The other day, RL sent this link. It’s to a nice, friendly, good-humored, free site that helps people compose letters to the FBI requesting their infamous files.
You just fill in your personal info and the site produces a letter you can print out and send off to find out what the FBI’s got on you. Nice convenience.
Naturally, despite all its cheerful disclaimers, the site makes me want to wrap my entire self in tinfoil several layers deep.
There was a time, I suppose, when I held the common fear: If you ask for your FBI file and you don’t already have one, they’ll start one. (The site says this is probably an urban legend, but I don’t agree.)
Now, more likely, it’s as RL joked: my file would be so big I couldn’t afford the printing costs. (He’s writing for his, though, and maybe his infamous “ties” or “links” to me and other dangerous radicals will show up in it.)
So … Have you ever seen your FBI files? And if not, do you want to? And if you want to, would you be able to poke your fingers far enough out of your tinfoil wrapper to use the services of that site?
Well, now you’ve made me curious. But, no, If I’m not on their radar, I don’t want to put myself there by contacting the Baby Roasters. And, if I am on their radar… I can’t see how seeing what they know will help me in any way. Either the information is complete and correct, or it isn’t. It isn’t likely I would want to clear up any inaccuracies (even if that were possible), and I don’t think I’d want to give them the correct info anyway.
I agree with Kent-I don’t think I have one(Mulder and Scully haven’t haven’t shown up at the door-so far) and why risk creating one? (Insert “X-Files” music here)
Not a chance. I’m sure they probably have one on me – from my years with the LP, among others, but seeing it would be of no benefit to me.
Toilet paper is far more useful.
I’m sure I have one starting from when I hung out with Irish subversives back in the 70’s.
I’d love to see it just out of curiosity, but I wouldn’t dare ask for it!
water lily … Irish subversives. Now there’s a story! If we’re ever in a position to share a glass of wine, I’ll weasel the details out of you, for sure.
I’ll wait til The Wall comes down.
Now you guys are not seeing the silver lining in this.
If everyone in the Freedom movement ask for it at the same time imagine what kind of headache that will cause them.
The backlog so many requests would cause could be very disruptive.
I’ve bumped up against some “interesting” people in my life and my ideas certainly are not approved of by either party, but if they did have a file on my me it would be a sure sign of the end times. It might be worth a look. However, I do understand how government works and there’s no telling…
My oldest son works for a company that makes “Smart Pots”. They are in great demand by anyone who grows individual plants, and that includes such things tomatoes, roses and “major herb”. He’s a shooter (surprise) and has a lot of “gear” from such places as Thunder Ranch, which trains a lot of LE officers. Every time he’s working a booth at a home and garden show some seedy character will always slide up to him and ask him if “he’s on the job”. He’s come to the conclusion that every third person in the weed business is either an informant or undercover. Where I’m going with this is that these guys have to justify their existence and since they work for the gov they justify it through reports… lots of reports. It’s entirely possible that someone who’s moved a lot could be cross referenced by lots of agents and in the age of computers it would be easy to end up with several entries on an FBI lineage graph. Bottom line is there’s no telling whats out there on us.
And for you Canadians who might be so inclined: http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/tbsf-fsct/350-57-eng.pdf
(H/T to M.)
ADDRESS ADDED per M.:
Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Yves Marineau
Access to Information and Privacy Coordinator
RCMP MAILSTOP #61
73 Leikin Drive
Ottawa , Ontario K1A 0R2
Telephone: 613-843-6800
Facsimile: 613-825-8221
Yves.J.Marineau@rcmp-grc.gc.ca
EN — Your son sounds interesting. 🙂
And I think your analysis is right. The FBI isn’t looking for “a few good terrorists.” It never has. Its aim is to scoop in any possible info on any possible person. (In that, what Clark says is SO true; it’s just like the STASI.)
I’m not surprised that so many visits to your son’s booth are by agents provocateur using classic & obvious tactics. (In fact, those tactics are so common and well known that I’m surprised more members of Anonymous and LulzSec didn’t recognize recently that one of their “leaders,” Sabu, had been turned by the feds, since he went into high provocation mode.)
For the record, of course, I must state that I have (or had) “ties” to both Timothy McVeigh and (the horrors) the FBI: http://billstclair.com/lodge/RA_980109.shtml
With tongue firmly in cheek, of course.
Everyone has one.
I HAVE used that site, but so far the paper is just sitting on my kitchen table. Curiosity will overwhelm me sooner or later, although I can’t imagine they would have bothered to document anything about my life. But who knows! Obviously their mission has been uber mass data mining.
I’ve spent a lifetime trying to stay under/off the radar….if I sent for one and found they had a report on me, it would only depress me for failing…but then I don’t want to send for one and have them have an address for me 😉
I have such a file.
I received my initial government security clearance in 1965. It was granted after a full special background investigation which goes farther into your life than the general run of the mill security check.
They re-ran it every 5 years.
When I initially applied for the clearance, one of the forms I signed said that I could never receive the contents of my file.
But I sure would like to be able to see it.
In my time I’ve met a few of the “suits”. One pair were even wearing trench coats.
I know what I’ve done. I don’t care what they think I’ve done.
Hanza, I remember signing that form also. If I recall there was another statement on the same form that made it clear all my work, notes, and accumulated files were also property of the US government. Each statement was initialed and signed. Nothing I was involved in has any relevance today. It would be interesting to see if they would enforce that?
Hanza & EN,
Have fun with it. Request your files. If they refuse on the basis of the form, tell them you never heard of any such thing. If they remind you that you signed it back when, tell them they must be mistaken because you never worked on XXXXX; that must have been an impostor. If they still deem the security of the project(s) important after all these years, that should tie up an agent or two for a while.
I hold a clearance now that I got when I was working on some stuff for the Army that has been renewed a few times since then. I don’t remember much about what I signed when I applied for the clearance but I do have a copy of my clearing form dealing with what I was allowed to talk about from that time. (Basically nothing for 20 years and then only with prior approval even if it is on tv or can be bought on the street then)
Nothing in that says I can’t get my FBI file (if any). I’m not worried about what is in it since what ever is there has had no affect on my clearance gaining/keeping ability.
If anyone does get their file and it is not too much hassle, I would love to hear about it and might even give a try then.
Busy Poor Dad (formally DrillSgtK)
When I wrote for mine, after a good long wait, I got back a letter saying in effect they could neither confirm nor deny that I had a file. What that means I dunno.
SwamiRabbitima — Now that’s freaking weird. That response seems to be common these days for FOIA requests in general. But for you looking for your own file? That I haven’t heard of.
ILTim — I hope once you actually send that letter you’ll come back to tell at least something about the results. (Not asking you to reveal that time back in ’84 when you … well, never mind. Just how the FBI handled your request and whether or not their info was accurate, appalling, etc.)
The “FBI file” has been relegated to a red herring. They are gathering much more info and putting together very sophisticated profiles with google and facebook. The real meat is in databases we are not widely aware of. (and potential whistleblowers are compartmentalized as never before achieved by mankind)
Both the GOOG and fb were largely initiated with the financial help of Sequoia Capital, a CIA financing operation. (openly so) Look at the characters involved, eg John Doerr, Kleiner Perkins etc.
BTW FBI files can contain information very helpful to the subject of the file. Someone having a lot of the standard red flags could also have an annotation indicating that this subject is not worth pursuing, is harmless, has actually argued their way to a gentleman’s standoff with “authorities” or similar, tacitly a “hands off this one” recommendation.
Claire, I’ll take you up on that glass of wine!
My area of The Bronx was an “interesting” place back in the 70’s, during the Irish “Troubles.”
Let’s leave it at that for now. 😉