[IP] Books -- The New Hows and Whys of Global Eavesdropping (fwd from dave at farber.net)

John Young jya at pipeline.com
Wed Mar 2 12:35:27 PST 2005


Patrick Keefe is overly fond of disparaging "conspiracy"
targets, among them John Gilmore, Duncan Campbell,
Wayne Madsen, EPIC, EuroParl members, just about 
anyone who takes an balanced (!) view of governmental
and corporate malfeasance.

His book may not be TLA-sponsored but it could be read
as an apology for the agencies, despite his avowal of
concern for privacy in these days of overweening calls
for more security.

He repeats, and quotes other characters prattling, the 
formulaic mantra of how much privacy must be sacrificed 
for security, a sure sign that security will be favored and 
that privacy loss will be faux-regretfully mourned, a view
mighty supportive of the TLAs.

This tipping of the discourse toward more security at
the loss of privacy appears to be the raison d'etre of
the book -- not the only one since the security agencies 
went into a decline with the Cold War winddown, and
then re-surged after 9/11 -- but his is the first to argue
that Echelon and its new domestic offshoots may not 
be such a bad thing, both overseas and at home, and
that a public debate about them is overdue.

Keefe says of Cryptome: "The site is a good litmus test
for your attachment to freedom of speech." He is not 
happy about excessiveness of any kind.





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