This is a thought-provoking thread, in both of its directions: changing perceptions of Turing as individual (sexuality, wartime significance, the resurgence of popular awareness of him in recent years) and contested meanings of his legacy as a figure in modem information history (a phenomenon inextricably tied to surveillance). I'd add to Paul C.'s mention of Hughes' thought; when it comes to information technology in organizations, especially those in the public sector, you also have to consider the ways "technological momentum" and frequently ill-defined policy agendas reinforce one another in a feedback loop. Government agencies accumulate and process information not just because it's what they've always done, but because doing so frequently seems to fulfill the nebulous policy directives of agency higher-ups, elected officials, and even the populace at large. You have a mandate to "get the Terrorists/Communists/Anarchists" and no one closely questions how you do it in time of panic or popular outrage, when outcome matters more than process. By the time anyone asks questions, the expanded prerogative practices have embedded themselves and it takes considerable effort to root them out. It doesn't even require national security conditions -- you get a call for increased efficiency in government operations (say from a President desperate to squeeze spending margins, like in the late '60s, or an insurgent Congress, in the mid '90s) and you get vague policy goals merging with entrenched information technologies. Anyways, all of these topics are compelling and I'm glad to see the list discussing them. Off on a tangent, Andrew On Thu, Jun 5, 2014 at 11:20 AM, Ceruzzi, Paul <CeruzziP@si.edu> wrote:

My question was: if Turing lived to the modern era, what would he have thought about decrypting Angela Merkel’s phone conversations? What do we think of modern-day disciples of Turing who do this? The late Thomas Hughes spoke of “technological momentum”: that an organization learns to do things a certain way, and they continue to do that. GCHQ had this tradition of intercepting German telecommunications that endured through many changes of government, boundaries, hot and cold wars, peace, etc. It even goes back to the Zimmermann telegram of 1917.

http://hnn.us/article/155699

I know that this is not on the topic of Turing’s sexual orientation, but to me this is an equally-significant topic that we ought to be examining.

Paul Ceruzzi

*From:* members-bounces@sigcis.org [mailto:members-bounces@sigcis.org] *On Behalf Of *Paul N. Edwards *Sent:* Thursday, June 05, 2014 10:01 AM *To:* sigcis *Subject:* Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Alan Turing as gay icon

I expect “openly gay,” with all the implications that phrase carries today, is an anachronistic label -- not an accurate description of Turing’s public persona, nor truly of his private one either.

Paul

On Jun 5, 2014, at 0:36 , Thomas Haigh <thaigh@computer.org> wrote:

My initial guess was that this was an anachronism. Hodge's book Alan Turing: The Enigma appeared in hardcover late 1983, and one might expect it to have taken a while to spread far into popular awareness or to have its rather complex narrative reduced to "won World War II." The Turing play "Breaking the Code" was not written until 1986. That did a huge amount to boost Turing's public profile, at least in the UK.

However, the Amazon "search inside the book" finds a line of this kind in a recent reissue of The Normal Heart script and a 2000 volume combining it with the sequel. It is of course possible that the play was revised from its original 1985 version, which is not searchable online.

So apparently Kramer was a pioneer in taking the complex portrait of Turing given in the Hodges biography, which I believe was widely reviewed on its initial release, and turning it into the slogan that "it was an openly gay Englishman who was as responsible as any man for winning he Second World War." Kramer continues, "His name was Alan Turing and he cracked the Germans' Enigma code so the Allies knew in advance what the Nazis were going to do--and when the war was over he committed suicide he was so hounded for being gay."

That would be an important passage in a history of Turing in popular memory, which would be a great dissertation topic for someone.

Tom

-----Original Message----- From: members-bounces@sigcis.org [mailto:members-bounces@sigcis.org <members-bounces@sigcis.org>] On Behalf Of Janet Abbate Sent: Wednesday, June 04, 2014 4:42 PM To: sigcis Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] Alan Turing as gay icon

Did anyone catch the shout-out to Alan Turing in the HBO AIDS-themed movie "The Normal Heart"? The main character rants, "A gay man won World War II! They should teach that in schools."

I wonder if that was actually the image of Turing in 1985 (when the original play was written) or something they added later for the movie? (I mean that he won WWII, not that he was gay.)

Dr. Janet Abbate Associate Professor, Science & Technology in Society Co-director, National Capital Region STS program Virginia Tech www.sts.vt.edu/ncr www.linkedin.com/groups/STS-Virginia-Tech-4565055 www.facebook.com/VirginiaTechSTS

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