A thousand eyes watch us where we go.
Make no mistake. They look specially at us. Citizen, Green Card, H1B, it makes no difference. They have ways of detecting where we are, what we do, what we say, who we meet, probably what we eat! It may seem extreme to you – or maybe not. Depends on the experiences you’ve had.
Ever been followed around in a fancy store in the local mall? Ever have someone look suspiciously at you in a shop when you innocently put your hands in your pockets to keep them from freezing in this diabolical cold? And that was before 9/11, right?
So – the average American Joe can protest against national security acts that allow all types of information to be monitored, including e-mail, mail records, telephone conversations, medical records, bank statements, credit card stuff, travel records, even websites and keywords (e.g.: ‘bomb’, ‘drugs’, ‘kill’) that people use, would you believe it. Even the books you check out of the library!
But what about people like us? It’s a surveillance miasma out there, folks. Get that straight. You think the traffic cameras at the lights only catch speedsters? NO! They get more than registration plates, they’re after more than traffic offenders, they’re after ‘terrorists’ – i.e., you and me. You know how state troopers pull you over based on the silhouette of your head (i.e., curly hair = black man = perp)? There’s some similar type of profiling going on here, except I haven’t figured out quite how they do it. Maybe one of you knows. I want to say at this time that I welcome all links to this website. Please hook me (and others) up with whatever information you think is useful for us to survive in this place. We’re in this together, folks.
See, this surveillance culture has existed for a long time in Western society. I mean, during the French Revolution, they had those cabinet noir things, you know, secret rooms where officials would read the mail of suspects before passing them on. Then there was Bentham’s Panopticon that Foucault talks about (see link).
So this is nothing new, it’s just getting more organized, more networked, is all.
There’s talk of major American telecom companies tying up with the National Security Agency (NSA) to monitor telephone records. Room 641 A is what they call one of them. A year after 9/11, the NSA, probably the world’s biggest, most secret spy network, put into place the Information Awareness Office (IOA) to create something called Total Information Awareness (TIA). It allowed people to be wiretapped without warrants, things like that, things in contradiction to the First Amendment rights, please note.
All of this authorized by Dubya no less, you get me? There used to be some law called FISA from the ’70s. It said you needed ‘probable cause’ before you got a court warrant to wiretap people. Now Dubya has authorized NSA to wiretap at will, without a warrant, nothing. You could be being wiretapped at this very moment!
NSA has access to every major telecom company there is in USA, to their switches and records and what have you. Did you know that satellites are no longer used for international calls? No, the telecom companies in the US use underground domestic cables to connect. See how easy that makes it for the NSA to tap into all sorts of calls everywhere, just sitting in the US? The NSA can ‘digitally vacuum up’ all calls made on a network and subject them to an ‘arsenal of data-mining tools’.
Where did I get this stuff? It’s on Wiki, folks. Read for yourself. Privacy? Right to privacy? First Amendment rights? LOL, LOL. I don’t think so. They even have a program, Tides, it lets English speakers pick up clues from non-English conversations! What do you say to that?
Of course, this stuff gets public, and there’s a huge outcry from Joe American, talk that America is becoming Orwellian (from George Orwell’s novel, 1984. See below), that mass surveillance was cutting into the rights of privacy of individual Americans, stuff like that. So they scrapped the IAO. But do you really think they scrapped it? No! The beast just shape-changed! Now it’s several other programs with innocuous sounding names – Basketball, Top Sail, etc. Heard about ‘Crypto City’? It exists, my friends! It’s in MD, so they say.
Don’t get me wrong. The US – and any other sovereign nation, for that matter – has every right to employ ways and means of defending itself and its citizens against terrorist attacks. But my point is this: a lot of people are using this surveillance culture to make non-Americans, non-white residents, new immigrants, feel insecure every day. Resident alien, is that what it means? You tell me.
He made a note to himself to write about the attack on a yellow post-it.
Don’t we contribute our brains and labour to build this economy as much as the next person, for god’s sake? The wetback contingent does a lot of dirty work, believe you me. The economy depends on it! Yet, can we go to the grocery store without the clerk following us around? Can we walk into a café or bar without there being a sudden lull in the conversation? I mean, really, more than us, they should worry about laws that allow people to walk into bars with concealed guns! Seriously.
But I digress. Trawling the net, I can see there is the need for an alternative forum, a place where people like us can meet and talk. More importantly, have a safe box where we can copy, upload and encrypt our most important dox. You know, citizenship papers, green card, other visa papers, passports, social security card, driver’s license, salary stubs, student ID, ID cards from employers, tax papers, university degrees, stuff like that.
Why, you ask. Well, read on!
Because I believe that there is something going on. I call it ‘Operation Code Red Indian’ (not that it is targeting only Indians; as far as I know, every non-white immigrant is fair game). So far, I have no proof of it, of course, but I think there is a secret government program stemming from Crypto City. Maybe one of you hackers out there can find it … This program, I believe, employs a unique method of getting rid of people, of deporting them back to their home countries.
Here’s how it works: what the government basically does is, it identifies people who are not very visible or connected in the community for whatever reason: lack of funds, family in America, friends, English-language skills or a so-called ‘important’ job, people like you and me who just want to get on with it quietly.
Then what it does is, it tracks all their official documents and history and deletes them from the records everywhere. It breaks into people’s houses and seizes stuff. Corporates, universities, employers of all types, everyone’s in on it, that’s my belief. I mean, I work in a university, why are there security cameras everywhere, for god’s sake. Not to monitor students! Or – not to monitor all students. Some students, some staff. Has it happened to me? No, not as yet. Could it happen to me? Hell, yes. And to you, too!
‘Wang Jiao episode details,’ he scribbled on the post-it.
Now think about this for a minute. What happens to you if all your important documents get deleted, you have no papers, no history?
Do you exist?
It’s certainly a philosophical question.
How to prove you exist?
Difficult.
But the answer is brutal. There is no record of you anywhere, no history of you. You don’t exist, so what are you doing here?
You’re undocumented.
You’re deportable.
You’re deported. They have no record of such a person as you. No one’s ever heard of your name!
You’re thrown out of a place where you’ve struggled to build your life, where you’ve lived as a contributing member of society. You get the picture now?
It’s straight out of George Orwell’s novel, 1984. Read it if you haven’t already. Fantastic book. Orwell talks about how people are ‘unpersoned’. An ‘unperson’ is someone whose past is expunged, who is removed from public record and even memory by a repressive government that considers him or her to be a danger to society.
Are you a danger to society?
Are you going to risk being unpersoned?
It’s up to you.
What I’m saying is: get your stuff on this website, encrypt your stuff in a way only you can access it from anywhere. Keep a record of yourself. Be able to prove that you exist!
Add Note on Foucault:
The thing about the Panopticon is that it’s about the ‘unequal gaze’ – those being observed never know if and when they are being observed – and they can never return the gaze either! That way, they make sure we are always on our best behaviour! We internalize their discipline, so are less likely to break their rules – out of fear; making prison unnecessary even – I mean, everywhere’s a prison! Think of CCTV and surveillance cameras on the street. Now I hear they’re even able to pick up voices.
The phone rang and was answered by the machine. ‘Hey, Akhil, man, what’s with you? Everyone’s being trying to get through to you. Pick up the phone if you’re home, man.’ Murad’s voice sounded as if he was calling from some other world.
Akhil wondered whether to take the call or not. Where had Murad got his home number from? Maybe he had given it to him ages ago.
‘Yeah?’ he said.
‘Good god, man, are you even alive? Where’ve you been, people have been asking for you, your mobile is unreachable. I found this number in an old address book. What’s going on?’
‘My mobile is broken. I didn’t come into work the last couple of days. Haven’t been well. That’s not a crime, is it?’
‘Well, don’t you think you should inform your department or something? You’ll find ten messages on your machine from the secretary. Did you even listen to them?’
‘No. Didn’t you just hear me say I haven’t been well? What’s all the excitement about?’
‘Excitement? Excitement! The cop-fellas or whoever they are came looking for me to find out where you were yesterday!’
‘What, in the engineering department? How’d they know you knew me?’
‘Well, people have eyes, man, for chrissake. Someone must have told them they’d seen us together, how the fuck else!’
‘So, what’d they want to know?’
‘You know, stuff, where you’re from, whether you are Muslim…’
‘They asked you if I’m Muslim?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did they ask you that?’
‘As a matter of fact, no.’
‘How’d they figure I’m Muslim?’
‘It doesn’t matter, Akhil. I told them no. Wang Jiao has disappeared.’
‘What? Where?’
‘That’s what they’re trying to figure out, man. They thought you may know something.’
‘Why would I know anything about Wang Jiao?’
‘She hasn’t been seen since that day they came to question her.’
‘See, didn’t I tell you? It’s the Patriot Act. They’re probably holding her somewhere.’
‘For fuck’s sake, that just doesn’t make sense, man. If they were holding her, why would they come to find her? You really need to get over this conspiracy stuff, man.’
‘You don’t know how these things work, my friend. I’m telling you – wheels within wheels – you’ll see – the agencies all work separately.’
‘Well, are you coming into work today?’ Murad said, cutting in.
‘In a day or two, once I’ve got some stuff figured. I’m busy.’
‘Whatever, man.’
That damn fool. Well, he had done his best to get him to see the real situation. Now if something happened to Murad, it really wasn’t his fault. It probably served him right, anyway, for being so dense, for behaving as if everything was okay.
There was a new subscriber to the website, someone from China. Well, why not? Hindi–Chini bhai-bhai, right?
Name: Song Lin
Age: 23
Country of Origin: People’s Republic of China
Job: Computer Programmer, Comp Land Systems
History of US Stay: Arrived in 2002 as M.S. student, Computer Science Dept, Beltway U, 2004.
Next of kin in the US: Second cousin in California. Contact details: xxxxxxx
Family in country of origin: parents, younger sister. Contact details: xxxxxxx
Visa Status: One year work permit, applying through company for extension.
Social Security No: xxx xx xxxx
Photograph uploaded? Yes
How did you hear about this website? Through Indian friend
Documents uploaded: M.S. degree certificate, social security card, passport pages, visa papers, pay stubs from company where working.
This fellow had more sense than Murad. They would all just have to wait and watch. Wait and watch.
When the doorbell rang later, he got up, grudging, knowing it would have to be Janine or the kids. It was Janine, with Charlie hiding behind her, grinning at him.
‘What’s up, Janine?’ he asked, passing a hand over his forehead.
‘Nothing,’ she said, ‘just checking to see how you’re doing, if you need anything.’
‘I’m fine,’ Akhil said.
‘Oh, look!’ said Charlie, darting past them to the telephone table. ‘The light is blinking!’ Before Akhil could stop him, he had pressed it, then turned around smiling.
Janine held her breath. Akhil said nothing.
There were several messages: from the department, from Murad, from some unknown voices. A message from Tara: ‘Where are you, Akhs? Are you coming to pick me up as planned Sunday? Call me.’
‘Tomorrow’s Sunday,’ Janine said. ‘I could take your car and pick her up if you like.’
‘Yeah, maybe, we’ll see,’ he said. ‘I’ll let you know.’ Then, after a pause, ‘Thanks.’