-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Faustine: > Aimee wrote:
> >Well, I doan' kno' nuttin' 'bout no agents. That fact has been > >established. > Careful parsing is the spice of life... :P >>So sayeth the academic-researcher-grad student pretext... :P ITS A CONSPIRACY!!!! -some poor idiot, right now > >But, you know, after pondering on that a bit...What if "the lie" was > >supposedly "really secret stuff?" > >You know, "ME LUCKY CHARMS!" > >I know the little boys and girls are after me lucky charms. > >If "3 or more agents" happen to run in the door with me lucky charms, > Sounds about right. >>Yep, they would be lucky and charming. Ha! Look, even if you like the idea of PSYOPS in Afghanistan (for instance), you have to admit whats surfaced in the media has been embarrassingly crude and ham-handed. I suppose the best you could hope for is that its really all part of a play the idiot and look ineffectual strategy while diverting attention from the real business at hand. Risky, at any rate-- since as any good poker player knows, the merest twitch of the eyelid risks being interpreted as weakness, causing your opponent to raise the stakes. Not good. Failing any evidence to the contrary, its likely just wishful thinking though. Im really not in the all feds are incompetent donutchompers camp, but more and more its looking suspiciously like the donutchompers have the upper hand. And whatever deceptive advantages might possibly come from the *public perception* of rampant incompetence and donutchompery, the drawbacks are deadly. Strength is good. I think Ashcroft and co. are making a HUGE mistake playing up the Christian goody goody schtick it plays straight into the Arab fundamentalist interpretation of the US; and the realists wont believe it (and wouldnt give a crap anyway. And never did.) Even more worriesome, though, is that some of them actually seem to believe it. America ought to deserve better than to be run by a bunch of simps. Emphasis on ought. By the way, did you catch the video of Ashcroft singing some cheezy maudlin patriotic gospel song at a theological seminary? At a fake press conference podium, yet. Surreal. Absolutely nauseating, made my blood boil. Didnt know whether to laugh or throw up... John Ashcroft SINGS! Let the Eagle Soar http://www.ifilm.com/ifilm/product/film_credits/0,3875,2424640,00.html AAAaaaaAAAaaaAAAGH! Ahem. Where were we. As someone once said, Id rather side with someone who burns the flag and wraps themselves in the Constitution than someone who burns the Constitution and wraps themselves in the flag. > What shows that the snowers know they've slowly been snowed? Bet > it keeps a lot of people awake at night, that one. Tricky, but fascinating. If > anyone knows of any good links to counter-deception detection, drop me a line. > Not sure how "on topic" it is, but something everyone here would do well to > read about. Either that, or just default to not trusting anyone, ever. Works >for me. >>Empathy skills in personal matters. You mean like gaydar for bullshitters? >>On a grand scale: >>1. counterdeception teams - multidisciplinary, "non-cultured," outsiders -- >>creatives, narratives, hoaxers, jokesters, emplotters, etc. Yeah but where? In the TLAs themselves? Consultants? Heres my card, Im with Flimflam Inc, an In-Q-Tel startup... Wheres the oversight? Getting a room full of natural-born bullshitters together sounds dangerous no matter whos footing the bill. And put a con in a room full of squares call it personal bias if you want to, but I know where Id put my money as to whod come out ahead. Hm, unless you consider the case of Hanssen, the genuinely square con. Just goes to show you the limits of pigeonholing and profiling. >>2. devil's advocacy in the event stream Yep. Complacently blocking out opinions you disagree with is always a bad idea. >>3. competitive analysis >>4. MUST HAVE: highest-level precision black channels -- requiring nothing >>short of a resurrection. Close surveillance. Sneaky submarines are not good >>enough. Catch 22 re. the Deutch prohibition on working with scummy types. I think it points to the need to re-evaluate exactly what it is were trying to accomplish. >>5. Cultural change -- a bit of British eccentricity; decision-maker >>sensitization Reminds me of the classic story about the time Herman Kahn was asked about Dr. Strangelove: "Dr. Strangelove would not have lasted three weeks at the Pentagon... he was too creative." >>6. Monitoring of foreign open source media and organizational theme >>variations (quantitative content and textual analysis; inferential scanning) Absolutely; open source analysis is for everyone. >>7. Monitoring of internal organizational dissenters, noncomformists and the >>intuitives (instead of quashing them, solicit them) Hey, Im game. Be sure to file all this under the expectation of being conned category though. the niceties of good faith or bad faith I do believe Ill leave to the discretion of rest of the study... LOL >>Due to the changing nature of the world, the U.S. could easily find itself >>hoodwinked, isolated, paralyzed and worse. It used to be "Uproar in the East, >> strike in the West." >>Today, it's "Fool the Sky." (transparent or false-flag cover plan) Yep. (interesting points snipped) >>As part of Homeland Defense, we need Homeland Deception. "OPERATION TRICK >>TERRORISTS?" Instead of deception coming from the top, bring it up from the >>bottom in a security context. (Some people are working on it, but we could be >>doing more.) I just know there is guy taking ticket stubs somewhere on a >>nontraditional delivery vehicle. I bet he has an idea, or once exposed to >>certain concepts -- could come up with one -- because he knows his operative >>context better than anybody else. Right, but theres a utility tradeoff; get too complex and clever for your own good and you end up shooting yourself in the foot--worse off than when you started. And unless you find ways to bring fresh blood into they system without getting a bad case of blood poisoning (to overextend a metaphor) unfortunately I have to admit it looks pretty dim. The one thing I know is that a mad theocratic dash toward giving up freedom and individuality for security and conformity will only hasten the decay, not cleanse it. Something to keep in mind. ~~Faustine. *** He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself. - --Thomas Paine -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGPsdk version 1.7.1 (C) 1997-1999 Network Associates, Inc. and its affiliated companies. 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