surveillance

I’ve been spending some more time going through the Pentagon Film Office file on Pearl Harbor and among the numerous...

For decades undercover British intelligence officers have infiltrated almost every notable political movement in the UK. In this episode I talk to Kit Klarenberg, an investigative journalist who has written extensively about this topic.

Reading Time: 16 minutesAre the agencies and tools intended to combat international terrorism being used more broadly against US citizens?Ultra-liberal Berkeley, California, has been the scene of provocative demonstrations staged by right-wing groups in recent years that have sparked clashes with anti-fascist groups.And the Berkeley police secretly filmed the protests, using high-tech surveillance cameras equ

Graduates of Israeli military unit have developed highly invasive technology.

Just like other government departments the Foreign & Commonwealth Office requires film and TV producers to sign contracts with the

Despite its enormous popularity there are many problems with Breaking Bad - the utterly racist depiction of Mexicans, the glorifying of a sociopathic protagonist and that incredibly boring and pointless fifth season come to mind.  But what has never been discussed before is how the show functions as propaganda for the Dr

Superman is one of the world’s most recognisable cultural icons. A symbol of human idealism, he has been subject to a range of political and philosophical agendas over the last 80 years.

The Superman reboot Man of Steel launched the (now abandoned) DC Extended Universe, and put a much darker tinge on the Superman franchise than any previous incarnation, especially the Christopher Reeve classics.  Man of Steel benefited from large-scale support from the military, but hidden until now are the d

While it is now considered a Cold War classic Ice Station Zebra was a flop when it was first released.

Osama Bin Laden’s death is the perfect postmodern event, in that most of the reports detailing how, where and when he died contradict all the other reports.

In late 2009 the FBI got wind of the fact that Martin Scorcese was developing The Wolf of Wall Street, about stock fraudster turned federal cooperator Jordan Belfort.  So the Bureau's Michael Kortan wrote to Scorcese to offer their help and supp

Hatem Bazian tells us how Israeli agents harassed his family.

The 1968 spy and counterspy classic Ice Station Zebra was inspired by a real life event during the CIA/Air Force Corona spy satellite program.  In April 1959 the satellite Discoverer 2 became the first to send a recovery capsule containing satellite surv

Public Enemies is a 2009 historical drama/thriller film that tells the story of the Bureau of Investigation’s manhunt for Public Enemy Number One John Dillinger. In this episode I examine the film, the politics of crime and the romanticising of criminals.

The FBI recently released a tranche of documents on the USA Network TV series Burn Notice.

Anwar al Awlaki rose to notoriety in the 2000s as a leading internet jihadist whose lectures and videos were very popular among the emerging Islamist movement.

Anwar Al Awlaki was the head of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula until his death in a CIA drone strike in 2011.

In my final review of The Wire I discuss how the core theme of season 5 – truth &

In this penultimate review episode I look at how the education system is a poor place to learn anything, how standardised testing is a form of child abuse, the fundamental problems of electoral politics, and expand on why an intelligence-based approach to societal problems is always better than a military-based ap

Source : The Intercept, Ava Kofman, 13-11-2018

In part 3 of this subcriber-only review series I look at season three of The Wire. In this season the Barksdale storyline comes to a climax, while the city hall politics are added into the ever-expanding world of the show.

In the second of my subscriber-only reviews of The Wire I look at season 2.

This is part 1 of a new subscriber-only review series where I talk about The Wire.

Sam Greenlee is perhaps most famous for writing the novel The Spook Who Sat By the Door, which was adapted into a film in the 1970s.  Greenlee believed that the CIA and FBI suppressed the film because it portrayed them in such a bad light, and promoted b

Source : The Intercept, Cora Currier, 17-09-2018 Cora Currier 17 septembre 2018

Mark Felt is a 2017 biopic starring Liam Neeson as FBI Deputy Director Mark Felt, telling the story of his role in becoming a source for the Washington Post's reporting on Watergate.

Image 5 in the Met Police’s CCTV collection of Petrov and Boshirov also poses some questions.

In the latest chapter in the Salisbury Novichok saga the police have released a selection of images of two men they are naming as Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov.

Rear Window is one of my all-time favourite films so in this episode I discuss its unique production, the ethics of spying and voyeurism explored in the story, and feminist critiques of both Hitchcock and his movies.

Alfred Hitchcock virtually invented the spy movie genre, and made a career making films about murder, intrigue, cover-ups, suspense and spies.  He suspected that he was under FBI surveillance during the production of Notorious, but the release file only covers a later period.  Rather than be

Source : Quartz, Jeff Nesbit, 08-12-2017

Source : TV5 Monde, Pascal Hérard, 11.06.2018

California State University East Bay, University of Oregon urge divestment from Israeli occupation profiteers.

In this special podcast just for Pearse’s patreon subscribers (also available to my subscribers) we discuss all things Cambridge Analytica, Alexan

Cambridge Analytica are a big data marketing firm who, according to numerous media commentators, were the critical factor in the election of Donald Trump.

Coleen Rowley is a former FBI special agent whose bravery as a whistleblower exposed many of the FBI’s pre-9/11 failures. She was named one of Time magazine’s “Persons of the Year” in 2002. This week she talks with Jeff Schechtman about the recent shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.Rowley accentuates two problems with the FBI. One, that local threats — even in high schools — are not the province of the FBI.

Leaked documents from JTRIG (the Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group) show that GCHQ's operations are not only bigger, more invasive and more manipulative than previously realised, but also that they name their tools and techniques after films, TV shows and even ge

The Senate has scheduled a procedural vote Tuesday afternoon on a bill that would extend the controversial Section 702 of FISA. Critics of the legislation say it allows the government to surveil American citizens without a warrant. Its proponents claim it is a valuable tool in the fight against terrorism.And President Donald Trump? Well, he says both. Last week, he first tweeted this:

The Science and Entertainment Exchange (or SEEX) has consulted on over 1300 films and TV shows in less than 10 years, but outside of Hollywood few people know who they are and what they do. This week we pull back the curtain to look at their activities and their agenda.

The latest files to be released by the National Archives include one on Kinsgley Amis - the former novelist and critic who was knighted in 1990. Amis was a member of the Communist party while at Oxford university in June 1941, though he renounced Marxism in 1956-7.

One of the first films to be made with the help of former CIA officers was 1985's The Man With One Red Shoe.

Israeli-style surveillance and intimidation employed against journalists and social media users.

Like most major 20th century writers the FBI has a brief file on Aldous Huxley - the 'author and social critic' behind Brave New World, Island and The Doors of Perception. Huxley was never the subject of a Bureau investigation but they kept tabs on some of his public appearances and statements.

Source : Vimeo, Marc Meillassoux, 06-09-2017

The Trump administration is calling for the prompt reauthorization of a controversial part of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Section 702 permits eavesdropping on high-value targets, including those designated as suspected terrorists, cyber actors, and others. FISA has been extended again and again, and, despite repeated assurances of safeguards, numerous examples of excesses and potential violations of Americans’ privacy have come to light.

Les fichés S sont fichés S parce qu'ils sont "susceptibles" de passer à l'acte. Cela relève désormais du secret d'État... et pas seulement de nos services secrets. Le renseignement est en passe de devenir un mode de gouvernement dont le siège est au cœur de l'Élysée.