Monday 16 September 2013

#SurveillanceState: Set your controls for the heart of surveillance

Art and architecture are extremely revealing. Of your choices in these sciences of the soul it could be said, “by your choices shall we know ye.”

What then for the choices of the One-Star General in charge of the NSA, General Keith Alexander, among whose first move upon his appointment to the role of being the world’s Bugger in Chief was to commission Hollywood set designers to model his central control room after Star Trek's Enterprise. 

A room he christened his 1100 square metre "Information Dominance Center”:

It had been designed by a Hollywood set designer to mimic the bridge of the starship Enterprise from Star Trek, complete with chrome panels, computer stations, a huge TV monitor on the forward wall, and doors that made a 'whoosh' sound when they slid open and closed.

The Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald tracked down on the architects’ brochures photos of the puffed-up poseur’s War Room, and reckons they’re “endlessly revealing” of the megalomaniac in charge of ubiquitous surveillance.

The brochure touts how "the prominently positioned chair provides the commanding officer an uninterrupted field of vision to a 22'-0" wide projection screen"…

DBI

… "The futuristic, yet distinctly military, setting is further reinforced by the Commander's console, which gives the illusion that one has boarded a star ship" …

DBI

Do you think giving egomaniacs like this unchecked power is going to end well? Not likely, concludes Greenwald:

Any casual review of human history proves how deeply irrational it is to believe that powerful factions can be trusted to exercise vast surveillance power with little accountability or transparency. But the more they proudly flaunt their warped imperial hubris, the more irrational it becomes.

More taxpayer funded hubristic indulgence here.

1 comment:

Sam said...

What a total asshole you must be to call a room the "Inforation Dominance Center" and to have it designed like that.