Edward Stack

“Imagine yourself sitting at a computer, about to visit a website. You open a Web browser, type in a URL, and hit Enter. The URL is, in effect, a request, and this request goes out in search of its destination server. Somewhere in the midst of its travels, however, before your request gets to that server, it will have to pass through TURBULENCE, one of the NSA’s most powerful weapons.Specifically, your request passes through a few black servers stacked on top of one another, together about the size of a four-shelf bookcase. These are installed in special rooms at major private telecommunications buildings throughout allied countries, as well as in US embassies and on US military bases, and contain two critical tools. The first, TURMOIL, handles “passive collection,” making a copy of the data coming through. The second, TURBINE, is in charge of “active collection””

“Art had intrinsic, lasting value and, conveniently for the new owners, it was portable as well. “Art soon became a major factor in the economy,” writes Nicholas, “as everyone with cash, from black marketeers to Hitler, sought safe assets. As the trade heated up, prices rose and family attics were scoured for the Dutch old masters and romantic genre scenes beloved by the conquerors.” For the occupiers, it was a game with a deck stacked in their favor. The Nazis could buy what ever they wanted, with state money, from intimidated sellers. A cadre of eager agents helped them scout out special prizes and “bargain” with the owners.””

“All that is human melted into the sky and faded into the mountains. Is that a paradox? That a man could never need or have better companionship than himself? As for the solitary confinement of the mind, that solipsism, like the other absurdities of the professional philosopher, is the product of too much time wasted in library stacks between the covers of a book and smoke-hilled coffeehouses, bad for the brains, and conversation-clogged seminars. To refute the solipsist or the metaphysical idealist, all that you have to do is take him out and throw a rock at his head. If he ducks, he’s a liar. His logic may be airtight, but his argument, far from revealing the delusions of living experience, only exposes the limitations of logic.””