9 November 2001
Date: Fri, 2 Nov 2001 13:45:49 -0600
From: brian carroll <human@ELECTRONETWORK.ORG>
Subject: Re: Enron Inquiry for BC
To: DESIGN-L@LISTS.PSU.EDU
>Brian:
>
>Now that Enron is under federal investigation for
>massive corruption and likely criminal conspiracy,
>could you provide a review of Enron's suspected
>harassment of you and your Web sites?
>
>It could be that you were a bellweather victim of
>Enron's attempt to hide its criminal scheme, not
>least of which was its chairman's longtime friendship
>with George W. Bush.
>
>You might get a chance to tell about your experiences
>to a federal grand jury if not congress. Crank up your
>design of energy expose. That should help call attention to
>the hidden face of warmongering on the homeland.
I am in an ethical dilemma pondering how to reply to your query of my experiences, for several reasons. First being that I fear for my personal health and safety, neither of which are improving, and do not want to provoke further problems. Second, it is in my view dangerous to speak as I have exercised my Constitutional Rights to no avail. That is, I am but one individual and have no support, supporters, nor legal protection, and am an easy target, should that be someone's goal. third, there is no certainty but only substantial evidence that something surreptitious is now underway in the United States of America, which I do not want to become a martyr for, as I would rather continue my research within a peaceful environment, and let the world go to hell while all who do not want to believe or participate in addressing the needs of cooperative change, continue on their mindflights from what is overly evident in the local and global setting.
Such things have not stopped me in the past, due to both my naive belief in public good, and my stupidity in pursuing things deemed illegitimate, to one's own demise. But what the hell....
The Enron Weirdness, if I had to roughly date it, would have started sometime during the 2000 elections, when writing of Enron's role in the US Presidential Elections, their advertisements on television in California, while I was living there, and also an opportunity I received from 2G magazine to further my ideas on a previous thesis, the "Architecture of Electricity," (1) for a special issue of their magazine on Architecture and Energy, (2) of which the essay "Seeing Cyberspace: the Electrical Infrastructure is Architecture" was published roughly in late July 2001, in print, and an expanded version online. (3)
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1. http://www.electronetwork.org/works/ae/2. http://www.ggili.com/index_2G_eng.htm in Nexus section.
Basically what I began to notice was increasingly my computer would act strange after posting messages to forums about such issues as energy, politics, and architecture. My e-mail would not download, at times, and two lists I was hosting were taken over at Topica.com and I was unable to send posts to the lists I had created and moderated. When I tried to send to these lists, one for the architexturez.com project, and the other for the electricity-list (4), my IP was banned from administrative access to the lists, and also, my Internet Outlook e-mail client would send an error message, the equivalent of "Stop your fucking Spamming! Error Sending". Or something near to that language. My IP was blackholed and I could not even send e-mail to Topica about the problem, in order to fix it. So two lists had to be shut down and moved and restarted at new locations, the architexturez-list at Anand Bhatt's site, ab-a.net, and the other list, renamed the electronetwork-list, at openflows.org. (5)
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4. Archives: http://www.topica.com/lists/electricity-l/read
During the time period between Spring and Summer 2001, while I was working on the Seeing Cyberspace essay, which I had sent to 2G for review, I was also working on creating a new website, electronetwork.org, (6) which was a new research endeavor to bring together various disciplines organized around the content, that is, electromagnetism, and not the form or medium, such as I had in the past with architecture. As I began to do my work I would find trouble with my computer, and my caller-ID would show numbers I would trace back to a private investigator in California, I would have repeated hang-up phone calls, people would stand outside my apartment window across the street just staring up into my window, and I would both receive Spam that was not spam, and also found that private e-mails I had sent had been referred to by 'unknowns' on lists I frequent.
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6. http://www.electronetwork.org/
What I can and will say, albeit delicately, is this....
The work in question, both the electronetwork.org website and the Seeing Cyberspace essay, were a challenge to an outdated paradigm of 'national security' based on an architectural and cultural analysis of the role of energy in today's society, and the reasons for why energy policy does not change in the USA. There were many visitors to the domain that are not your average variety of people wanting to question the role of energy in the world, and its entrenched influence, and need for change. I had felt a threat of losing all of my data, which I eventually did, and had sent out a series of 'maps' for the online version of the Seeing Cyberspace essay, and a polemic about the need for a change in policy, that is, to make it a public policy that addresses blatantly ignored but desparately needed changes in the way we approach energy issues, and, a call for the academic community and others, public and private, to work together to bring the public into the energy debate (that never was).
I sent electronic maps to Cryptome.org as a precaution, in case the site was shut down, and decided to e-mail as many journalists and people in government to try to make the goals of the project known, as it felt that censorship was looming nearby. (7) these maps were later incorporated into the online version of the Seeing Cyberspace essay and also were spun-off into a project about Public Energy Policy (PEN), comparing an industrial model of power that is in use today, with a more democratic model. (8)
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7. Infographics: http://www.electronetwork.org/works/seeing/versions/ & http://www.electronetwork.org/works/seeing/photos/diagrams/map2b.gif
I was able to get the electronetwork.org, PEN, and Seeing Cyberspace projects online, only then to have more computer problems, whereby my website was hacked, which I had suspected before, my e-mail was overtly being read after I would post anything online, and also my website was defaced by a 'hacker', when putting up certain material. The odd thing about this hack, psychodemographically, is that it was not a political statement, it just made content at the electronetwork website inaccessible and also put up a strange image, seemingly like clip-art, saying 'home', in place of work shown in the features section of the website. (9) this image can be seen in the log for the site. (10)
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9. http://www.electronetwork.org/features/10. http://www.electronetwork.org/log/ see: welcome hack.
Now, during this time visitors to the website which was never publicly launched included about every sector of the military establishment, and also many an Administrations Corporate funders, including Halliburton Oil, Enron, and others. It baffled me that a Submarine Command would be visiting electronetwork.org, or the US Pacific Fleet, or the Dept. of Defense, on work hours. That and many a defense contractor, and even a police organization in NYC about drug trafficking. Already more than worried, my computer was at some point attacked aggressively enough that it was destabalized from working. That is, hardware was corrupted, and reformatting drives did not solve problems. Then upon further investigation, dirt seemed everywhere, as even my PDA would be corrupted, my zip disks holding some archives and e-mail was all malfunctioning, and I lost a lot of data and eventually, I could no longer use my computer to continue working on, as my virus scanning software would be turned off remotely, my screen resolution changed before my eyes, and even phone conversations, it seemed, were somehow being referenced in more online public forums, as if I was being looked after by some unfriendlies.
Never losing composure, but trying to keep sane enough to continue my work, it was one night when I went out for a cigarette outside my building at midnight or so, and a section of the website I was trying to develop was, by the next morning, visited by none other than the vacant building once occupied by a certain bank. When I was outside, for some reason, I looked at this signage, and when I awoke, this company from NYC had visited my unpublished portion of my website. Then I had had enough and concluded that I was being physically surveilled as well as online. Someone or something was letting me know I was being watched. and, paranoia at that point was justified. The odd thing was, previous events such as when I would post to the Nettime-List, would be followed the next day, several times, by a military person with clipboard going up and down the block below my apartment, seemingly surveying business owners.
I never wanted to imagine, and could never prove that this was related, but everytime I wrote something, never on a schedule, but with a theme related to my work, people with badges and uniforms would be around. The uniformed officer did not fit the demographic of the base that had closed years earlier on the island, and it did not make sense that anyone of their branch of the military would be in town, nor regularly. So I became a bit suspicious of such correlations. As the overwhelming feeling I was getting was 'be afraid, be very afraid' and to stop what I was doing. nobody outright said this to me, but when the most frequent visitors to my website include intelligence and corporate energy companies, most based in Texas it should be noted, it began to scare me to what extent power could be wielded in a privatized governmental agenda.
Wanting to visit elsewhere, to pursue my work, and to have opportunities that the USA is not able to concede are needed, nor wanted, I left town but before doing so, wrote an autobiography of my work, and my experience in this country, as, being a citizen, I felt a foreigner, pursuing ideas that work to enhance such issues as national security around energy and also to help in whatever ways I can to help raise awareness of the roles of energy, and electromagnetism in particular, in founding our present-day culture.
The Autobiography of Madness was sent to Cryptome before I left and as things unravelled on my trip, I requested it be published as I had run out of options with my work.(11) In Canada I contacted a US Consulate to state my intentions for my work and to indicate in a high-enough bureacratic structure, that something very dire was going on at home, and I did not feel safe. One may think it all an illusion, or delusion of grandeur, or whatnot, but as a human being, returning back to California, to hear that my neighbor's car was towed from the parking lot one night I was out of town, and that they believed I was home as they heard doors or cabinets opening and shutting and even the meow of a cat inside my apartment, only to be surprised two days or so later when I arrived back at my apartment to hear that it seemed very likely someone had been inside my place, but left no visible signs.
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11. Automadness: http://www.electronetwork.org/works/automadness/
I assumed my computer was tapped via hardware and/or software and at that point, if I remember correctly, I stopped using PGP as it seemed a futile game, trying to protect one's privacy and constitutional and human rights, such as freedom of thought, and public representation, neither of which I have experienced for years. I sent e-mails to many politicians and news organizations, online and offline, and no one at the city, state, federal, nor international levels would assist in my safety through public awareness. So too, no human rights groups would assist in a case where I was denied my rights and under severe duress, my work computer was destroyed, I had to quit my job, my public income was held up by bureaucratic 'lost paperwork', and ultimately, due to the feeling of insecurity, I had to move from California back to my relatives, as I had no where else to go. No support in the USA for my work, no way to continue without fear of direct reprisal (which was new, as sooner or later indirect reprisal doesn't always work.)
Leaving Calfornia, a state in the nation in a Power-Crisis that wasn't, and remembering that this fourth of July, the gas prices were the lowest they were all year, just didn't get my heart beating a patriotic chord. And soon enough, all hellfire was found on Sept 11th and I am very wary of saying anything, as my work and my experience has been terrifying enough for me, and I do not want to make the situation any worse. And, no, I do not believe it can get any better on the whole, the way things are going. I dissent the Administration's energy policy as it is the greatest threat to our National Security, homeland included. Yet have not had the voice to write with, as I live in a state of total fear and alienation, and do not believe that any court in this Country would prosecute the energy industry, especially with its connections to US foreign policy and also to private friendships and business connections in the US Administration.
As I wrote in the Seeing Cyberspace essay online, what is holding back change are the entrenched special interests in industry, in government, and in the intelligence services that continue to believe the world works as it did in the Industrial Era. Things have changed, and yet, the system we have inherited, and that they are bound to protect, is non-democratic in the extreme, should it become all powerful. If one looks at the Cabinet, and the issues that are not in the daily papers but in the peripheries, such that Bin Laden wants oil prices to rise to 300.00/barrel, I think it is in our national and international security to do two things: Proactively address a decentralized, multi-diversified energy policy which enables industry changes, including that of Enron, and also, to fight terror with freedoms and not with a clampdown on security, as the world is not a steady-state, unless it is attempted to become one. And as unbelievablely idiotic as that may seem, I believe the industrial power system and its authoritarian and totalitarian and even fascist tendancies are now well in place.
No one will protect me, an individual, a no-name, this US Congress will not, not one of them addressed these issues when I contacted them. And I do not believe any trial would change the basic nature of what is now well underway. That is, the destruction of democracy, our common freedoms, and our future, as change is unable to occur in such a mentally oppressive environment for basic thought. I do wish well all those who believe this is a bump in the road, and I do believe that democracy can and must survive. And I do desire and will die for my belief that the United States still has a lot to offer the world, as an equal partner in its change. Yet, this War on Terrorism, which is necessitated by many factors, is ignored in others more critical and more central to the question at hand.
And when this bares its face, it will not be evil, but a truth that is kept from US Citizens about what is really at stake in this global chess game. It is time for this war to be one for freedom, not security alone, and for those who are oppressed on the homeland, to defend them and their Constitutional rights, and so too, to help transform places many have never seen, and give the dreams back to the people in the Middle East of all beliefs. But oil and power, corrupution and influence, public government and private business, are all needing to change the way things are perceived, and acted upon.
I still do believe in the United States of America as more than an idea, a dream, a goal, but it has become an ideology, as has our national security policy, and with 300 million lives and more (4+ billion) on the line, and with such a disrespect for knowledge and for making necessary changes, our whole society will collapse. and at this point, it seems more than probable.
As individual freedoms have been discarded for the illusion of collective security from 'abnormal' democratic rights. and one can do nothing but dig their own grave, as I am sure others will be doing sooner or later. If US energy policy were to be able to change, to adapt, the outcome could also. But this has never been, and is still not, a public policy. It is an inside deal, beyond the energy sector, and into the deepest pockets of finance, military strength, and a lack of knowledge of how the world has changed from the traditional model. I do not believe that this current geopolitical action will do anything to promote security, as it ignores the crown jewels of our electromagnetic society, as there is no knowledge of it, and no way to communicate about it, as it has been held back to keep traditional power structures intact. As much as it is energy companies, it is educational institutions, it is an entire cultural order that is in denial of its own lifeblood.
People will kill for this 'secret' to stay secret, I am sure. But truth doesn't work that way, especially on a mass scale. While Enron may have enormous influence, it is only the very tip of an iceburg related to energy-influence and its role as a critical system in our civilization. Until we, as people, are able to discuss it, to think about it, to find new ways to approach it, we are left with the old system to blame and compete with and against. And it is only a losing battle, and may already have been lost, due to apathy and complacency and a simple life in a very complex world, where freedoms are a secondary issue to keeping things the way they once were, in a fiction represented as fact. If I go down, I hope others will rise to the occasion, as much as the opportunists in this ancient grab for power, and fight with their minds, with their intelligence, through peaceful and educational methods, to transform a bad situation into an opporuntity.
What is there to testify to, except silence. Except isolation, except alientation, except indifference, except closed systems, except a society without truth, thought, nor philosophy. I am ashamed, yet this land is good land, this nature, and from the scurrying of animals and the howling winds above, there is a movement, giving chills down the spine, that there is still wilderness in this country of the mind, in this part of the world, something to contribute and to confess, and to grow up into a place respected for its best virtues and its people's ability to continue on, despite working against all odds. But it takes a plurality. A group, when working with bureacratic democracy. And no trial judge, no matter how supreme they may be, are still a legal bureaucracy, our heads are already all lopped off. So, that's one person's viewpoint, a US citizen, but rather, a citizen of the world, a human, and wishing beyond all else, that somehow what is now underway can be steered to a better course. Unfortunately, that is 180 degrees from where we are heading on this ship of world governance.
Truth is not if it is held secondary to power. It is propaganda.
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@ Electronetwork.org matter..energy..and..in-formation
http://www.electronetwork.org/
> Seeing Cyberspace the..electrical..infrastructure..is..architecture
http://www.electronetwork.org/works/seeing/
> Automated Madness terrors..of..electromagnetic..research
http://www.electronetwork.org/works/automadness/
> Public Energy Network energy..policy..by..and..for..humans..worldwide
http://www.electronetwork.org/works/pen/
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