source, and he explained it was from Cosmic Trigger 1. Mark told me it was on page 49 or thereabouts; on my Pocket books edition, it's on page 36. It's from the chapter, "The Heresy Hunt Begins."
I asked for a citation, not recognizing the source, and he explained it was from Cosmic Trigger 1. Mark told me it was on page 49 or thereabouts; on my Pocket books edition, it's on page 36. It's from the chapter, "The Heresy Hunt Begins."
Sunday, June 2, 2013
Beethoven and the Freemasons
"Through the Lens of Freemasonry: The Influence of Ancient Esoteric Thought on Beethoven's Late Works," a doctoral dissertation by Brian Gaona, available here, discusses the influence of the masons and secret societies (including the Illuminati) upon Beethoven, and then discusses how those influences can be seen in three late works: Bagatelle, op. 119, No. 7, the Piano Sonata in C minor, op. 111 (e.g., Piano Sonata No. 32, the final one), and the String Quartet in C-sharp minor, op. 131 (No. 14.)
I don't know the bagatelle yet, but the final piano concerto is quite famous and has a jazzy passage well ahead of its time. The 14th Quartet is a long, interesting work; according to Wikipedia it was the composer's favorite late quartet.
Gaona is a cellist. The dissertation was written at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, one of the settings for Richard Powers' novel, The Gold Bug Variations, which features a character who listens to the Glenn Gould recording of Bach's "Goldberg Variations" over and over again; Powers is an English professor at the school. Noted composer Steven Andrew Taylor also is on the faculty there (I have one of Taylor's albums, "The Machine Awakes.")
Hat tip: Ted Hand.
I don't know the bagatelle yet, but the final piano concerto is quite famous and has a jazzy passage well ahead of its time. The 14th Quartet is a long, interesting work; according to Wikipedia it was the composer's favorite late quartet.
Gaona is a cellist. The dissertation was written at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, one of the settings for Richard Powers' novel, The Gold Bug Variations, which features a character who listens to the Glenn Gould recording of Bach's "Goldberg Variations" over and over again; Powers is an English professor at the school. Noted composer Steven Andrew Taylor also is on the faculty there (I have one of Taylor's albums, "The Machine Awakes.")
Hat tip: Ted Hand.
Saturday, June 1, 2013
New Falcon takes the Kindle plunge
New Falcon has begun offering its books on Kindle. This is big news because it has the effect of making many of Robert Anton Wilson's works more available, particularly as the digital editions are priced to sell.
While some of RAW's books have been available on Kindle for a long time, many titles have just been added as a result of New Falcon's move. A check in Amazon's Kindle store reveals these new titles: Email to the Universe ($4.99) (an excellent collection), Prometheus Rising ($7.99), Coincidance ($4.99), Neutopolitique (with Timothy Leary) $4.99, TSOG ($4.99) Let's hope other New Falcon titles will be added soon.
In addition, Eric Wagner's An Insider's Guide to Robert Anton Wilson, which costs $15.15 as a paperback (a price that doesn't include an additional charge for shipping) is just $3.99 on Kindle.
I did a quick check of Amazon UK, and it appears most if not all of these titles are available there, too.
There are various Kindle apps for various machines, so you don't have to actually have a Kindle to read any of these.
Hat tip, Eric Wagner.
UPDATE: Looks like there may be a few bugs in the system. I paid $4.99 to buy Wilhelm Reich in Hell and instead of a book got a one-page document that begins, "DO NOT PUBLISH THIS FILE." Anyone else bought anything yet?
UPDATE II: Amazon says it is sorry and will work to get the book fixed. I also have sent an email to the contact address for the New Falcon Web site, as follows: "I bought Robert Anton Wilson's "Wilhelm Reich in Hell" for $4.99 from Amazon as a Kindle book and all I got was a one page error message. (I'm the guy who does the RAWIllumination.net blog). Can you please fix the problem ASAP? Amazon chat transcript follows." This should be a good test of New Falcon's customer service skills.
UPDATE III: New Falcon replied right away, so they pass the test! They say they'll work with Amazon to fix it. This should still be really good news once the bugs are ironed out.
UPDATE IV: Gary Acord bought Coincidance and An Insider's Guide to Robert Anton Wilson and they were messed up the same way as the book I bought. I'll do a follow up post when New Falcon/Amazon get things under control.
While some of RAW's books have been available on Kindle for a long time, many titles have just been added as a result of New Falcon's move. A check in Amazon's Kindle store reveals these new titles: Email to the Universe ($4.99) (an excellent collection), Prometheus Rising ($7.99), Coincidance ($4.99), Neutopolitique (with Timothy Leary) $4.99, TSOG ($4.99) Let's hope other New Falcon titles will be added soon.
In addition, Eric Wagner's An Insider's Guide to Robert Anton Wilson, which costs $15.15 as a paperback (a price that doesn't include an additional charge for shipping) is just $3.99 on Kindle.
I did a quick check of Amazon UK, and it appears most if not all of these titles are available there, too.
There are various Kindle apps for various machines, so you don't have to actually have a Kindle to read any of these.
Hat tip, Eric Wagner.
UPDATE: Looks like there may be a few bugs in the system. I paid $4.99 to buy Wilhelm Reich in Hell and instead of a book got a one-page document that begins, "DO NOT PUBLISH THIS FILE." Anyone else bought anything yet?
UPDATE II: Amazon says it is sorry and will work to get the book fixed. I also have sent an email to the contact address for the New Falcon Web site, as follows: "I bought Robert Anton Wilson's "Wilhelm Reich in Hell" for $4.99 from Amazon as a Kindle book and all I got was a one page error message. (I'm the guy who does the RAWIllumination.net blog). Can you please fix the problem ASAP? Amazon chat transcript follows." This should be a good test of New Falcon's customer service skills.
UPDATE III: New Falcon replied right away, so they pass the test! They say they'll work with Amazon to fix it. This should still be really good news once the bugs are ironed out.
UPDATE IV: Gary Acord bought Coincidance and An Insider's Guide to Robert Anton Wilson and they were messed up the same way as the book I bought. I'll do a follow up post when New Falcon/Amazon get things under control.
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