Flutterby™! : completely mad version of the world

I put this down in the comments to the NSA firing sysadmins, but from the people I've talked to who've worked in intelligence, and the various ass-covering and public statements made in the work of Edward Snowden's release (and, to be fair, a lot of previous leaks), Adam Curtis talking about MI5 in the BBC absolutely nails it:

But the strange fact is that often when you look into the history of spies what you discover is something very different.

It is not the story of men and women who have a better and deeper understanding of the world than we do. In fact in many cases it is the story of weirdos who have created a completely mad version of the world that they then impose on the rest of us.

On the long history of MI5 being just batshit bizarre. Via Sensible Erection.