In
John Cloud’s article, “Imaging the World in a Barrel: CORONA and the
Clandestine Convergence of the Earth Sciences”, he brought up the new pairing
between civilian and secret federal programs during the Cold War era. Before I
read this article, I had prior knowledge of the Cold War Era from my history
classes and thought I knew most of the key information about the time period.
When I read the article, I had no never heard of the “shutter box” metaphor,
but I had heard of “black box”. I think John Cloud was very accurate in using
the “shutter box” metaphor because the public had access to the previously top-secret
government information, but still did not know exactly where the information
was coming from. I also was surprised to learn that the University of
California system was so heavily involved in the research and development of
the atomic bomb during this time period. I had no idea how many versions of
CORONA and the cameras it took before they released the information to the
public. I couldn’t believe that the information was not released for almost forty
years. This makes me think of all the top-secret government programs that could
be occurring right now and makes me think how much do we really know?
When I read the article and came across the “shutter box,” I found it interesting but felt terrifying at the same time.
ReplyDeleteI thought I know most of the things that are considered as important in the nation, though I realize I may not know most of the things about the nation.
I hope the government declares everything what matters us.