Seeing The Secret State: Six Landscapes

I watched this video yesterday and its very interesting, definitively worth watching. Artist Trevor Paglen did some fine investigative work on "secret" government, he was able to track spy satellites, found some front companies that are in the business of flying planes for the CIA to secret prisons, record footage of secret bases with a telescope and some analysis of the symbols on black programs uniform patches.

From the description:
"Although people around the world are becoming increasingly aware of the United States' global geography of surveillance, covert action, and other secret programs, much of this landscape is invisible in our everyday lives.
The drone war, for example, seems to happen "somewhere else" while surveillance programs take place among the (largely) invisible infrastructures and digital protocols of the internet and other communications networks. Moreover, the state agencies responsible for secret programs strive to make them as invisible as possible. In this talk, artist Trevor Paglen discusses his work attempting to "see" the various aspects of the secret state. In examples ranging from tracking spy satellites to foraging through the bureaucratic refuse of CIA front companies, Paglen will discuss methods used to identify and exploit structural contradictions in classified programs which render them visible, and comment on the aesthetics and politics of attempting to "see" secrecy."

a reply to: MrMaybeNot

People doing this type of work are true heroes. Altruistic and at great personal risk.

a reply to: MrMaybeNot
Thanks for posting this.
I will have to watch it later, people interrupt me at work if I try to watch a long video.
I have a feeling we have had drone strikes occur in the CONUS when the spooks need someone to disappear... explained away as a gas explosion or what not.

Very interesting video... SnF.

Just goes to show what a motivated person or two can do to uncover what is hidden in plain sight.

Thanks for posting...

originally posted by: Terminal1
Very interesting video... SnF.

Just goes to show what a motivated person or two can do to uncover what is hidden in plain sight.

Thanks for posting...

Yes, impressive stuff. The information is all over the place, you just need to look at the right places. I really like his way of thinking. Like he said, 96% of the universe is made out of dark matter. It's there but we can't see it, can't measure it. The only way to observe it is by looking on the effect it has on other things. He applies the same logic on secret programs.

Yes this guys logic was very impressive. I just finished watching, and man the perspective he gives was great. I know that all these secret things can't exist without logistics but he took it to the next level. His way of putting it was brilliant. All of that logistics is made up of the same material as the rest of the world...its reflective of light and we can therefore see it. So we should be able to observe it if we look for it.

a reply to: MrMaybeNot

I've done two Tikaboos with Trevor. He is the real thing.

If you dig around, he did a video with KQED TV at the TTR.

a reply to: gariac

I think I found it, its from 2006 but cool nonetheless.



Thanks

What is sad, but also ironic about all the black Ops projects and other stuff such as data collecting, etc, is that the bad guys have the capabilities to find all of this stuff out in much better detail than the guy who put together this video presentation. The bad guys have way more info on it and probably know how to circumvent the stuff. Moscow has their own satellites that spy on our satellites. They have their own data collecting that does the same as the NSA. They have moles inside like we do. It's only us, who pay for this sh!% that know nothing about it and who lose privacy as a result of a lot of it.

www.inplanesight.org...

You can get FAA records from some of the rendition aircraft at the link above.

The CALP (civil aviation landing permit) document used to be on a DoD website. I doubt the CIA knew about it else they would have screamed bloody murder. It now has FOUO status.

Also unknown to the CIA was that the FAA began selling flight data to companies that wanted to create tracking websites. Today the most famous is Flight Radar 24. But back in the day, there was a company called Red One Aviation. They listed all the domestic legs of the CIA flights. The company eventually got shut down and a procedure was established to allow planes to opt out of the tracking.

The tanker used for special projects at Groom Lake flies out of Travis AFB. The callsign is Sierra 99. I've only "seen" it as a KC-10.

Trevor mentioned the Blue Cube. It was recently torn down. It would be an interesting project to find out if there was anything underground there. I was in a few of the rooms in the Blue Cube. The doors were like meat lockers with push button locks. Everything I saw was really old. We're talking Nixie tube clocks. This was maybe 1990, so Nixie tube had already been out of style for 20 years.

Somewhere in the early 2000s they decided to hold an electronics swap meet in the Lockheed parking lot behind the Blue Cube. People were told not to photograph the facility, but seriously, you invite a hoard of geeks to meet next to a USAF satellite down link site and expect nobody to take a photo? I saw two guys get snagged by security for taking a photo. The funny thing is you could take photos from across the street and even then, it is just a building.

I flew over the KNUQ in a helicopter and made damn sure to get a photo of the Blue Cube, even if there is nothing to see.
www.lazygranch.com...

www.naderlibrary.com...

Some of the patches in the presentation can be found in the link above.

originally posted by: gariac
www.inplanesight.org...

You can get FAA records from some of the rendition aircraft at the link above.

The CALP (civil aviation landing permit) document used to be on a DoD website. I doubt the CIA knew about it else they would have screamed bloody murder. It now has FOUO status.

Also unknown to the CIA was that the FAA began selling flight data to companies that wanted to create tracking websites. Today the most famous is Flight Radar 24. But back in the day, there was a company called Red One Aviation. They listed all the domestic legs of the CIA flights. The company eventually got shut down and a procedure was established to allow planes to opt out of the tracking.

The tanker used for special projects at Groom Lake flies out of Travis AFB. The callsign is Sierra 99. I've only "seen" it as a KC-10.

Trevor mentioned the Blue Cube. It was recently torn down. It would be an interesting project to find out if there was anything underground there. I was in a few of the rooms in the Blue Cube. The doors were like meat lockers with push button locks. Everything I saw was really old. We're talking Nixie tube clocks. This was maybe 1990, so Nixie tube had already been out of style for 20 years.

Somewhere in the early 2000s they decided to hold an electronics swap meet in the Lockheed parking lot behind the Blue Cube. People were told not to photograph the facility, but seriously, you invite a hoard of geeks to meet next to a USAF satellite down link site and expect nobody to take a photo? I saw two guys get snagged by security for taking a photo. The funny thing is you could take photos from across the street and even then, it is just a building.

I flew over the KNUQ in a helicopter and made damn sure to get a photo of the Blue Cube, even if there is nothing to see.
www.lazygranch.com...

Cool stuff, I looked at your website and you have very interesting pics there. Did you ever work at the base? How did you get to visit it?

Thanks for your contribution!

a reply to: MrMaybeNot

Hard to believe, but the Blue Cube gave tours. No, really. ;-) No cameras allowed. However the guy who arranged the tour pulled a fast one. At the end of the tour, we assembled in the lobby of the Cube, he went back to his car, got his camera and took a group photo. Then we all bolted.

The Blue Cube's location was really a problem. Silicon Valley grew up around it. Eventually there were multi story office buildings that could view the Cube. There were restrictions for foreign nationals regarding proximity to the cube. Kind of tough to enforce when they had jobs in the nearby buildings. The restaurants nearby were supposedly full of spies. Basically the situation was hopeless. Top it off with the housing costs in Silicon Valley being some of the highest in the nation.

One by one, all the DoD facilities in the bay area shut down. When I worked for EG&G, the brass was always going to Treasure Island. TI is now housing and a film studio. Gone are the Presidio, Alameda NAS, and all the P-3s at Moffett. (I had the displeasure of being stopped by the Army police for 35 in a 25. Certain roads in San Francisco would pass through the base.) Alameda is one of the sites where they record Myth Busters.)

steveblank.com...

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