For the Olympics, French authorities will not be taking any lessons from Kimberly Cheatle, the disgraced U.S. Secret Service director. They want no surprises. But if Cheatle’s incompetence resembles the sloppy routine of a third world police force, France’s approach resembles the twitchy readiness of a wartime authoritarian hopped up on paranoia.

This fear is largely understandable. The stakes are high for our baguette-loving brethren. Over 10,000 athletes will participate in the Paris Olympics, which will be held throughout the city.

Tyrants don’t gain power on a platform that openly expresses contempt for freedom; they do it by appealing to our humanity, by offering us protection and safety.

Officials are expecting 15 million visitors. For reference, Paris' population is just a little over 2 million, slightly more than San Antonio's. A whopping 45,000 police have been conscripted for this task, but officials have insisted that this is still not enough.

And they’re probably right.

Paris is no stranger to terroristic rampages, and lately, the country’s political climate has been even more volatile than normal. In the modern era of total war, terrorists no longer honor the Olympics’ ancient tradition of enforced peace. Just ask the Israelis. The recent assassination attempt on Trump has fueled a fresh wave of geopolitical instability that nobody needed — more on that in a moment.

The stench of war is strong. And France has once again become a staging area for battle. Our French brothers and sisters can’t even enjoy their pastries and fine cheese.

France has remained at its highest threat level for nearly a year, following a decade of soul-crushing terrorism that has struck at their concerts, schools, and streets.

Police have already prevented at least one terrorist plot to attack a soccer game during the Olympics — that was in May. As Ward Bond’s character puts it in “Rio Bravo,” to the besieged heroes of our story: “If I ever saw a man holdin' a bull by the tail, you're it.”

The justice system itself is burdened, possibly to the point of exhaustion — or so the refrain goes. So French intelligence has turned to AI for assistance, employing cyber-technology that no human fully understands. Because why shouldn’t we throw that into the mix?

Their “just trust us, we won’t violate your rights” attitude meets all the criteria for dystopian cheer that leaves a population full of regret, shivering as they scan their barcodes for dirty water. Because by the time these experimental measures have become permanent, the people can’t return to privacy; the elite class will not surrender their wartime equipment, like an insufferable roommate who can never be evicted.

Tyrants don’t gain power on a platform that openly expresses contempt for freedom; they do it by appealing to our humanity, by offering us protection and safety.

Maybe the sweeping, mysterious weaponry will effectively save lives and preserve the Olympics so that America can continue dominating the ancient athletic festival. Maybe the French authorities will restrain and pack up the AI surveillance at the end of the XXXIII Olympiad. Perhaps they’ll be super transparent about all of it. Maybe we’ll all learn a lesson, something about how AI is just an extension of the best of humanity. A digital utopia. Maybe.

I examined this conundrum a few months ago. A lot has happened since then, so I figured it would be worth revisiting the issue in light of the intensifying conflict overtaking the Western world.

Culture war

When the CIA was founded in 1947, it committed to using American culture as a weapon in its mission. The agency even fabricated a craze for the unartistic artwork of the abstract expressionist movement to goad the Soviets.

Like most CIA operations, this one only came to light by accident. God only knows what alphabet-agency terrors we are ignorant of.

The power and success of a Secret Service can be measured by its visibility. When a country’s intelligence agency is bad, everyone witnesses it busy at work. When a country’s intelligence apparatus is successful, nobody is ever sure what it does, how, why, or if it has ever told the truth.

The Central Intelligence Agency in America is undoubtedly the best. Based on the scant information about the agency’s goings-on, its history is nightmarish. It is as checkered and dubious as a Central American drug lord's. Or, if you’re the CIA, you use the illegal drug trade in order to stage a revolution.

We typically only learn about the CIA’s messy experiments and operations when some agency insider leaks data, presumably by accident. But it’s hard to know what’s true when dealing with an institution that succeeds through subterfuge and disinformation.

Because maybe they actually have our best interests at heart. Let the record show that this is what I genuinely believe ;)

How do you do, fellow radical?

Did the failed assassination attempt on Donald Trump, and the deficiencies (or machinations) of the Secret Service, fundamentally change our relationship with security and surveillance?

On one side of the mud, we’ve got France, with a unified domestic surveillance apparatus that’s willing to potentially violate rights in the name of safety. On the other hand, in America, a former president is protected by security measures that might as well have been drafted by a huddle of Denny’s waiters cranking through the night shift.

This did not sit well with the celebrity lawmakers who rely on the Secret Service to neutralize the violent, unhinged radicals who love to write drab manifestos full of cliches and typos.

Politicians of all stripes have linked arms in their fury toward Kimberly Cheatle and the failures of the agency she no longer leads. This week’s House Oversight Committee evinced rare bipartisan unity, with even AOC lobbing dung at the disgraced Cheatle. It was nice for everyone to sing in harmony, even if the occasion was to scapegoat.

At the same time, this unity ought to rattle us to the core. If famous politicians are scared for their safety, what chance do the rest of us have? There are no well-stocked bunkers for us everyday folks.

Note also that the assumption here is that shoddy oversight led to the attempt on Trump’s life. But is the modern political state even capable of this sort of incompetence? When Trump is involved, there’s no telling — probably not. The campaign against Trump appears to be a coordinated attack by influential people who fiddle with our entire government culture and media with the dexterity and ease of a gamer holding a controller.

A growing number of people have begun to notice the unquenchable hatred for Trump and have started to ask, “Why do they need to get rid of him?”

What does it mean for people to revile Trump at this point? Who exactly are their so-called allies? Are the Machiavellians willing to destroy democracy in the name of preserving democracy?

I’m not implying that the intelligence agencies are responsible for the assassination attempt. However, it is increasingly difficult to believe that the greedy pursuit of Trump is morally or legally justified. And if it’s not, then we are witnessing power at its rawest and most disturbed.

The problem is, it’s nearly impossible to tell when the professional liar is lying.

Paradoxically, to a certain extent, we hope that the intelligence agencies in America are excellent at conducting surveillance. Our enemies should never have an advantage.

But their methods often seem to cross the line. They’re not supposed to use their voodoo on their own people. But all we have is suspicion of voodoo because their voodoo game is top-notch.It gets exhausting to keep track of decoys and disinformation.

We know this in varying ways. Like the overwhelming public reaction to supposed “white nationalist groups,” ski-mask-wearing recruits who dress like feds, look like feds, and act like feds. In short, any activist in a mask is either a fed or a fed-protected political combatant.

We know this, but the feds will never admit it, so we can’t be entirely sure. So we’re stuck with a lingering whiff of artifice and manipulation on a grand scale. And nobody likes to be lied to, especially when the intent seems malicious — would they actually manufacture a neo-Nazi movement? Why?!

This routine is doubly insulting in the wake of the Secret Service’s mishandling of the rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

The gunman was able to freely scope the area with a drone like a toddler with a kite. I’ve covered quite a few Trump rallies over the years. Every one of them was meticulously secure. The Secret Service I know is muscular, tall, confrontational, and scary. As it should be.

When a Trump rally comes to town, it brings an entire military apparatus, helicopters like falcons weaving through the sky. The clown show we witnessed on July 13 differed from this standard so excessively that public opinion is united in disbelief that incompetence is solely to blame.

Feds don’t “oops” that hard. They don’t commit accidents of this type and volume. Right? Are they really that bad at psy-ops? Or is their sloppiness part of a larger calculation?

Technology exposes, reveals, and increasingly, it unmasks. Hopefully it will reveal the identities of all those ski-mask-wearing “white nationalists” in their immaculate khakis and state-supplied boots as they march in perfect cadence out of U-Hauls.

These coals sustain the fire, keeping conspiracy theorists alert and warm.