(L- FBI Director Chris Wray before Congress, R- George Orwell before all of us).

DeMille had hoped the weekend would bring some relief to his day-job. He had three manila folders on the white picnic table on The Patio near the rear entrance to the Socotra headquarters. The Arlington skies were clear, and there was the promise of drinks at poolside if he could wade through the bewildering stories in the Folders.

He looked around the circle of unshaven men. “OK, we need to find some way to package this crap in a light, mildly ironic manner that will be entertaining. We need to stay away from the deep partisan discord and note the impact of the messaging streams in progress. Like who is issuing them and what they are trying to accomplish.”

There was some generalized nodding around the circle and a series of sharp clicks as ceramic coffee mugs hit the aluminum tabletop. Splash started. “I thought that since we talked about the historic battles on D-Day and off Midway Island, we should note that this is the anniversary of something else historic today.”

There were blank looks. DeMille frowned. “Like what could compare with those events?”

Splash smiled. “On this date, five years after the Normandy invasion, British author George Orwell published 1984. It was his final book, and it was informed by the recent horror of the biggest war ever fought. He gave us the bumper sticker of our time: Big Brother is Watching You.”

Rocket and Vic both squirmed in their lawn chairs. “Now they can just monitor our keystrokes if Big Sister wants to know what we are thinking.”

Melissa seemed to appreciate the evolved surveillance landscape. “That is the key to why the Legal Section says to stay away from the political trials,” she said. “Up in New York, Judge Merchan was back in the messaging. He released a note saying that one of the jurors in the Trump trial may have discussed the verdict at a family barbeque before deliberations were complete.”

“But didn’t the Judge send them home without sequestration for a week with family for the holiday? What did he expect?”

“He may not have expected the blow-back he got from the guilty verdict. This would provide a way to dump the whole thing and take further discussion out of the news.”

“Or it may be something still evolving. What else is there to talk about?”

Vic said: “Black Cloud had a piece about FBI Director Chris Wray’s testimony to Congress that was interesting. The Director had been summoned to talk about the re-authorization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, since it seems to have turned into another instrument of the power it was intended to thwart. Our pal Mac Showers was there for that adventure, and his stories about it were interesting. Wray managed to deflect the FISA discussion and turn his appearance into a funding drive.”

“So, what did the Director say?”

He told the Committee that if Congress cuts his budget, it will have “very significant” consequences. He wants another thousand agents to sit in the billion dollar headquarters he required to keep track of everyone and everything we are up to.”

We generally agree with that, with the provision that it ought to include an Orwell Office in the new building. Black Cloud said “The director cited the attack in Moscow last March. That was the event in which several gunmen burst into the Moscow Crocus Hall, fired automatic weapons at the crowd, and killed 137 concert-goers and wounded hundreds more.”

The Circle of Salts got agitated and comments flew back and forth so quickly it was hard to follow who was messaging what under the clear blue skies. “It was low tech, not highjacked jets. Just a few young men from Tajikistan willing to sacrifice themselves with a handful of the hundreds of thousands of Kalashnikov rifles in circulation.”

“Yeah, Wray didn’t directly mention it, but there are reports that in the millions of undocumented new arrivals here in America, 29,000 of them are young military-age Chinese men.”

“Suppose they were told via social media to simultaneously do something with the materials on hand. Results could be spectacular.”

“Let’s see: Suppose they were told to simultaneously hit every 7-Eleven store in the country? There are 13,000 of them, so that could be done with teams of two. Or, they could go after all the Circle K stores as well. That would be an afternoon impacting everyone, everywhere.”

“Have you seen any messaging about that?”

“No, it is just an extrapolation of what the FBI is saying might happen in an attack they say is definitely coming. We agree with him. There is so much going on in the political campaign and such uncertainty overseas that we all expect an event in the near term intended to affect the election.”

“Wray said that without more agents, fewer tips and leads will be followed and fewer terrorist attacks will be detected. That helps out the terrorists, the cartels, the violent gangs, the Chinese government, the hackers, the child predators.”

“So, with more agents he could address what is essentially a land invasion by China alone that already numbers more than two divisions of Army troops, already here? And with the re-establishment of involuntary forced labor in a nation that spent 700,000 lives in a war to end it?”

“If we are going to stock up on beverages, we ought to get down to the 7-Eleven while we can.”

DeMille seemed relieved that we had an approach to this morning he could live with. Or not, depending on what happened on the way to the Quick Stop.

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