[Peace-discuss] Watch what you read (the FBI is)

[C. G. Estabrook]

[And don't talk to strangers, especially when they're from the US 
Political Police.  Look what happened to Martha Stewart.  --CGE]


	Careful: The FB-eye may be watching
	Reading the wrong thing in public can get you in trouble
	By Marc Schultz
	Published 07.17.2003
	Creative Loafing Atlanta

http://atlanta.creativeloafing.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=12715

"The FBI is here," Mom tells me over the phone. Immediately I can see my 
mom with her back to a couple of Matrix-like figures in black suits and 
opaque sunglasses, her hand covering the mouthpiece like Grace Kelly in 
Dial M for Murder. This must be a joke, I think. But it's not, because 
Mom isn't that funny.

"The who?" I say.

"Two FBI agents. They say you're not in trouble, they just want to talk. 
They want to come to the store."

I work in a small, independent bookstore, and since it's a slow Tuesday 
afternoon, I figure, "Sure." Someone I know must have gotten some 
government work, I think; hadn't my consultant friend spoken recently of 
getting rolled onto some government job? Background check, I think, 
interviewing acquaintances ... No big deal, right? Then, of course, I 
make a big deal about it in front of my co-workers.

"That was my mom," I tell them. "The FBI's coming for me." They laugh; 
it's a good joke, especially when the FBI actually shows up. They are 
not the bogeymen I had been expecting. They're dressed casually, they 
speak familiarly, but they are big. The one in front stands close to 7 
feet, and you can tell his partner is built like a bulldog under his 
baggy shirt and shorts.

"You Marc Schultz?" asks the tall one. He shows me his badge, introduces 
himself as Special Agent Clay Trippi. After assuring me that I'm not in 
trouble, he asks if there is someplace we can sit down and talk. We head 
back to Reference, where a table and chairs are set up. We sit down, and 
I'm again informed that I am not in trouble.

Then, Agent Trippi asks, "Do you drive a black Nissan Altima?" And I 
realize this meeting is not about a friend. Despite their reassurances, 
and despite the fact that I haven't committed any federal offenses (that 
I know of), I'm starting to feel a bit like I'm in trouble.

They ask me if I was driving my car on Saturday, and I say, reasonably 
sure, that I was. They ask me where I went, and I struggle for a moment 
to remember Saturday. I make a lame joke about how the days run together 
when you're underemployed. They smile politely. Was I at work on 
Saturday? I think so.

"Were you at the Caribou Coffee on Powers Ferry?" asks Agent Trippi. 
That's where I get my coffee before work, and so I tell him yes, 
probably, just before remembering Saturday: Harry Potter day, opening 
early, in at 8:30.

So I would have been at Caribou Coffee that Saturday, getting my small 
coffee, room for cream. This information seems to please the agents.

"Did you notice anything unusual, anyone worth commenting on?" OK, I 
think. It's the unusual guy they want, not me. I think hard, wondering 
if it was Saturday I saw the guy in the really cool reclining 
wheelchair, the guy who struck me as a potential James Bondian 
supervillain, but no: That was Monday.

Then they ask if I carried anything into the shop -- and we're back to me.

My mind races. I think: a bomb? A knife? A balloon filled with 
narcotics? But no. I don't own any of those things. "Sunglasses," I say. 
"Maybe my cell phone?"

Not the right answer. I'm nervous now, wondering how I must look: 
average, mid-20s, unassuming retail employee. What could I have possibly 
been carrying?

Trippi's partner speaks up: "Any reading material? Papers?" I don't 
think so. Then Trippi decides to level with me: "I'll tell you what, 
Marc. Someone in the shop that day saw you reading something, and 
thought it looked suspicious enough to call us about. So that's why 
we're here, just checking it out. Like I said, there's no problem. We'd 
just like to get to the bottom of this. Now if we can't, then you may 
have a problem. And you don't want that."

You don't want that? Have I just been threatened by the FBI? Confusion 
and a light dusting of panic conspire to keep me speechless. Was I 
reading something that morning? Something that would constitute a problem?

The partner speaks up again: "Maybe a printout of some kind?"

Then it occurs to me: I was reading. It was an article my dad had 
printed off the Web. I remember carrying it into Caribou with me, 
reading it in line, and then while stirring cream into my coffee. I 
remember bringing it with me to the store, finishing it before we 
opened. I can't remember what the article was about, but I'm sure it was 
some kind of left-wing editorial, the kind that never fails to incite me 
to anger and despair over the state of the country.

I tell them all this, but they want specifics: the title of the article, 
the author, some kind of synopsis, but I can't help them -- I read so 
much of this stuff.

"Do you still have the article?" Probably not, but I suggest we check 
behind the counter. When that doesn't pan out, I have the bright idea to 
call my dad at work, see if he can remember. Of course, he can't put 
together a coherent sentence after I tell him the FBI are at the store, 
questioning me.

"The FBI?" he keeps asking. Eventually I get him off the phone, and 
suggest it may be in my car. They follow me out to the parking lot, 
where Trippi asks me if there's anything in the car he should know about.

"Weapons, drugs? It's not a problem if you do, but if you don't tell me 
and then I find something, that's going to be a problem." I assure him 
there's nothing in my car, coming very close to quoting Rudy Ray Moore 
in Dolemite: "There's nothin' in my trunk, man."

The excitement of the questioning -- the interrogation -- has made me 
just a little bit giddy. I almost laugh out loud when they ask me to pop 
my trunk.

There's nothing in my car, of course. I keep looking anyway, while 
telling them it was probably some kind of 
what-did-they-know-and-when-did-they-know-it article about the buildup 
to Gulf War II. Trippi nods, unsatisfied. I turn up some papers from the 
University of Georgia, where I'm about to begin as a grad student. He 
asks me what I'm going to study.

"Journalism," I say. As I duck back into the car, I hear Agent Trippi 
informing his partner, "He's going to UGA for journalism" in a way that 
makes me wonder whether that counts against me.

Back in the store, Trippi gives me his card and tells me to call him if 
I remember anything. After he's gone, I call my dad back to see if he 
has calmed down, maybe come up with a name. We retrace some steps 
together, figure out the article was Hal Crowther's "Weapons of Mass 
Stupidity" from the Weekly Planet, a free independent out of Tampa. It 
comes back to me then, this scathing screed focusing on the way 
corporate interests have poisoned the country's media, focusing mostly 
on Fox News and Rupert Murdoch -- really infuriating, deadly accurate 
stuff about American journalism post-9-11. So I call the number on the 
card, leave a message with the name, author and origin of the column, 
and ask him to call me if he has any more questions.

To tell the truth, I'm kind of anxious to hear back from the FBI, if 
only for the chance to ask why anyone would find media criticism 
suspicious, or if maybe the sight of a dark, bearded man reading in 
public is itself enough to strike fear in the heart of a patriotic citizen.

My co-worker, Craig, says that we should probably be thankful the FBI 
takes these things seriously; I say it seems like a dark day when an 
American citizen regards reading as a threat, and downright pitch-black 
when the federal government agrees.

Special Agent Trippi didn't return calls from CL. But Special Agent Joe 
Parris, Atlanta field office spokesman, stressed that specific FBI 
investigations are confidential. He wouldn't confirm or deny the Schultz 
interview.

"In this post-911 era, it is the absolute responsibility of the FBI to 
follow through on any tips of potential terrorist activity," Parris 
says. "Are people going to take exception and be inconvenienced by this 
at times? Oh, yeah. ... A certain amount of convenience is going to be 
offset by an increase in security."

Marc Schultz is a freelance writer in Atlanta. The Weekly Planet happens 
to be Creative Loafing's sister paper in Tampa. For a copy of the column 
that got Schultz in hot water, go to here: 
http://tampa.creativeloafing.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A2752

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