Slog News & Arts

Line Out

Music & Nightlife

« Savage Love Letter of the Day | Bordering on Awkward »

Thursday, August 14, 2008

UW Officially Announces CIA Program to Students

posted by on August 14 at 13:52 PM

The University of Washington has officially announced that a CIA agent will be on campus next year.

Dr. Tim Thomas will teach 133t haxxor skills to students enrolled in UW’s information school.

I wrote about Thomas’s class a few weeks ago. You can check out the story here and the program website here.

In 1991, students and faculty at Seattle University protested after the school offered a CIA officer temporary position in the school’s history department. The school later rescinded its job offer.

Classes at UW start September 24th.

RSS icon Comments

1

As long as they keep those fucking Larouche kids off campus, they can make Pat Robertson the chair of the meteorology department for all I care.

Posted by Ziggity | August 14, 2008 2:11 PM
2

Can I audit?

Posted by Andy Niable | August 14, 2008 2:25 PM
3

Just another reason to loathe the iSchool.

Which almost everyone who ever had the misfortune of attending that program already has enough of.

Posted by dwight moody | August 14, 2008 2:27 PM
4

Tim Thomas sounds like a fake-ass name.

Posted by T | August 14, 2008 2:30 PM
5

how can people possibly lose their shit over a CIA agent TEACHING A FUCKING CLASS? WHAT POSSIBLE BAD COULD RESULT FROM THIS?

p.s. wheres the football post jonah slackenthal-lee

Posted by Bellevue Ave | August 14, 2008 2:42 PM
6

I thought this was in the staff paper a couple of weeks ago, actually.

Maybe they'll give us someone who can cook like Julia Childs ....

Posted by Will in Seattle | August 14, 2008 2:43 PM
7

This is seriously overblown. "133t haxxor skills"? From what I see, he's teaching basic data mining and information retrieval techniques for use on publicly available media. These are the same sorts of techniques that, e.g., Google uses to categorize incoming news data. This is hardly heavy-duty surveillance stuff. Get over it already.

Posted by tsm | August 14, 2008 2:49 PM
8

@7, it's Jonah Spangenthal-Lee...he's gotta stir the pot with no ingredients.


Is this really Josh Feit's replacement? He sucks.

Posted by Non | August 14, 2008 2:58 PM
9

Yeah, but he's got a killer last name.

Posted by Will in Seattle | August 14, 2008 3:34 PM
10

But like the CIA is totes evil. Fuck the fact that some students might want to learn from a practitioner.

Posted by Giffy | August 14, 2008 4:00 PM
11

Whatever. The CIA is a necessary evil (like a police force or an army). And if they taught something that I could use to make my life better I would do it.

Hell, if they had a job opening for a 44yo in a wheelchair with experience in filmmaking, DJ-ing, and secretarial work, sign me up!

Posted by elswinger | August 14, 2008 4:32 PM
12

I [heart] 133t haxxor skills!

Posted by borgboi | August 14, 2008 5:10 PM
13

S P A G H E T T I L E E

Posted by What? | August 14, 2008 10:02 PM
14

I am gonig to get beat up for this but here it goes: The reality is that over the past couple of decades the US Intellegence services have lost people to private corporations (who want to do their own spying) and as a result the US has lost talented people. I'd hate to say this but I want the CIA to get talented people to join as well as get rid of coruption in the agency at the top. The bottom line is we need good intellegence that is loyal to facts so our leaders can't manipulate it to their own means.

Posted by Cato the Younger Younger | August 15, 2008 6:35 AM
15

Is he really a CIA "agent"? I don't really see the cause for protest here.

Posted by josh | August 15, 2008 11:39 AM

Comments Closed

Comments are closed on this post.