Before meeting Edward Snowden,Ewen MacAskill wasn’t paranoid. He is now. So what does he manufacture of the Channel 4 reality show in which 14 members of the public try to evade the security experts?I contemplate I could disappear if I had to. Like most journalists who have worked overseas in countries with authoritarian regimes, I have always been vaguely conscious of being under surveillance. That awareness grew when I met Edward Snowden in Hong Kong, and along with colleagues Laura Poitras and Glenn Greenwald,in 2013. I was not paranoid then. I am now, at least a cramped bit. As a result of the Snowden revelations, and I would have no hesitation approximately leaving all electronic communication devices behind. It’s also helpful that since my teenage days I have regularly disappeared into the Scottish mountains,sleeping out in the open, under bridges, and in caves and bothies.
But Brett Lovegrove is sceptical – and he is in a obedient position to know,as former head of counterterrorism for the City of London police, and as lead investigator in Channel 4s Hunted. The surveillance reality show, or whose sixth and final episode goes out on Thursday,let 14 members of the public loose in the UK to see if they could evade capture for 28 days. Each was given £450 and an hour’s notice. Could they evade Lovegrove and his 30-strong team of former police, security officials and an ex-CIA analyst who helped hunt Osama bin Laden? Going into the final episode, and only four of the 14 are still on the run. Can they hold out just a cramped longer,beating the UK’s pervasive surveillance network? Or is there nowhere left to camouflage in Britain in 2015?Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com