Men In Black.

Goldberg wonders where the super-spooks are. Since Assange of Wikileaks is still alive and all.

Or as Goldberg puts it: "Why wasn’t Assange garroted in his hotel room years ago? It’s a serious question."

He then goes into the entertainment and popular visions of the inteligence community. Given the myths surrounding the governmental and corporate "shops" he asserts that if those myths were even remotely true, "Assange, super-whistle-blower of the international Left, would be a greasy stain on the autobahn already."

It's true, Assange is exactly the kind of person that would end up being dead in the opening scene thus providing the motivation for the protagonist to go down the rabbit hole and uncover the conspiracy.

And no he doesn't want Assange killed, me neither he's just illustrating the point that if this were like the movies or books he'd already be dead.

Of course, life isn't fiction, and as Goldberg points out the web being what it is, Assange could be killed and wikileaks could have the plug pulled and it wouldn't make much different.

This isn't to say that there aren't spooks out there and that they don't bump off "troublesome" people. Georgi Markov's a prime counterexample to that.

But it does show that fantasy isn't reality and that there's probably not a secret FDA shop that's running the government.