<nettime> surveillance instincts 70 years ago

[Morlock Elloi <morlockelloi@gmail.com>]

Cryptome recently published a collection of declassified intelligence 
documents from Italy at the end of WW2 
(https://cryptome.org/cic/cic-italy/cic-italy.html)

While today everyone talks about surveillance, it's interesting to look 
at the history, to understand what it really is. Contemporary machine 
collecting is impersonal, detached and appears benign to many.

This particular document, for example - 
https://cryptome.org/cic/cic-italy/cic-italy-10SEP46.pdf, demonstrates 
meticulous and pedantic manual transcribing of seemingly irrelevant 
information. Someone spent hours, if not days, compiling this, which 
means that it is *not* irrelevant.

Compare this to the cheap automated collection we have today, and how 
much the balance has been shifted.

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