Leonard Francis was a Malaysian businessman who bribed US naval officials to steer military vessels into his shipyard, where he overcharged them for everything. At one point, his bribes literally rerouted an aircraft carrier. He got caught a few years ago and I expected the story to end with him and dozens of Navy co-conspirators in prison. But now, 'Fat Leonard' Francis has apparently escaped custody, right before he was scheduled to be sentenced for his crimes.
In my book Small Gods of Time Travel, I referenced this case, as it's a perfect example of how even top military officials aren't above corruption. I went so far as to name one of the book's chapters 'They'll Do What Fat Leonard Did.' The above image is an AI's interpretation of that chapter title. I've posted it here before, but decided to re-post it due to its renewed relevance. You can get the NFT here and read the book chapter here.
Part of me is impressed by Francis' story, particularly now that he somehow got away from authorities despite being attached to an ankle monitoring device. The guy is like a comic book villain. I wonder what he could've accomplished if he'd used his powers for good instead of evil.
In other news, the military industrial complex continues to spy on everyone. This Vice article gets into that, and contains a quote with chilling implications:
Beyond his day job as CEO of Team Cymru, Rabbi Rob Thomas also sits on the board of the Tor Project, a privacy focused non-profit that maintains the Tor software.
My opinion is that the NSA has long been capable of defeating Tor by intercepting network traffic. Even so, it seems highly problematic that someone with Tor would also be involved with a company that makes it easier for the government to spy on people. In a best case scenario, the optics are cringe-worthy.
On a deeper level, I feel like the future is radically transparent, whether we like it or not. Personally, I stopped fighting this years ago. If some spy is accessing my personal communications, they'll quickly discover that I have a new friend. They may also learn that my mom is coming from Alaska to visit in the first week of October and that I'm in the process of getting a new therapist. Realistically, such a spy would be better off just calling me on the phone than going through all of the trouble of infiltrating my devices.
It might be a different story if I was still involved with activism. The government has always spied on activists, and has sometimes taken this a step further by interfering in the lives of activists to discredit them in various ways. These days, much of this spying is outsourced to private companies, and these companies have zero scruples. It wouldn't surprise me at all to learn that some of them have clients in organized crime as well as in government. And as the story of Leonard Francis shows, the line between the two can be vanishingly thin.
Beyond activism, there are other good reasons to lament the disappearance of privacy. Some things are private, period. But rather than struggle against the new reality, I try to look at it like an opportunity to do a better job of controlling my own narrative. Maybe that's naive, but I find it more empowering than the alternative.
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