Pledge, Turn, Prestige - The Snowden Pitch

These are the slides from my re:publica talk. You can watch the talk here: http://youtu.be/jM6hP6ERPW8 or skip to the end of this presentation. On the last weekend of 2013 Marcus was writing a list of things that had really annoyed him during the past 12 months. At the top of the list was Edward Snowden. Confused as to why this might be, he let his mind wander a little and found himself in a managed solutions office in Munich airport. He found himself in a meeting room with a beamer, notepads and a plate of biscuits. It was 2008 and he’d been given a brief. Four middle-aged gentlemen in suits enter the room, hands are shook, the door is locked and coffee is served. The senior man in the room repeats the terms of the meeting and then Marcus is asked to begin. “The Pledge, The Turn, The Prestige – The Snowden Pitch” is a fictional pitch presentation that approaches the NSA as if it were a client with unlimited budget, an image problem within the espionage community and explores Edward Snowden as the protagonist of the biggest worked shoot the world has ever seen. The talk explores why the NSA would have done this, what they would have to gain and, more importantly, it considers that which we have not yet seen – The Prestige.