Less heat, more light: surveillance, peace treaties, and bonfires…
The recent “industrial scale” data blunder by the Police Service of Northern Ireland has brought a renewed topicality to a piece of writing I set aside in the run-up to last May’s Local Government elections. Espionage has rarely been made so simple, but it is a practice as old as war itself. ‘Know your enemy’ is a key tenet of The Art of War, the magnum opus of Sun Tzu, a philosopher and general who lived through the tumultuous autumn …