More than a decade before Edward Snowden was born, a whistleblower calling himself Winslow Peck gave the New Left magazine Ramparts an insider's account of the National Security Agency, an institution that at that time was shrouded in even more secrecy than today. Peck, whose given name was Perry Fellwock, went on to help launch Counterspy, a magazine devoted to exposing the activities of America's intelligence agencies. And then he left activism behind. Today he is an antiques dealer on Long Island.
Adrian Chen of Gawker tracked Fellwock down, and after a rather distrustful start ("I believe that you're honest, but who knows about the people in your office? Who knows about your boss, what kind of deals he's doing?") the man once known as Winslow Peck granted Chen an interview. Their conversation covers everything from Fellwock's disappointment with the way that original Ramparts article came out to his guilt over the treatment of a Counterspy colleague who got accused of being a police plant. Here's an excerpt from Chen's story:
It turns out that constant brooding over the machinations of the surveillance state is not conducive to a sound state of mind. Counter-Spy staff worked in a haze of mistrust. "You'd be sitting with people and you knew that somebody was wondering about somebody else at that table," said [magazine staffer] Harvey Kahn, "were they being controlled by somebody else? Or unconsciously being manipulated?"
It was not a fantasy: The COINTELPRO papers had revealed security agencies kept close tabs on radical publications. In the late '60s, the CIA dedicated a 12-man team to undermining Ramparts, according to Angus Mackenzie's book Secrets: The CIA's War at Home.
"It was intense," said Fellwock. "Clearly it really upset the security agencies, what we were doing. They were all over us. I just generally accepted that the next person in the next booth would be some security person following me."
"It seems like that is still kind of implanted in your thinking," I said.
"Yeah, that's why I got paranoid when you called me, you really evoked a lot of old memories and feelings that I haven't had in 30 years." He sighed. "But if I could live with it back then, I guess I could live with it now."
I could pick a few nits with Chen's account—he has Counterspy dissolving in 1976, for example, though it actually continued publishing into the '80s—but overall it's a strong piece. You should read it.
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Imagine how difficult it was back then for domestic intelligence gatherers, too. No cell phones or emails to tap. No vast yet easily searchable databases of private information. All they could do was follow and try to mess with the producers of the various radical rags of the day. It's sad, really.
They could open and search your trash bags and break into your Doctor's office to photo your medical records. They could tap your phone and bug your house.
I could sue them for intellectual property infringement. At the time I was selling my own photographs of me and hookers doing perverted acts in camera filled hotel rooms.
This is so quaint now. "What if they had pictures of you banging 3 whores?"
"I don't think you need to call those girls whores just because they let me take video and put it on Youtube. Oh, wait. Are we not talking about that bachelor party in Vegas where we ran into those bachelorettes from Arizona?"
And they did. A 12-man team for a stupid magazine? They had manpower and resources to burn. Not like now, when they have to pore through vast quantities of emails and texts.
And hey, doesn't the CIA not have a domestic charter? So what were they doing on American soil? Ha, I kid. I know the CIA doesn't give a shit what its charter says.
We had a "discussion" panel at work a while back, and one old fart was talking about what it was like in the Foreign Service during the height of the Cold War. He talked about unlimited budgets, no-questions-asked expense accounts, and crazy-ass spying schemes. He was pining for the days of zero accountability.
Let's see... 1972, so Nixon was in office and Nixon was a Republican, therefore PATRIOT. Just a few years later and he would have been a TRAITOR.
/media logic
Before the crazy bloggers : crazy magazines.
Imagine how difficult it was back then for domestic intelligence gatherers, too. No cell phones or emails to tap. No vast yet easily searchable databases of private information. All they could do was follow and try to mess with the producers of the various radical rags of the day. It's sad, really.
They could open and search your trash bags and break into your Doctor's office to photo your medical records. They could tap your phone and bug your house.
Booooooooooooooring.
They could hire hookers to seduce you into perverted acts in camera filled hotel rooms, then blackmail you.
I could sue them for intellectual property infringement. At the time I was selling my own photographs of me and hookers doing perverted acts in camera filled hotel rooms.
This is so quaint now. "What if they had pictures of you banging 3 whores?"
"I don't think you need to call those girls whores just because they let me take video and put it on Youtube. Oh, wait. Are we not talking about that bachelor party in Vegas where we ran into those bachelorettes from Arizona?"
And they did. A 12-man team for a stupid magazine? They had manpower and resources to burn. Not like now, when they have to pore through vast quantities of emails and texts.
And hey, doesn't the CIA not have a domestic charter? So what were they doing on American soil? Ha, I kid. I know the CIA doesn't give a shit what its charter says.
We had a "discussion" panel at work a while back, and one old fart was talking about what it was like in the Foreign Service during the height of the Cold War. He talked about unlimited budgets, no-questions-asked expense accounts, and crazy-ass spying schemes. He was pining for the days of zero accountability.
Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear?
+1 sophisticated pun
Dammit, that should have been my headline. Good work, Anomalous.