Tales of the Wiretap! Major Media Moments: Echelon Listens In
... “No problem,” Ving replies. “I’ll just hack into Echelon.” And with a mere two keystrokes, we’re onto the next action sequence.
(A brief sociological aside: Try as I might, I can’t pinpoint the exact date when the “muscle-bound black guy” replaced the “dissipated white nerd” as Hollywood’s preferred casting choice for the obligatory computer geek. But I’m sure somebody is looking into it right now for their master’s degree in cinema studies.)
Anyway, with all this in mind, I decided to put in a call to Ving. Herewith, the results:
N.S.A. Echelon Intercept 22-31-34523: Anderson Cooper, anchorman; Jon Klein, president, CNN/US.
KLEIN: You’ve got to work the empathy angle, Anderson. Win their trust. Make it personal. That’s the only way we’re going to win.
COOPER: I like the shots they’re using of me in the billboards, and the adverting. Cool but caring. Still …. I’m worried it’s a little bit of overkill. And to be honest, I feel sort of bad about—what’s his name. Aaron. Aaron Brown. Vaporized.
KLEIN: Forget him. He was a foot soldier. He had to be sacrificed. This is war.
