Spy vs. Spy ...

I'm liking the FBI right about now because of the bureau's stance on the waterboarding debate and torture in general. Here are the critical grafs from The Washington Post (12/18/2007):

(Emphases mine.)

“Al-Qaeda captive Abu Zubaida, whose interrogation videotapes were destroyed by the CIA, remains the subject of a dispute between FBI and CIA officials over his significance as a terrorism suspect and whether his most important revelations came from traditional interrogations or from torture.

“While CIA officials have described him as an important insider whose disclosures under intense pressure saved lives, some FBI agents and analysts say he is largely a loudmouthed and mentally troubled hotelier whose credibility dropped as the CIA subjected him to a simulated drowning technique known as waterboarding and to other 'enhanced interrogation' measures.

“The question of whether Abu Zubaida ... was an unstable source who provided limited intelligence under gentle questioning, or a hardened terrorist who cracked under extremely harsh measures, goes to the heart of the current Washington debate over coercive interrogations and torture. ...

“[F]ormer FBI officials privy to details of the case continue to dispute the CIA's account of the effectiveness of the harsh measures, making the record of Abu Zubaida's interrogation hard for outsiders to assess.

“There is little dispute, according to officials from both agencies, that Abu Zubaida provided some valuable intelligence before CIA interrogators began to rough him up ...

“FBI officials, including agents who questioned him after his capture or reviewed documents seized from his home, have concluded that even though he knew some al-Qaeda players, he provided interrogators with increasingly dubious information as the CIA's harsh treatment intensified in late 2002.

“In legal papers prepared for a military hearing, Abu Zubaida himself has asserted that he told his interrogators whatever they wanted to hear to make the treatment stop.

“Retired FBI agent Daniel Coleman, who led an examination of documents after Abu Zubaida's capture in early 2002 and worked on the case, said the CIA's harsh tactics cast doubt on the credibility of Abu Zubaida's information.

“'I don't have confidence in anything he says, because once you go down that road, everything you say is tainted,' Coleman said, referring to the harsh measures. 'He was talking before they did that to him, but they didn't believe him. The problem is they didn't realize he didn't know all that much.' ...

“A rift ... swiftly developed between FBI agents, who were largely pleased with the progress of the questioning, and CIA officers, who felt Abu Zubaida was holding out on them and providing disinformation. Tensions came to a head after FBI agents witnessed the use of some harsh tactics on Abu Zubaida, including keeping him naked in his cell, subjecting him to extreme cold and bombarding him with loud rock music.

“They said, 'You've got to be kidding me,'' said Coleman, recalling accounts from FBI employees who were there. 'This guy's a Muslim. That's not going to win his confidence. Are you trying to get information out of him or just belittle him?' ...

“FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III eventually ordered the FBI team to withdraw from the interrogation, largely because bureau procedures prohibit agents from being involved in such techniques, according to several officials familiar with the episode. ...

“According to Kiriakou's account, which he said is based on detailed descriptions by fellow team members, Abu Zubaida broke after just 35 seconds of waterboarding, which involved stretching cellophane over his mouth and nose and pouring water on his face to create the sensation of drowning.

“But other former and current officials disagreed that Abu Zubaida's cooperation came quickly under harsh interrogation or that it was the result of a single waterboarding session. Instead, these officials said, harsh tactics used on him at a secret detention facility in Thailand went on for weeks or, depending on the account, even months. ...

“Coleman, a 31-year FBI veteran, joined other former law enforcement colleagues in expressing skepticism about Abu Zubaida's importance. Abu Zubaida, he said in an interview, was a 'safehouse keeper' with mental problems who claimed to know more about al-Qaeda and its inner workings than he really did. ...

“CIA officials concluded ... that Abu Zubaida was a major player, and they saw any lack of information as evidence that he was resisting interrogation. Much of the threat information provided by Abu Zubaida, Coleman said, 'was crap.'”

jeanie

Online image generators ...

I am not sure you can read the type beneath the barcode too well, but this was the most fun of the Libraries 2.0 exercises: playing with the online image generator. I went through a few of the sites and was like, you know, yawn, before I found this one that was a TOTAL kick -- specifically the barcode-maker part of it. Try it out at http://www.signgenerator.org/barcode/
I wish the text were larger. You could have, like, 5 million kick-ass bumper stickers. This one, if you can't read it, says "Stop Torture Now." I have to add, though, that my new campaign at work is to SHUT UP.

jeanie

Can we just say sexy?

One of our assignments was to "discover" http://www.flickr.com/, which I found to be sleep-inducing.

Wait! Let me use my word-of-the-day:
soporific /sah-puh-RIFF-ik/ adjective
01 a: causing or tending to cause sleeping
01 b: tending to dull awareness or alertness
02: of, or relating to, or marked by sleepiness or lethargy

Onward: I tried to post a bunch of great photos to flickr. This one did not make it. It is a photo of a Navy Seal in action. Can we just say sexy?

jeanie

Jeanie's SUPER exciting technology post ...

(Please note: The sniper kitten has nothing to do with this post. I just love the sniper kitten. It is cute and TOTALLY irrelevant to anything on the planet. Totally has no value. Just cute and, you know, weird. Like why would a little kitten be a sniper on any planet? I found the sniper kitten one day when I went online to order myself a sniper rifle. TOTALLY kidding!)

One of my assignments is: Write about anything technology-related that interests you this week. It does not say that it has to be LIS-related, so I'm going to write about my FOREVER favorite topic, intelligence technology.

You know me. It is going to take FOREVER to get to the part about technology because I am going to ramble on and on. Stay with me, comrades.

OK. The COOLEST thing about intelligence technology is that you just KNOW that if the press writes about some aspect of intelligence technology -- that what is really available is, like, a million times cooler. Like if UPI reports that the NSA has certified a new GD secure phone, what really is going on is that the NSA can send killer-ninja nano men through your TV set! (I am so kidding.)

Seriously, though, my favorite topic ON EARTH is anything related to -- or remotely related to -- the CIA, FBI, or NSA -- not necessarily in that order. (I just alphabetized them because, you know, I am a librarian.) There is SO MUCH to love! I ask you, is there anything sexier than those three agencies? I didn't say more important or pressing or relevant or less-evil. I said sexier. As in Hollywood. As in what DVD you pick up or put on hold at the library or actually pay to see at the theater. As in JASON BOURNE! LONG LIVE JASON BOURNE!

Nah. Really. These agencies are sexy on the big screen. But try Google alerts, too. Because in real life they are always vacuuming up petabytes of data to find out who is putting falafel mix on their AmEx card in Boulder or Berkley or they are burning tapes showing torture or accidentally telling the American public how much money they are spending because they left the real figures embedded in a PowerPoint slide. (Sometimes you think someone is just bored and making stuff up. I'm totally unsure about the falafel story. I don't think that is true.)

My ex-boyfriend and I have concluded that, since the Fourth Estate has failed us, the fourth branch of government is the intelligence community. TOTALLY. No checks and balances and zero accountability. All they have to do is battle each other!

Finally we get to the technology part. (Was she EVER going to shut up?) Here is what the press is reporting in regards to intelligence technology:

01 Yawn. Of marginal interest: General Dynamics' new Sectera secure phone has been certified by the U.S. National Security Agency. (Oops. TOTALLY fell asleep while reading this story.)

02 A little dated (11/21/2007), but from the U.K., where people are, in general, a teeny, tiny bit more awake. This is from a column by Gareth Crossman: "As technological capabilities to process and analyse data increase to levels unimaginable only a few years ago, data matching and mining are set to be a central part of the brave new world of criminal investigation. This should concern us all for several reasons. It moves us away from traditional practices of relying on intelligence and evidence to indicate criminality by allowing 'fishing expeditions' where there is no suggestion that any crime has been committed. The use of profiling techniques also takes us into uncomfortable territory at a time when the profiling of airline passengers or of underground passengers has been suggested as a possible security measure. Furthermore, there are question marks over the ability of the aging Data Protection Act to provide robust protection against overzealous or incompetent public bodies."

03 Check out http://www.globalsecurity.org/ on your own. Being a librarian, I can't confirm or deny that Global Security exists. I will say it reports on REALLY hot technologies. I just don't know if they are real or not. As I said, I don't know if Global Security is real. It could TOTALLY be a front for a dope dealer. (Kidding. Get over it if this is your website. K?) OK. It is so hot that I have to quote a little snippet: "Biometrics -- using unique physical characteristics to identify a person -- holds promise in a number of security-related fields. ... The Transportation Security Administration's ... Registered Traveler program uses fingerprints in conjunction with an iris scan. Other biometric identifiers currently in use include retina scans, face recognition, voice analysis, hand geometry, and palm vein authentication." Oh my God. I LOVE it. Iris scan? Can we just say Tom Cruise in "Minority Report"? Like that FABULOUS scene where he walks into the Gap and is asked whether he likes the shirts he purchased on his previous visit? Sign me up! I can't wait until they knock on my door and ask me -- on and on. You know where I am going with this. Please check out this website.

Final thoughts:

01 You can TOTALLY stop worrying about anyone asking your permission, like, YESTERDAY. They haven't needed your permission since, like, 1982 or so. Libraries never really needed to worry about patron privacy. We have dead lawyer jokes. The CIA, FBI, NSA -- they think librarians are KILLER funny, TOTALLY medieval.

02 Warrantless wiretapping: Get over it. This is very convenient. You do not have to fill out any confusing forms or deal with any pesky customer-service agents in India. You do not have to opt in at all! As a matter of fact, you cannot opt out! (Why you even thinking that way, You Commie-Hippie! We'll kill your pets! Sniper kitten to the rescue!)

03 Warrantless wiretapping II: You no longer have to call an Iranian in Bucharest or a Romanian in Tehran. Now you can call a Peace Studies professor who purchased falafel mix with his AmEx in Berkley last week.

04 Don't forget to burn a TV in an alley!

05 Can we just say "Twilight Zone" meets the "Outer Limits?

love and a 2008 sit-in to you from jeanie

My second favorite cat EVER ...

this is stanley. he was my second favorite cat EVER. he was my father's cat. he didn't last long because he traveled far and wide -- this in unincorporated boulder county -- and he had TOTAL attitude, which resulted with him taking on a coyote in my dad's backyard. let me just say this cat ROCKED. he is in the heaven reserved for bad-ass cats. love and much civil disobedience from jeanie

KILLER funny CIA joke ...

A while back this was on the site http://www.thespoof.com/news/spoof.cfm
and it struck me as KILLER funny, although the friends I emailed it to were not similarly moved. The gist of the story was that the CIA had the invisible phone as far back as the '50s? (Note that this guy was a fabulous chess player who lived 1848-1925.) Onward: the KILLER funny part was that this guy's picture accompanied the story. (Like he is supposed to be on the invisible phone. Get it?) I totally have no use for a blog other than to complete this assignment for work, so I thought this would be a good posting -- I promise to try to stick to pressing social and cultural issues on the domestic front as well as international affairs, foreign policy, etc., 75-90 percent of the time. Anyway! I went back to the spoof site and couldn't find the story; I ended up finding the guy's picture on the web and just HAD TO steal it for the purpose of relaying this KILLER funny CIA joke. Let me know if this isn't the KILLER funniest thing you have EVER heard of in your entire life and I will try to do a better job of explaining it. Much love and questioning of authority / social unrest from jeanie (from this month forward lower-case as a political statement) P.S. I am now in possession of two low-functioning TVs if you are in need of one to burn in an alley nowhere near my quarters / block ... love and non-violent protest from jeanie

This is going to be a downright radical blog ...

greetings, comrades. this blog will routinely contain timely, insightful, academic-grade comparisons between nazi germany + the current state of affairs in the united states. on a daily basis i will recommend actions veering dangerously close to civil disobedience. um, no. i'm totally doing this as an exercise for work. not that i wouldn't try to suggest incendiary actions on a regular basis -- for example, i think everyone should stop purchasing small paper clips immediately; they do not deserve to exist. SERIOUSLY: i think you should write a hard-copy letter to republicans ron paul and paul broun thanking them profusely for voting against the SAFE Act, which the u.s. house overwhelmingly approved on wednesday. the bill says any organization offering an open wi-fi connection to the public must report illegal images -- including "obscene" cartoons and drawings. the democratic leadership rushed the SAFE Act, which is TOTALLY unsafe for PRIVACY and FREE SPEECH, to the floor under a procedure that's supposed to be reserved for noncontroversial legislation. (no. this was never available for public review.) if this becomes law it will cover individuals, coffee shops and the like, libraries (one of the last bastions of privacy and free speech), hotels, government agencies -- on and on. it may require that the complete contents of the user's account be retained for subsequent police inspection. so, for example, the secret archive of erotic art unlocked by the French National Library -- on and on. you can see where i am going with this. i don't want anybody retaining my information for SUBSEQUENT POLICE INSPECTION. what if they think holden caufield is pornographic? ok. now we're on the same page. BELIEVE ME: i totally think child pornographers should be executed SLOWLY. no mercy. i just think this is a REALLY BAD precedent. and calls for civil disobedience. i am discussing said civil action with comrade i will refer to as air force girl. (she is a veteran.) i don't think i can post here without getting on a list. i will figure out a way to describe it without getting on a list. stay tuned!! burn a tv in an alley! love and less CIA propaganda and fewer coups and assassinations from jeanie