By Attorney Constance Cumbey
December 4, 2012
NewsWithViews.com

“Intelligence” for the 21st Century – “De-Orwell” the Population

Our long perceived liberties are now at a dangerous tipping point. I’ve been recently reflecting on my life’s work informing the public of the New Age Movement and its related “hidden dangers.” Those dangers are now becoming much less hidden. Many are diverted by 2012 New Age Mayan prophecies and fail to see more here and now dangers. Almost all from believers to those who have viewed the movie series THE OMEN or even the LEFT BEHIND books and films are familiar with the following Book of Revelation warnings:

15- And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.
16- And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:
17- And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
18- Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.

As I first wrote in 1981 in my expository book about the New Age Movement, THE HIDDEN DANGERS OF THE RAINBOW, New Agers, and allegedly Christian fellow travelers were calling for a New World Order with an accompanying global food redistribution program -- aided of course by modern technology, i.e. computers. Much more than mere redistribution, bad as that might be, was implied by that prophecy. It also clearly meant surveillance.

On the secular side, George Orwell (1903-1950) led a relative short but insightful life. His landmark novel, 1984, amply and graphically described the potential horrors and desensitization of a total surveillance society where we would eventually “come to love Big Brother.” If you can no longer find that book, here is a place to read it on line for free:

The last two paragraphs of the book are the saddest part of Orwell’s prophecy. The prisoner of the system had come to love Big Brother:

The voice from the telescreen was still pouring forth its tale of prisoners and booty and slaughter, but the shouting outside had died down a little. The waiters were turning back to their work. One of them approached with the gin bottle. Winston, sitting in a blissful dream, paid no attention as his glass was filled up. He was not running or cheering any longer. He was back in the Ministry of Love, with everything forgiven, his soul white as snow. He was in the public dock, confessing everything, implicating everybody. He was walking down the white-tiled corridor, with the feeling of walking in sunlight, and an armed guard at his back. The longhoped-for bullet was entering his brain.

He gazed up at the enormous face. Forty years it had taken him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark moustache. O cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.

Well, there are serious elements out there in the “HUMINT” (Human Intelligence) community now demanding for real that “we come to love Big Brother.” They consider George Orwell a practical threat to their control freak aspirations. As they expedite their manufacture of drones and other surveillance apparatus, they plot how to “De-Orwell” the populace. Wesley K. Wark, a participant-author-professor on the subject of Intelligence has overseen the collection of essays by fellow spies and wannabes on the subject. The intelligence network is an international one with USA, Brits, Canadians, and even Russians now collaborating on how to flush out the rest of us who value both security and privacy. I have one of his major books in my personal library, TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY INTELLIGENCE. Individual chapter writers include besides Wark, Alan DuPont, Michael Herman, Melvin A. Goodman, Matthew M. Aid, Gregory F. Treverton, Nick Cullather, John Ferris and Ronald J. Deibert.

Wark might be the most frightening thinker of all. If his fellow collaborators agree with him, as I suspect they do, we are all in deep trouble. The apparent consensus is that “we must learn to live with Orwell.”[1]

“The diminution of 'Orwell', a codeword for the fear of intelligence, will be a necessary condition for the success of a revolutionary change now unfolding in the practice of intelligence. Looking back, the twentieth century may be seen as the age of Secret intelligence...

Whether rare, or the norm, public intelligence will require a new public outlook on intelligence, one beyond, as suggested above, the habit of 'Orwell'.[2]

Wark and his fellow contributors consider the task crucial and urgent. His introductory remarks conclude with the excerpted following:

If an age of public intelligence is upon us, it will demand a revolutionary change in the practice of intelligence and in the doctrine of secrecy. New attention will have to be paid to devising intelligence assessments designed for public consumption, as opposed to products shaped for intelligence's traditional government 'consumers'. While such forms of intelligence assessment are devised, great care will have to be given to protecting the role that intelligence traditionally plays in informing government decision-making on national and international security issues. Great care will also be required in protecting intelligence sources and methods - the lifeblood of intelligence work. New restraints will have to be devised to ensure that the intelligence product does not become completely politicized in its transit to the public audience, both domestic and foreign. As US scholar John Prados put it, 'what is there to prevent public intelligence from becoming public relations?'20 Integrity of intelligence reporting will be a huge issue. The quality and persuasiveness of intelligence judgments will face an enormous test, in the open and fractious marketplace of public debate. To persuade its new, and much more diverse audience, intelligence assessments will have to be very good indeed.

Finally, there will be a reciprocal onus on public consumers of intelligence to understand the nature of the intelligence product, both its strengths and its limitations. If public intelligence is the radical future, its emergence will build on the technological enhancement and delivery of intelligence. Public intelligence requires display, precisely of the sort delivered by Colin Powell's address to the Security Council in February 2003, with its Sigint soundtrack, and its satellite imagery. Public intelligence is unthinkable without the technological infrastructure that supports a global media and global Internet.[3]

High sounding words all to justify what we so justifiably dreaded – an age of total surveillance and snooping. They are determined to have it, but they cannot have it unless WE FIRST LEARN TO LOVE BIG BROTHER? As of this writing, December 3, 2012, there were 50,500 google NEWS references alone to the emerging drone technology. There were in more than 30 million GOOGLE hits on the scary technology.

Drones serve both spying and weaponry functions. Are they to be used as the potential enabler of prophesied search and destroy operations against believers? We may currently rest in peace believing they are only to be used against believers of Islamic religions and ideologies. As we were told in law school, harsh cases make bad law. Once the precedent is set, it is out there for use against whatever stands in the way of “glocalist” agendas (“think globally, act locally).

I for one have no present plans to embrace Big Brother. I pray you have none either. Big Brother is decidedly NOT YOUR FRIEND! It has long been said that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. That vigilance is now needed more than ever. Otherwise, the “necessary condition” for “revolutionary fear is here!

The diminution of 'Orwell', a code word for the fear of intelligence, will be a necessary condition for the success of a revolutionary change now unfolding in the practice of intelligence.[4]

Footnotes:

1. (Wesley K. Wark, 2005), page 6. TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY INTELLIGENCE: Routledge, London and New York.
2. Ibid., page 11.
3. Ward, Ibid., page 10.
4. Wark, Ibid., page 7.

� 2011 - Constance Cumbey - All Rights Reserved

Constance Cumbey is an active Michigan lawyer. Constance practices her profession primarily in, Southeastern Michigan, USA. Sometimes she also works in what she calls her "old stomping grounds" of Michigan's State Capital, Lansing, Michigan where she practices administrative, state law related matters. She's enjoyed active and stimulating careers in government, politics, law and as a published and translated author. In the past she served as a national officer of the National Association of Women Lawyers and chaired the Family Law subcommittee of the General Practice Section of the American Bar Association.

Before beginning her legal career, she worked as a legislative analyst for the Speaker of the Michigan House of Representatives, and while in law school as a consultant to the Appropriations Committee of the Michigan State Senate. She also served as the first charter position Executive Assistant to the May or of the Detroit enclave City of Highland Park, Michigan. Seven years into her legal career, she went on to become the author of the first major critical book about the New Age Movement, THE HIDDEN DANGERS OF THE RAINBOW: The New Age Movement and our Coming Age of Barbarism (1983); A PLANNED DECEPTION: The Staging of a New Age Messiah (1986). Currently, she's completing a volume about Javier Solana, the Barcelona Process, Israel and the European Union.

E-mail: cumbey@gmail.com

Blog Spot: www.cumbey.blogspot.com

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