Kara Jean

infinity-imagined: The orbits of the moons and planets form a 4-dimensional fractal helix in spacetime.

Everyone who works for the government is a secret agent now. Their mission: spy on their coworkers just to make sure nobody leaks information — classified, unclassified or totally obvious — to the American public, but especially that Glenn Greenwald guy. (Yeesh, that guy. Amirite, General?) So, how does one educate these career civil servants and contracted employees in the Tippy-Top Secret Art of Intelligence Tradecraft? Basically: pamphlets, mandatory webinars, you know, the usual, maybe have them get together into groups later, do skits.

Last week, McClatchy’s Washington Bureau — the newsgathering arm of fast food giant McClatchy’s — made waves with an investigative report detailing President Obama’s Insider Threat Program: a sweeping crackdown on all government leakers, everywhere, all the time, period, no excuses, Sasha, Malia, your mom, Joe Biden, Bo, grandma inclusive. Initiated in October 2011, Insider Threat broadly expanded the internal profiling of potentially leaky employees, as well as increasing the penalties for either leaking or failing to report things that James Franco’s character in Spring Breakers would call “spicious.” In the intervening two years, FDA scientists, Peace Corp volunteers, Department of Agriculture bureaucrats and Social Security administrators have all been told to spy on one another or git burnt.

Referenced in the McClatchy piece is a pamphlet put out by the Defense Security Service (DSS) titled “Insider Threats: Combating the ENEMY within your organization.” The pamphlet calmly encourages snitching on coworkers who put in “repeated or un-required work outside of normal duty hours” or coworkers who suddenly can afford things like a Bugatti Veyron. But that pamphlet was just the tippy-top of the DSS pamphlet iceberg!

As an agency within the Defense Department, the DSS has been growing from a small counterintelligence auditor for the pentagon to a primary liaison between the national security state and its constellation of domestic and multinational corporate contractors ever since — if you can believe it — the sad times of 9/11. According to their website, DSS now also provides “comprehensive security training to DoD and other government departments and agencies,” like the USDA. God forbid Taliban poppy farmers get our soil-tilling secrets!

We think you’ll agree that we’re exaggerating when we say these pamphlets are EXPLOSIVE. They are mostly sad and pathetic — and frankly a little scary for it, given the stakes involved (e.g. the careers and pensions of nice people) — but occasionally they are, unintentionally, quite funny. A sampling:

From The “Insider Threats” Pamphlet

“This overly broad definition of an ‘insider threat’ is the main reason I don’t want you to use my name,” our source for these pamphlets told us. “I think, technically, I could be endangering the homeland just by stealing too many paper clips now.” The source — who declined to be labeled either vaguely by his government employer or by the pseudonym Daniel Smellsberg — also noted that the pamphlets might be available online somewhere. (They are.) “So, it really shouldn’t be a big deal.”

“I can see why you would think it’s funny, but please don’t do that ‘Daniel Smellsberg’ thing in the article,” Smellsberg added.

Suffice to say that Smellsberg is one of the nearly five million Americans who have been granted access to classified documents in a little over a decade’s time. With our nation’s most closely held information now in the hands of that many people, it’s inevitable that some of them will be criminally stupid or worse, making it therefore doubly important (we guess) to spell out even the most obvious bullshit. Like this, for example, from the same pamphlet:

From The “Foreign Travel Vulnerability” Pamphlet [.pdf]

Pay very close attention to the body on that flight attendant. Spies can use Mission Impossible-type masks to disguise their faces, so Our National Security could rest on your ability to recognize subtle differences between neatly turned calves or between dis ass and dat ass.

From The “Preparing for Foreign Visitors” Pamphlet [.pdf]

Fact: DARPA alone spends 2.8 billion dollarsign.jpg’s each year. We can’t afford to just flush dollarsign.jpg after dollarsign.jpg down the toilet due to poor security protocol. Those are taxpayer dollarsign.jpg’s.

There’s not a lot of context for this magical stock photo. Of the seven “techniques” that those sneaky foreign visitors might use to steal our precious American secrets, the one closest to describing this photo is called “Distraught Visitor.” You know, it’s that technique “when the visitor’s questions are not answered [and] he/she acts insulted or creates an uncomfortable scene in an attempt to psychologically coerce information from a target.” Gets ‘em every time. (Yes, most of the techniques have visitor in their name. And: No, there’s no explanation for why this guy is yelling into a phone.)

From The “Elicitation & Recruitment” Pamphlet [.pdf]

While all of these pamphlets would make a good sight gag on Archer, this one especially meets that criteria.

BUT HEY, SRSLY! Did you know these tidbits? “Despite their personal rationale for committing espionage, all [spies] had other means at their disposal for fulfilling their aspirations, needs, and desires. Most, if not all, spies eventually regret their actions and their decisions to commit espionage.” No? Then you especially should read this pamphlet. These are irrefutable facts because there never was a French Resistance in World War II and we’ve been really getting into that book The Secret.

Then there’s the summary on the back:

You really have to admire the gall of this. “Did we mention we currently have access to all of your phone metadata, Skype calls, emails and Facebook messages? Our PRISM and Boundless Informant programs have been real timesavers — at prices that won’t bust open the old piggy bank.”

The “Reporting the Threat” [.pdf] and “Counterintelligence Awareness” [.pdf.] Pamphlets

Nothing really funny about these apart from the graphic design, unless the xenophobic plot of Michael Crichton’s Rising Sun is your idea of a gut-busting chucklefest.

An Excellent Summary Analysis For All You

In the past two years, a lot of espionage-grade paranoia that made sense for (say) a Fort Meade janitor or some dinky nerd coding drone-piloting software has now been quietly introduced into every part of the government. Could there be a downside to spicing things up in the federal bureaucracy with more thrills and a little bit of suspense?

“Well, the work environment is already one where people who used to talk to me — and, I suspect, other reporters — are no longer willing to talk, simply for fear that they’re going to encounter retaliation for talking to a journalist,” McClatchy reporter Jonathan Landay told Democracy Now! hosts Severe Lady and the Mumblecore. “And not disclosing classified information, but simply trying to give us context — at least in my experience, trying to give me context about stories that we report normally.”

“So, the environment, as a result of this, seems to be pretty toxic.”

Ha, ha. Whatever, Landay. What’s toxic for the muckraking, “good government” Trotskyites in the LSM must be unequivocally great for the rest of us hard-working U.S.A. Taxpayers.

Bottom Line: Be Assertive. Be Alert. Be Aware. Report Anythang Spicious!

[Pentagon photo by Michael Baird, some rights reserved; typographical bullshit and pamphlet photographs by Matthew Phelan. Baird doesn't endorse these jokes. In fact, we've never met.]

"Eltávozott nap" (The Girl) is a 1968 Hungarian film starring rock singer Kati Kovács. I haven't yet seen the film, about a working class girl's search for her biological mother, but the opening freakbeat credits drive me wild. You can read more about The Girl and other Hungarian, Czech, and Russian films at the UC Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive calendar for their ongoing "Treasures of Eastern European and Soviet Cinema" series. (via Toys and Techniques)

via earlboykins [Excellent on Instagram]

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 26, 2013 is:

jerkwater • \JERK-waw-ter\  • adjective
1 : remote and unimportant 2 : trivial

Examples:
"We're stranded in some jerkwater town in the middle of nowhere," said Larry when he called to tell us that the car's engine had blown.

"Hardworking and reserved, Jesse might use five words when the situation called for nine. The son of Mexican immigrants, he was born in the cheerless, jerkwater town of Firebaugh, Calif., in 1938; facts that undoubtedly contributed to his abiding humility." — From an article by Scott P. Charles in the Philadelphia Inquirer, June 12, 2012

Did you know?
We owe the colorful Americanism "jerkwater" to the invention of the steam engine—an advancement that significantly accelerated travel by rail but also had its drawbacks. One drawback was that the boilers of the early locomotives needed to be refilled with water frequently, and water tanks were few and far between. As a result, the small trains that ran on rural branch lines often had to stop to take on water from local supplies. Such trains were commonly called "jerkwaters" from the motion of jerking the water up in buckets from the supply to the engine. The derogatory use of "jerkwater" for things unimportant or trivial reflects the fact that these jerkwater trains typically ran on lines connecting small middle-of-nowhere towns.

bblacha: saul steinberg

via gazbeirne

hex-girlfriend:

via aparrish

Texas drug-eater Rick Perry denies that he is gay, but Texas? Gay as the dickens — FOR YOUR BUSINESS! That is the message of the “Texas Wide Open for Business” campaign that Gov. Perry is flogging in New York, California, and various other places where it is not torturously hot, humid, and buggy all the goddamn time like it is in Texas, and where people do not have an unearned sense of accomplishment just because they live in a certain place. Wait, scratch that last one, because we just said New York and California (we are New Yorkers and we love California, but srsly.)

Another goal is to entice Connecticut gun manufacturers to skirt new state regulations by relocating to Texas. Good, maybe once that happens, Texas can finally secede and then we can legally embargo all their bullshit. Problem solved!

How much more effective would Perry’s cheerleading be if he weren’t so widely known as a buffoonish ass? A bunch, probably! It’s also kinda weird that a government official has to pimp his state with a traveling medicine show and a shitty commercial we didn’t watch; shouldn’t the magneto-magical emanations of the Free Market be enough? Rick Perry, y u socialist? (Yes, we read how this is all funded privately. It’s a good thing there won’t be any Public Integrity Unit to wonder what that money’s really buying.)

If you’re thinking the states Perry is targeting probably don’t like what he’s doing, a gold star for you! Here’s California’s Gov. Jerry Brown on the initiative: “[B]arely a fart.” Oh Jerry, never change. And if you’re thinking it’s probably easy for Texas to be so business-friendly when they are last in the nation in providing health insurance and give less than a shit about polluting every other state with their filthy air, you are acing this class, and how!

Often imitated, never replicated: TEXAS! They ache for your business! And don’t worry about the ticks, even though they have one that can make you allergic to meat! Oh, and can we suggest a slogan, too? “The opposite of taxes is Texas!” You’re welcome.

[POLITICO]

Copyright scholars have long been pretty certain that "Happy Birthday to You" is in the public domain, despite the fact that Warner/Chappell claims copyright on it and charges impressive licensing fees to use it in public performances. Those fees, however, are much lower than a copyright lawsuit would be, so everyone shrugs and pays them. Until now.

A documentary film company working on a movie about "Happy Birthday" has assembled a huge body of evidence showing that the song has been in the public domain since the 1920s, and is suing Warner to get them to return the hundreds of millions they've improperly charged in licensing since. This is gonna be great.

The full lawsuit, embedded below, goes through a detailed history of the song and any possible copyright claims around it. It covers the basic history of "Good Morning to You," but also notes that the "happy birthday" lyrics appeared by 1901 at the latest, citing a January 1901 edition of Inland Educator and Indiana School Journal which describes children singing a song called "happy birthday to you." They also point to a 1907 book that uses a similar structure for a song called "good-bye to you" which also notes that you can sing "happy birthday to you" using the same music. In 1911, the full "lyrics" to Happy Birthday to You were published, with a notation that it's "sung to the same tune as 'Good Morning.'" There's much more in the history basically showing that the eventual copyright that Warner/Chappell holds is almost entirely unrelated to the song Happy Birthday to You.

The detail in the filing is impressive, and I can't wait to see how Warner/Chappell replies. As the filing notes, there are a variety of copyright claims around the song, but all are invalid or expired, and the very, very narrow copyright that Warner/Chappell might hold is not on the song itself. In other words, Warner/Chappell is almost certainly guilty of massive copyfraud -- perhaps the most massive in history -- in claiming a copyright it clearly has no right to.

Lawsuit Filed To Prove Happy Birthday Is In The Public Domain; Demands Warner Pay Back Millions Of License Fees [Mike Masnick/Techdirt]

(Image: 53/365 - 02/22/11 - Happy Birthday, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from shardayyy's photostream)