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SUPERNERDS: Conversations with Heroes
"It’s a type of reorganization or infection of humanity’s thought system, the way humanity talks to itself, the way a society thinks. It’s like everyone simultaneously is taking LSD." Julian Assange
"No one is more hopelessly enslaved than those who think they’re free." Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Ever since Edward Snowden’s NSA disclosures, the might of the secret services and the helplessness of everyday citizens are there all around us for everyone to see. But who is taking up the fight against global surveillance and the erosion of democracy? Theater director Angela Richter has conducted in-depth interviews with a number of well-known whistleblowers and internet activists – the "Supernerds". Conversations with Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, Daniel Ellsberg, Jesselyn Radack, William Binney, Jeremy Hammond and Thomas Drake, an Essay by Barrett Brown and drawings by Daniel Richter.
"No one is more hopelessly enslaved than those who think they’re free." Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Ever since Edward Snowden’s NSA disclosures, the might of the secret services and the helplessness of everyday citizens are there all around us for everyone to see. But who is taking up the fight against global surveillance and the erosion of democracy? Theater director Angela Richter has conducted in-depth interviews with a number of well-known whistleblowers and internet activists – the "Supernerds". Conversations with Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, Daniel Ellsberg, Jesselyn Radack, William Binney, Jeremy Hammond and Thomas Drake, an Essay by Barrett Brown and drawings by Daniel Richter.
164 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 20, 2015
About the author
Angela Richter
15 books5 followersAngela Richter is an acclaimed Croatian-German theater director, activist and author. She founded the Fleet Street Theatre in Hamburg in 2001, and was house director at the Cologne National Theatre Schauspiel Köln from 2013 to 2016. Her interest in WikiLeaks led to the 2012 theater piece “Assassinate Assange.” In 2015, Richter staged the large scale transmedia-project “Supernerds” in co-production with German national TV WDR, dealing with mass surveillance. The text was based on conversations with digital dissidents and whistleblowers, such as Edward Snowden, Daniel Ellsberg and Julian Assange. “Supernerds” received the Eyes & Ears Media Award, was nominated for the SXSW Innovation Award in Texas, and is nominated for the BANFF Award in Canada.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
April 13, 2016
I highly recommend this book. By approaching conversations with various whistleblowers and activists as a person willing to hear their side, Angela Richter asks much more interesting questions and gets much more interesting answers. Even if you don't agree with every opinion, it will make you think.
August 1, 2017
”Governments and corporations operate in complete secrecy, whereas the life of citizens is becoming more and more transparent. What is the danger of this development? Hammond The ruling classes and their intelligence apparatus routinely engage in warrantless searches and violating our freedom of speech while launching imperialist wars around the world. They shroud their activities in secrecy, citing “national security”, while telling us we have to get used to being watched, our phones tapped, the websites we visit monitored. In a free society, this would be flipped – the powerful would be transparent, the people would have privacy. Certainly they hope to catch some people and make examples of them, but the true intent is psychological. They put the police in our heads – a voice that tells us not to speak out or rise up – because they are watching – hoping to deter us from even thinking about rebelling because big brother is watching.”
”It is not the duty of the American people to be dignified or cultured or pleasant to be around or even moral. It is the duty of the American people to either properly administrate the vast and opaque machinery of sophisticated espionage and surveillance that it has allowed to be created in its name, or, if it is not capable of doing so, to demolish this machine. Instead, in the years since World War II, the citizenry has allowed this unprecedented organism to metastasize, behind the scenes and largely invisible even to those members of Congress who are supposed to be overseeing it.”
”The lesson of 9/11 is not to be afraid of terrorists, because though there was a significant attack, and though it did claim a lot of lives, when we look at it over the fullness of time, we still lose more people to health hazards, to heart attacks, to car accidents, even to bathtub falls, lightning strikes, police officers, than we do to terrorists. We have lost more lives from our response to 9/11, from misguided wars, from invasions that never should have occurred, from the misappropriation of public resources.”
”Snowden: Yes. But I think the real threat of mass surveillance is the fact is that it provides pre-criminal investigation. They’re trying to stop activities before they occur. We can investigate pre-criminally, before any crime has occurred, we can identify them as criminals, before they’ve committed the crime, and we can arrest them, try them on some new law and put them in jail … Let’s say that works. Let’s say we can stop terrorism, we can stop murder, we can stop assault, we can stop property crimes, we can stop car thefts, we can stop any crime. Richter Why would that be so bad? Snowden When governments are preempting actions, even horrible actions, they’re undermining the basis of western liberal tradition. Our system of laws, our system of justice, is based on the idea that you must commit a crime to be tried for the crime. Also we have to understand that what is lawful is not the same as what is moral. You know, slavery was lawful. Everything that every dictator has done in the past was lawful. The right thing to do is not always the legal thing to do. We need to ask society, we need to ask citizens, we need to ask you: to what is your first loyalty? Are you loyal to the law, or are you loyal to what is right? Are you loyal to legality, or are you loyal to morality? Sometimes laws were made to be broken. Sometimes bad laws pass. And sometimes we have not just the right, but the duty to oppose laws.”
”It is not the duty of the American people to be dignified or cultured or pleasant to be around or even moral. It is the duty of the American people to either properly administrate the vast and opaque machinery of sophisticated espionage and surveillance that it has allowed to be created in its name, or, if it is not capable of doing so, to demolish this machine. Instead, in the years since World War II, the citizenry has allowed this unprecedented organism to metastasize, behind the scenes and largely invisible even to those members of Congress who are supposed to be overseeing it.”
”The lesson of 9/11 is not to be afraid of terrorists, because though there was a significant attack, and though it did claim a lot of lives, when we look at it over the fullness of time, we still lose more people to health hazards, to heart attacks, to car accidents, even to bathtub falls, lightning strikes, police officers, than we do to terrorists. We have lost more lives from our response to 9/11, from misguided wars, from invasions that never should have occurred, from the misappropriation of public resources.”
”Snowden: Yes. But I think the real threat of mass surveillance is the fact is that it provides pre-criminal investigation. They’re trying to stop activities before they occur. We can investigate pre-criminally, before any crime has occurred, we can identify them as criminals, before they’ve committed the crime, and we can arrest them, try them on some new law and put them in jail … Let’s say that works. Let’s say we can stop terrorism, we can stop murder, we can stop assault, we can stop property crimes, we can stop car thefts, we can stop any crime. Richter Why would that be so bad? Snowden When governments are preempting actions, even horrible actions, they’re undermining the basis of western liberal tradition. Our system of laws, our system of justice, is based on the idea that you must commit a crime to be tried for the crime. Also we have to understand that what is lawful is not the same as what is moral. You know, slavery was lawful. Everything that every dictator has done in the past was lawful. The right thing to do is not always the legal thing to do. We need to ask society, we need to ask citizens, we need to ask you: to what is your first loyalty? Are you loyal to the law, or are you loyal to what is right? Are you loyal to legality, or are you loyal to morality? Sometimes laws were made to be broken. Sometimes bad laws pass. And sometimes we have not just the right, but the duty to oppose laws.”
March 24, 2022
Angela Richter directora de teatro y autora, escribió una obra sobre #wikileaks y es una defensora de la transparencia, dice que es la única manera de poder asegurar y que siga existiendo la democracia y nuestra seguridad.
Este libro es un buen recordatorio de como siempre tenemos que tener un pensamiento crítico, especialmente en estos tiempos. Hay personas que han sacrificado sus vidas por esta transparencia y unos han terminado en la cárcel y otros siguen bajo el fuego. Este libro me recordó que hoy más que nunca es necesario apoyar al periodismo independiente, ese que lucha por dar a conocer la verdad aunque tenga que ir contra de la corriente y el poder.
En este libro Angela ha realizado entrevistas en profundidad con varios denunciantes y activistas de Internet conocidos: los Supernerds. Conversaciones con Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, Daniel Ellsberg, Jesselyn Radack, William Binney, Jeremy Hammond, Thomas Drake, Chelsea Manning.
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"Many whistleblowers have been highly placed figures of authority who realized the injustices they perpetuated and were willing to give up their position in society to expose it. This is definitely heroic and I hope it inspires others in similar positions to evaluate how they themselves can contribute to this chain reaction of turning on our masters. But most of the historical figures I have been inspired by have been outsiders with no political connections within the system: the dispossessed, those who have nothing to lose and everything to gain from revolution."
"I read Thoreau, I read Martin Luther King Jr. and I read Gandhi, people who were living by the same principles as I do: that to cooperate with evil is to participate in it. And to be silent about it is complicity."
Este libro es un buen recordatorio de como siempre tenemos que tener un pensamiento crítico, especialmente en estos tiempos. Hay personas que han sacrificado sus vidas por esta transparencia y unos han terminado en la cárcel y otros siguen bajo el fuego. Este libro me recordó que hoy más que nunca es necesario apoyar al periodismo independiente, ese que lucha por dar a conocer la verdad aunque tenga que ir contra de la corriente y el poder.
En este libro Angela ha realizado entrevistas en profundidad con varios denunciantes y activistas de Internet conocidos: los Supernerds. Conversaciones con Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, Daniel Ellsberg, Jesselyn Radack, William Binney, Jeremy Hammond, Thomas Drake, Chelsea Manning.
-
"Many whistleblowers have been highly placed figures of authority who realized the injustices they perpetuated and were willing to give up their position in society to expose it. This is definitely heroic and I hope it inspires others in similar positions to evaluate how they themselves can contribute to this chain reaction of turning on our masters. But most of the historical figures I have been inspired by have been outsiders with no political connections within the system: the dispossessed, those who have nothing to lose and everything to gain from revolution."
"I read Thoreau, I read Martin Luther King Jr. and I read Gandhi, people who were living by the same principles as I do: that to cooperate with evil is to participate in it. And to be silent about it is complicity."
March 15, 2016
Wenn man die Nachrichten verfolgt, muss man dieses kleine Büchlein nicht unbedingt kaufen. Es ist ganz nett, aber eben keine Pflichtlektüre.
Wer in das Thema einsteigen möchte, sollte sich was spannenderes und ausführlicheres kaufen, z. B. Der NSA-Komplex: Edward Snowden und der Weg in die totale Überwachung oder Die globale Überwachung: Der Fall Snowden, die amerikanischen Geheimdienste und die Folgen.
Wer in das Thema einsteigen möchte, sollte sich was spannenderes und ausführlicheres kaufen, z. B. Der NSA-Komplex: Edward Snowden und der Weg in die totale Überwachung oder Die globale Überwachung: Der Fall Snowden, die amerikanischen Geheimdienste und die Folgen.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews