Informant38

the walls have ears:

Von Donnersmarck spent four years researching the film, and knows as well as anyone that there is no case of a Stasi man trying to save victims. He has said: "I didn't want to tell a true story as much as explore how someone might have behaved. The film is more of a basic expression of belief in humanity than an account of what actually happened."

Review of The Lives of Others
Anna Funder/Guardian 05.May.07
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the walls have eyes:

HAYDEN: But by and large, the community as a whole, CIA in particular, has benefited from the resources that the American people - acting through the Congress and the president - the resources the American people have given us since 9/11. Right now, my biggest challenge is absorbing the growth we've had inside the agency and putting these new resources to work in an efficient and effective way. And it's - sure, it has something to do with the money, but it really has to do with people. Let me give you a sense of scale here, Brian. And I have to talk around it a little bit, because the numbers are classified. But let me give you a sense. One-seventh of the Central Intelligence Agency has been hired in the last 12 months. One-fifth of our analysts have been hired in the last 12 months. Fifty percent of the agency has been hired since 9/11. I mean, that's tremendous growth. It's a tremendous opportunity.

LAMB: What's the age of those people?

HAYDEN: Actually, the average age of the agency is coming down somewhat, because of this influx of new people. But you have to understand, new to CIA doesn't always mean young. We are very happy with a number of folks we're getting after military service or after a stint in the military, or after they've actually done some other things in life. In terms of that indicator, of these cohorts who are coming into us now, this is the richest gathering of life experience that we've had in entering cohorts in the history of the agency. So we're not just getting the 22-, 23-year-old graduate from universities. We're also getting people who have been around a bit.

LAMB: Are you getting more HUMINT?

HAYDEN: Yes, we are.

Transcript of Interview of CIA Director Michael V. Hayden by C-SPAN's Brian Lamb
Cryptome 21.Apr.07
link xymphora
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the walls are alive:

So one thing The Lives of Others could be seen as is an apologia for the passive chair-bound filtering minds that process and flag the unimaginably wide data-streams of this modern world's camera- and microphone-saturated set. The nice guy at the other end of the surveillance feed. The well-intentioned just-happened-to-land-the-job guy-next-door who's listening to your cousin score some weed on his cell phone.
And if you don't think there's a shadow army of those dweeby little runts valiant soldiers in the War On Terror working the panoptic scene, you're living in the irrecoverable past.