Peter B. Collins Presents Peter van Buren
Our guest maxed out on the scary stories of the Islamic State using social media to recruit Americans to fight in Syria, so he decided to check out the action, knowing the risk of a visit from Big Brother. In this often-humorous exchange, Peter van Buren found some travel tips, direct flights to Syria and inspirational screeds, but no application form or screening process. We use this to open a deeper conversation about FBI frame-ups of Americans accused of trying to join IS, and the insertion of these largely unproven cases into the media fear machinery and Washington’s highly limited debate about the surveillance state. And van Buren has some choice words for his former boss, regarding Hillary Clinton’s email imbroglio.
* Peter van Buren spent 20 years working at the State Department and was forced into retirement after publication of his book We Meant Well, which described his misadventures managing reconstruction in Iraq. He is also the author of a novel, Ghosts of Tom Joad: A Story of the #99Percent. You can find his blog post about jihadi travel here.
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