Skip to main content
Skip to content
Case File
d-34806House OversightOther

Historical commentary on Norbert Wiener, McCarthyism, and information theory

The passage is a scholarly discussion of mid‑20th‑century scientific and political ideas with no new allegations, specific transactions, or actionable leads involving current powerful actors. Wiener criticized Cold War secrecy and McCarthy‑era classification. References to Shannon’s information theory and its distinction from meaning. No mention of contemporary officials, financial flows, or misco

Date
November 11, 2025
Source
House Oversight
Reference
House Oversight #016330
Pages
1
Persons
0
Integrity
No Hash Available

Summary

The passage is a scholarly discussion of mid‑20th‑century scientific and political ideas with no new allegations, specific transactions, or actionable leads involving current powerful actors. Wiener criticized Cold War secrecy and McCarthy‑era classification. References to Shannon’s information theory and its distinction from meaning. No mention of contemporary officials, financial flows, or misco

Tags

cold-warhistoryinformation-theoryhouse-oversightmccarthyism

Ask AI About This Document

0Share
PostReddit

Extracted Text (OCR)

EFTA Disclosure
Text extracted via OCR from the original document. May contain errors from the scanning process.
in the pages of The Atlantic Monthly that he would not “publish any future work of mine which may do damage in the hands of irresponsible militarists.”°° He remained ambivalent about the transformative power of new technologies, indulging in neither the boundless hype nor the digital utopianism of later pundits. “Progress imposes not only new possibilities for the future but new restrictions,” he wrote, in Human Use. He was concerned about human-made restrictions as well as technological ones, especially Cold War restrictions that threatened the flow of information so critical to cybernetic systems: “Under the impetus of Senator [Joseph] McCarthy and his imitators, the blind and excessive classification of military information” was driving political leaders in the United States to adopt a “secretive frame of mind paralleled in history only in the Venice of the Renaissance.” Wiener, echoing many outspoken veterans of the Manhattan Project, argued that the postwar obsession with secrecy—especially around nuclear weapons—stemmed from a misunderstanding of the scientific process. The only genuine secret about the production of nuclear weapons, he wrote, was whether such bombs could be built. Once that secret had been revealed, with the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, no amount of state-imposed secrecy would stop others from puzzling through chains of reasoning like those the Manhattan Project researchers had followed. As Wiener memorably put it, “There is no Maginot Line of the brain.” To drive this point home, Wiener borrowed Shannon’s fresh ideas about information theory. In 1948, Shannon, a mathematician and engineer working at Bell Labs, had published a pair of lengthy articles in the Be// System Technical Journal. Introducing the new work to a broad readership in 1949, mathematician Warren Weaver explained that in Shannon’s formulation, “the word information...is used in a special sense that must not be confused with its ordinary usage. In particular, information must not be confused with meaning.”?! Linguists and poets might be concerned about the “semantic” aspects of communication, Weaver continued, but not engineers like Shannon. Rather, “this word ‘information’ in communication theory relates not so much to what you do say, as to what you could say.” In Shannon’s now-famous formulation, the information content of a string of symbols was given by the logarithm of the number of possible symbols from which a given string was chosen. Shannon’s key insight was that the information of a message was just like the entropy of a gas: a measure of the system’s disorder. Wiener borrowed this insight when composing Human Use. If information was like entropy, then it could not be conserved—or contained. Physicists in the 19th century had demonstrated that the total energy of a physical system must always remain the same, a perfect balance between the start and the end of a process. Not so for entropy, which would inexorably increase over time, an imperative that came to be known as the second law of thermodynamics. From that stark distinction—energy is conserved, whereas entropy must grow—followed enormous cosmic consequences. Time must flow forward; 3° Norbert Wiener, “A Scientist Rebels,” Zhe Atlantic Monthly, January 1947. 31 Warren Weaver, “Recent Contributions to the Mathematical Theory of Communication,” in Claude Shannon & Warren Weaver, The Mathematical Theory of Communication (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1949), p. 8 (emphasis in original). Shannon’s 1948 papers were republished in the same volume. 110

Related Documents (6)

DOJ Data Set 10CorrespondenceUnknown

EFTA Document EFTA01877317

0p
Dept. of JusticeAug 22, 2017

15 July 7 2016 - July 17 2016 working progress_Redacted.pdf

Kristen M. Simkins From: Sent: To: Cc: Subject: Irons, Janet < Tuesday, July 12, 2016 10:47 AM Richard C. Smith     Hello Warden Smith,     mother is anxious to hear the results of your inquiry into her daughter's health.   I'd be grateful if you could  email or call me at your earliest convenience.  I'm free today after 2 p.m.  Alternatively, we could meet after the Prison  Board of Inspectors Meeting this coming Thursday.    Best wishes,    Janet Irons    1 Kristen M. Simkins From: Sent:

1196p
DOJ Data Set 9OtherUnknown

From: "Bulletin Intelligence" <[email protected]>

From: "Bulletin Intelligence" <[email protected]> To: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> Subject: [EXTERNAL EMAIL] - FBI Public Affairs News Briefing Monday, April 26, 2021 Date: Mon, 26 Apr 2021 10:27:35 +0000 c Importan e: Normal Mobile version and searchable archives available at fbi.bulletinintelligence.com. 'L; 1 B1 News Briefing TO: THE DIRECTOR AND SENIOR STAFF DATE: MONDAY, APRIL 26, 2021 6:30 AM EDT TODAY'S TABLE OF CONTENTS LEADING THE NEWS • Garland Signals More Investigations Into Local Police Departments Will Be Forthcoming. CAPITOL VIOLENCE NEWS • FBI Using Facial Recognition, Undercover Operations To Arrest Capitol Rioters. • Growing Number Of Those Arrested In Capitol Siege Probe Have Military, Law Enforcement, Or Government Ties. • Two Kansas Women Charged In Capitol Riot Probe. • FBI Arrests Man Who Boasted On Dating App Of Storming Capitol. • Texas Couple Charged With Assaulting Officers During Capitol Siege.

40p
Dept. of JusticeOtherUnknown

EFTA Document EFTA01447703

From: Sent: To: CC: Paul Morris Subject: Tomorrow Aracely Sanchez 9/23/2014 5:01:20 PM Jackson McCarthy I'll be out of the office tomorrow returning Thursday, September 24th. During that time I will n h v a t mil or voice mail. Should you have any funds/wire transfers please email Jackson McCarthy Thank you. Kind regards, Aracely Sanchez Aracely Sanchez Assistant WC President Deutsche Bar* Trust Company Americas Deutsche Asset 8 Wealth Management 345 Park Avenue, 24th Floor

1p
DOJ Data Set 9OtherUnknown

From: "Buckley, Lawrence D. Jr. (DO) (FBI)"

From: "Buckley, Lawrence D. Jr. (DO) (FBI)" To: "Smith, James H. (INSD) (FBI)" <O>. Subject: FW: [EXTERNAL EMAIL] - FBI Public Affairs News Briefing Wednesday, August 05, 2020 Date: Wed, 05 Aug 2020 13:50:09 +0000 Importance: Normal From: Bulletin Intelligence <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, August 5, 2020 6:27 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [EXTERNAL EMAIL] - FBI Public Affairs News Briefing Wednesday, August 05, 2020 Mobile version and searchable archives available at fbl.bulletInIntelligence.aun. FBI News Briefing TO: THE DIRECTOR AND SENIOR STAFF DATE: WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 5, 2020 6:30 AM EDT TODAY'S TABLE OF CONTENTS LEADING THE NEWS • FBI Has Opened 300 Domestic Terror Investigations Since Floyd's Death. PROTESTS • Suspect In Salt Lake City Protest Arson Case Remains Jailed. • Tennessee Woman Is_S_econd To Face Protest Arson Charge% • Trump Touts His Efforts To Stop Portland Protests. • pence Sys Administration Will Increase Law Enfor

44p
House OversightOtherNov 11, 2025

Bill Siegel email chain discussing 'The Control Factor' and anti‑Islamic conspiracy narrative

The passage is an internal email and interview transcript promoting a conspiratorial worldview about 'Islamic Enemy' and 'Civilization Jihad.' It mentions Jeffrey Epstein as a sender but provides no c Email originates from Jeffrey Epstein's address, but only contains a casual invitation and a link to Bill Siegel outlines a theory called the 'Control Factor' that frames Islam as a coordinated threa

20p

Forum Discussions

This document was digitized, indexed, and cross-referenced with 1,400+ persons in the Epstein files. 100% free, ad-free, and independent.

Annotations powered by Hypothesis. Select any text on this page to annotate or highlight it.