p2pnet - rss feed: Putting your life on(the)line
p2pnet.net news:- Hasan Elahi documents “nearly every waking hour of his life”. He “posts copies of every debit card transaction, so you can see what he bought, where, and when” and, “A GPS device in his pocket reports his real-time physical location on a map”.
That’s a bit extreme, surely?
Not if you’re Elahi, 35. Because he’s caught the attention of the FBI, ever on guard to protect America’s interests. And that, apparently, includes keeping an eye on Elahi, an artist and Rutgers professor.
He’s been recording his life the last three years so he can have a permanent, indisputable alibi.
Why would he need it?
“The Bangladeshi-born American says the US government mistakenly listed him on its terrorist watch list - and once you’re on, it’s hard to get off,” says Wired Magazine, going on:
To convince the Feds of his innocence, Elahi has made his life an open book. Whenever they want, officials can go to his site and see where he is and what he’s doing. Indeed, his server logs show hits from the Pentagon, the Secretary of Defense, and the Executive Office of the President, among others.
The globe-hopping prof says his over exposed life began in 2002, when he stepped off a flight from the Netherlands and was detained at the Detroit airport. He says FBI agents later told him they’d been tipped off that he was hoarding explosives in a Florida storage unit; subsequent lie detector tests convinced them he wasn’t their man. But with his frequent travel - Elahi logs more than 70,000 air miles a year exhibiting his art work and attending conferences - he figured it was only a matter of time before he got hauled in again. He might even be shipped off to Gitmo before anyone realized their mistake. The FBI agents had given him their phone number, so he decided to call before each trip; that way, they could alert the field offices. He hasn’t been detained since.
Elahi had the enlightening experience of “dozens of interviews with the FBI, finally culminating in nine back to back polygraphs, which finally ‘cleared’ him,” says Ethan Zuckerman on his World Changing blog
Elahi, “explains that the power dynamic of an FBI interview leads to a very human response - the desire for survival,” says Zuckerman. “Elahi says that he could have questioned the legality of the experience, hiring a lawyer, but he realized that there was the possibility that any act of resistance could have gotten him sent to Guantanamo.”
So, “For the next few months, every trip Elahi took, he’d call his FBI agent and give the routing, so he didn’t get detained along the way. He realized, after a point - why just tell the FBI - why not tell everyone?”
Why not indeed?
Definitely stay tuned.
(Cheers, Richie)
Also See:
Wired Magazine - The Visible Man: An FBI Target Puts His Whole Life Online, ISSUE 15.06
World Changing - Tracking Hasan Elahi, October 19, 2006
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Tired of being treated like a criminal? They depend on you, not the other way around. Don’t buy their ‘product’. Do bug your local politicians. Use emails, snail-mail, phone calls, faxes, IM, stop them in the street, blog. And if you’re into organizing, organize petitions, organize demonstrations and then turn up on your local political rep’s doorstep, making sure you’ve contacted your local tv/radio station/newspaper in advance. Don’t just complain. Do something!
May 24th, 2007 at 6:36 pm
Well if you’re being watched with intermittant short-term detainments, I guess publishing it to the world instead of the FBI makes it very difficult to classify (confidential / secret / top secret) his surveillance! I bet the FBI’s footage is still classified though, but who would want it? His is probably better he he…
May 24th, 2007 at 6:37 pm
Well if you’re being watched with intermittant short-term detainments, I guess publishing it to the world instead of the FBI makes it very difficult to classify (confidential / secret / top secret) his surveillance! I bet the FBI’s footage is still classified though, but who would want it? His is probably better he he…