Spies Like Us": On Friends Becoming (in)Famous

Immortalized by Googles Technique

Welcome back (or "wb" as many of you may already know). A lot has been going on, and I've been rather busy - so sorry if you really missed me updating this blog (it has been known to happen). But, I just realized that it is like four years or something that this blog has been "alive" with pretty much at least one post a month. I know, my back itches and I'm patting it... Still, my friends have not met the blog off challenge and victory has tasted ohhh soooo sweet. :-) [wtd: looks at friends and tastes the sweetness!] (admits defeat by some)

So, what are some things we've been missing? Hrmm, well - I'm not really sure they've been missed, but one thing for sure - some just might know this character who also happens to run into another character. It's it like a play, with your friend as one of the main characters and the other one has a famous song named after him, but he is just pretending to be it, hiding something. So, what is this you ask?

It even made this past Sundays New York Times, so how could you not know about all the news fit for print...?: Army Looking Into Monitoring of Protest Groups

Get this! (if you didnt just read that):

Brendan Maslauskas Dunn, Olympia-based activist with Students for a Democratic Society and Port Militarization Resistance. He submitted the Freedom of Information Act request that revealed his friend and fellow activist “John Jacob” was actually military spy John Towery.

- from Democracy Now! Broadcast Exclusive: Declassified Docs Reveal Military Operative Spied on WA Peace Groups, Activist Friends Stunned (includes hour long video of Maslauskas being interviewed with friends + other comments)

I love the part above where it says "Activist friends stunned". [Duh!] For me, the stunning thing is the way this was uncovered, freedom of information request about anachy / anarchism / anarchists, and then piling over everything that came back. Thanks to Brendan and friends for being some of the most interesting investigative journalists I can remember for sometime now.

Maslauskas went on to write some about the incident:

This information is perhaps the beginning of a larger network of surveillance across the nation.

- Spy for the US Military Exposed: Spent Last Two Years Spying on Activists

and here, a related post that is also worth the read, written by some other folks: Abrahadabra: A Collapsed Building In 4 Parts