General Keith Alexander, progenitor of the post-modern Panopticon has left his perch at the National Security Agency for greener pastures.
Much greener, suggests Politico:
Less than two months since his retirement from the embattled agency at the center of the Edward Snowden leak storm, the retired four-star general is setting up a Washington-based operation that will try to attract clients based on his four decades of experience in the military and intelligence — and the continued levels of access to senior decision-makers that affords.
“Clearly, there will be companies who’d have great interest in having an affiliation with him,” the source said.
I imagine we all know some companies who might like to pick the General’s brain, or what there is left of it. One of them is the company he’s shacking up with, Promontory Financial Group, referred to in American Banker as
a shadow network between banks and regulators. The firm is a sort of ex-regulator omnibus, capable of forecasting, mimicking and occasionally even substituting for the financial industry’s supervisors.
A good fit thinks Marcy Wheeler, for a man of Alexander’s ethical stature and track record.
For those with nothing better to do, here’s a very long interview Alexander gave in Australia recently. Vintage defensiveness. In the tradition of great generals in history, he hides behind the grunts. Oddly, he continues to display his “haystack” delusions publicly. To each his own.
Speaking of laughs, last week, or the week before, I posted an interview between Alexander and the comedian John Oliver. If you missed it earlier (because my overly obscure headline) here it is.