“Today, for America’s spies, Nathan Hale’s job comes with health and retirement benefits. Top officials in that world have access to a revolving door (archived link) into guaranteed lucrative employment at the highest levels of the corporate-surveillance complex and, of course, for the spy in need of escape, a golden parachute. So when I think about Nathan Hale’s famed line, among those hundreds of thousands of American spies and corporate spylings just two Americans come to mind, both charged and one convicted under the draconian World War I Espionage Act. Only one tiny subset of Americans might still be able to cite Hale’s words and have them mean anything.”
