anal cavity search, anyone?

Have you ever felt like you were being watched?  I mean, REALLY felt like you were being watched?  It’s one thing to hear a weird noise during one of your phone conversations that you can pass off as your imagination or an equipment glitch, but it is another thing to really feel something breathing down your neck.   I have mentioned previously to friends that I thought my phone was making some weird noises.  They chided me for being paranoid.  The more they chided, the more I relented.  They had a point.  Why would anyone care about me?  I haven’t always made the best decisions, but it isn’t like I am doing anything illegal.  Who would be tapping my phone?

Then, a couple days ago I was going through the STIFF web referrals and noticed some strange domain names popping up.  In case you don’t know what web referrals are, they are the logs that a web provider keeps to show who is linking to and visiting our site.  That way, we can tell who has linked articles and blog postings that we might not have noticed ourselves.  Domains are incredibly generic records of who is visiting your site.  Most of the time, domain info doesn’t really tell you a whole lot, just that 5-6 people with speakeasy accounts have visited.  Sometimes, you’ll see a specific university or public library system.  I think that most of the time these are filmmakers who have submitted or are thinking about submitting.  Then, I noticed one that was kind of weird.

 

Army.mil?  Why is the army checking out STIFF?  We don’t typically get a lot of films from soldiers.  We did show Patricia Boiko’s Corporal’s Boots at STIFF 2006, but we don’t really get traffic from the names of specific films because our schedule info is hosted on a different server.  Then, I saw another acronym that I didn’t recognize at first.

Osd.mil?  What could that be?  I typed it into a browser and was pointed to the Office of the Secretary of Defense.  WTF?  Why is the Office of the Secretary of Defense interested in Seattle’s True Independent Film Festival?  My blood pressure went up a little bit. How do you end up getting the government checking you out more times than the entire student body of a university where we recently had a packed screening of some of our favorite films?  I started racking my brain trying to think about press conferences I have seen where politicians answered questions about spying on US citizens.  When pressed, didn’t Bush say that you have to be a citizen receiving correspondence from a foreign shore to even be considered for this surveillance? 

Oh crap…  I suddenly remembered a couple emails that have hit my inbox lately:

Dear Sirs

I am XXXXXXX an Iranian Film maker. As my film "XXXXXXXXX "has surveyed the extent to which the Democracy exists in Iran, I could not receive financial aid for film production from any
institution. Whereas it is not possible for me to pay the registration
fee, I will appreciate you to introduce me if there is any other way
to my film participation in your excellent film festival. I sincerely hope that you can help me in this matter.

And, my favorite of the two:

My name is XXXXXX. I’m a young Film Director from Iran. I am very interested in American culture and people and I like to participate in your Film Festival.  My film is about War in Iraq and terrorists attacked on an American soldier in Iraq and I shot my film in Iraq. (It’s 30 minute) However, the Iranian system doesn’t allow usage of Credit Card. Unfortunately; it makes it impossible for me to pay the fee.  However, I would like to join your Film Festival with my film.  Below is synopsis of the film:

Hmm..  Emails from Iran with the words terrorists, attack, democracy, Aid, American Soldier, join, participation…  I guess I can understand why somebody from the government might want to take a little closer look at what STIFF is.  Surely, they’d check out the site, see it was a film festival, realize that we haven’t done anything and move on to the next phantom threat.   

But then my writer’s mind went into overdrive.  I started to wonder why they have been to the site so many times.  I’ve only received two emails from Iran.  Once suspicions have been raised about you, how much information do they collect before they realize you aren’t a threat?  Or, what other information do they start to look at that I can’t notice on a referral log?  It’s not like anyone sends you a candy gram to let you know that you are being investigated for something.  Then I started to think about the weird noises I have been hearing on the phone and the strange lag in my internet connection, even though I have the most bandwidth my provider will sell. 

All at once, bits and pieces of every phone conversation I have had for the past year started to ooze into my consciousness.  I’ve been working on a documentary for about 6 months about the alternative comedy scene in Seattle.  What would happen if someone who suspects me of being a terrorist has overheard a comic talking to me about “Bombing” at one of the clubs recently? What if that agent has just the right combination of overzealousness and ignorance of slang?    I doubt that the civil servants listening to phone calls are world-renowned for their sense of humor.  Would I stand in line at the airport and let someone I was traveling with utter the word, “Bomb”?  Even as a joke?  Not unless I was in the mood to spread my cheeks in front of strangers.

Then, I went white when I recalled a very recent conversation I had with my wife.  We moved about a month ago and every single garbage day I have lugged out tons of recycling and bags of garbage to where I had been told to leave it, only to come home to piles of wet cardboard and ripped garbage bags.  Ours was the only house not getting picked up.  It became a daily ritual where I would call Seattle Public utilities, have someone tell me that I needed to call back after 6 and leave a message (which I would do) and then have to start the cycle again the next day.  After about a month of this, these calls became less friendly and less friendly.  One time I was talking to my wife about the situation and I angrily commented that the only solution “might just be to blow up the building”.  Before my dad died, he always gave me little bits of wisdom, but he never mentioned that it might be a bad idea to say that you wanted to bring down a government building ESPECIALLY when the government is listening to your conversation.  If I have kids, this is something I plan to pass along. 

I pursued a degree in criminal justice and in my studies I met many people who have since ended up working for "the man".  It is a society like any other which means that it is made up of many different people with many different motivations.  Along the way, I met more than one person who could care less about civil liberties.  But, in a court of law, tried by a jury of my peers, I am confident that there is nothing outside of an easy explanation.

But what about court for TERRORISTS?  Can government agents just pick normal citizens up?   Do people suspected of terrorism even get a trial?  I doubt I have many peers at Guantanamo.  I turn 35 in March.  I don’t really find much time to work out these days.  I am in the process of ringing in a pretty soft middle age.  How much waterboarding can I take before I start admitting all kinds of shit that I didn’t do? 

So, if I go missing for any extended periods of time, please write a letter to amnesty international or something.  And to all you jokers out there who think you are being funny, please don’t send me text messages asking if I can hook you up with any heroin or yellow cake uranium.  Because, as our old friend Kurt Cobain said, “Just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you”

Thanks,

Clint

Comments

[shag]

“Just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you”
TRUE STORY

I told you about the time I got a random conversation left as a message on my cell phone from your number? The NSA must have crossed some wires. Boy I figured the dept. o' defense would be slick enough not to surf the site while so easily traceable, I figured they would hack some liberal think tank as use their info. No one would think twice about pansy liberals viewing the stiff's morally corupt site.