If the Secret Service investigates an individual and nothing comes of it,

[no_hypocrisy]

are the records of the investigation available to that person by request like the Freedom of Information Act to see that individual's FBI files?

Just wondering.

[closeupready]

1. The secret service is not part of the FBI, I don't think.

n/t

[Virginia Dare]

4. No, Dept. of Treasury...n/t

[Lord Wortherington]

7. Incorrect, they are now a part of DHS

Department of Homeland Security

[Virginia Dare]

14. That's right, they are..

thanks for the correction. Another anti-worker move that I hope the next Democratic President undoes. Moving all of those agencies was all part of a union busting scheme.

[treestar]

6. FOIA act applies to the entire federal government

You have the right to see any records they have on you, with some exceptions (they black out employee names and other things that will compromise national security. :sarcasm:)

[CT_Progressive]

2. I could answer your question, but then I'd have to kill you.

:rofl:

[ovidsen]

3. I'd LOVE to see my file!

I'm convinced I've been under at least passive surveillance by the feds since 1968. I was in high school then, an avid short wave radio listener (built my own Knight Kit recievers) and as short wave listeners are wont to do, I sent letters to overseas stations asking for QSL cards. You write the station saying what you heard at what time of day and what frequency, and they send you a QSL post card confirming that, yes indeed, you DID hear the station and congrats.

Much to my surprise, when I sent Radio Havana, Radio Moscow, and Radio Peking (now Beijing) requests for cards, I not only recieved cards, but a load of propaganda on the virtues of communism, collectivism, the evils of capitalism, and the wanton mayhem caused by US troops during the Vietnam War. Some of the pictures were quite graphic.

I had a blast with the stuff. Soviet descriptions of unjustifiable bombings of civilisn targets in Hanoi, the barbaric use of torture by US troops of Viet Cong suspects, battle successes of the NVA, complete with pictures of downed US jets and captured pilots, and even 2 copies of Mao's "Little Red Book". I took them to my high school to show other students, and we debated what might be fact and what might be propaganda in the stuff that I was getting.

This all came to an end when the Post Office in Lombard, Illinois called me and my mother to a meeting with the postmaster general in Lombard who informed me in no uncertain terms that I was spreading (and thereby implicity endorsing) communist propaganda to my innocent high school peers, and while I wasn't quite guilty of treason, I was being watched, my mail was being monitred, and I had to give him all the literature I'd gotten from the "red menace" or risk being immediately drafted and sent to the firefight zones of Vietnam where my chances of survival were problamatic. I did. Except for one copy of Mao's "Little Red Book" which I used to continue to amuse myself with Mao's great, pithy sayings.

When I got to Cornell University (that hotbed of liberal anti-war sentiment) the campus police told me that (you guessed it) I was being watched. Needless to say, this made both my mother and I furious. I continued to participate in anti-war rallies, where my presence was noted by camera toting federal agents who made no secret of the fact that they were taking photos of posible subversives, revolutionaries, anarchists, draft-dodgers and so on for possible retaliation. Thank God for my 2-S student draft deferment, and my draft lottery number (304) which was so far down the list that my chances of being drafted if I dropped out of school were about zero.

But I'll never forget this blatant attempt by our benificent government to muzzle my rights of free speech, free expression, free exchange of ideas, and the privilige of disagreeing with my government.

Oh yes, I'm sure there's a file on me, complete with accounts of the women I slept with, the pot I smoked, the "communist" meetings I attended, and the continued booklets and phamplets I got from "The Red Menace" describing (as it turns out, with great accuracy) the futility of the US presence in SE Asia, complete with pics of villages that were "destroyed so they couold be "saved"".

Now it's happening all over again, but on a much more blatant, much less secretive way. Your mail is monitored, your phone is tapped, and even if you take part in a group that completely disavows violence even as it protests the carnage in Iraq, you... are... being.. watched.

No, I'm not paranoid. They're really watching me. Little old harmless me whose only acts of civil disobediance; quiet, peaceful opposition to the war in Iraq demands their utmust attention. God, I could be another Terry McVeigh! (hah) And it's not the watching itself that disturbs me. It's the possibiliy I'll be hauled off as a subversive, traitor or worse when my only "crime" is opposing the horrible waste of blood and treaasure in Iraq, a country that had as much to do with 9/11 as Luxembourg, with an arsenal of WMDs to match.

Mind you, at NO time was I actively promoting such solutions as offing Nixon and his cabinet, blowing up the capital, or other violent acts of terror and sedition. I simply talked with friends and wrote letters to the Cornell Daily Sun arguing that the Southeast Asian War was futile, could never be won without the complete co-operation of the Vietnamese people, which was impossible, and it was high time to get out and let the Vietnamese sort it out on their own terms.

Which they did. Vietman is now a signficant trading partner with the US (mostly seafood like shrimp) which I wouldn't touch wearing a hazmat suit All it took was one clandestine video of a shrimp farm showing residents dumping their nightsoil pots filled with the days human waste nto the fish farm water where I guess the shrimp found human waste to be very tasteful, indeed. Alabama, which has a threatened shrimp industry, monitors imports, and rejects at least half the product coming from places as varied as Southeast Asia and South America where the farm raised fish (principally tilapia) show high concentrations of human fecal bacteria, as well as antibiotics and other stuff you wouldn't give to your neighbors loud, vicious and probably marginally rabid pit bull.

Yup, I am being watched. Chances are you may be, too. I imagine the watches must be bored to tears.... (oviden's taking out the trash, his wife's balancing the checkbook. Hey, was that a check to DU she just wrote?) But it's the principle of the thing. A legitimate and fair government has no business spying on citizens who might disagree with W and his indefensible invasion of Iraq, but has no intention of taking this issue beyond the vocal and written word.

The evidence leads to the inescapable conclusion that we have neither a legitimate nor a fair government. Only a cabal of evil men bent on destroying freedom, the Constitution, and everything we've come to know and love about a once free country where you didn't face detention or worsse for having the audacity to question your own government's policies.

Keep on rockin' in the free world.

[CT_Progressive]

5. ^^^^^ I don't know that guy !!! ^^^^^^

:D

[ovidsen]

8. Six degrees of separation

You probably know somebody who knows somebody (repeat 3 or 4 times) who knows me.

So we are both tangled up in a plot to undermine the God-like powers of W and Darth Cheney and one way tickets to Guantanamo are already being processed.

We're doomed. Doomed as doomed can be! :P

[Lilith Velkor]

9. Do you know for a fact you are being watched now?

If so, how do you know?

[ovidsen]

10. Interesting question

I'm all but certain there's a dossier on me, but since I have not been active in dissident groups in decades (unless DU counts as a "dissident group"), it's doubtful that my phones or mail are being closely monitored (I'm not that paranoid).

On the other hand, I have been active in the mainstream media (ABC, NBC, Mutual) for the past 30 years, with press passes (both active and dormant) from police departments in Chicago, New York City, Washington, DC, the White House and Congress, and Voice of America, among others in my possession. Acquiring these, I'm sure, included examining my files, which I presume showed that while I have a big mouth, I have not been involved in any group seeking violent action against the US government.

Once those dossiers are opened, they're never closed, so I wouldn't be surprised if the feds occasionally check my phone records, bank accounts, spending habits and such, just to make sure I haven't slipped into Terry McVeigh or Al Qaeda land. I have occasionally been questioned by Secret Service and Justice Department types, once every year or two. But I assume they've determined that while I may have radical ideas, I'm a true blue pacifist and genuine liberal patriot who doesn't even own a gun, much less materials for WMDs.

Personally, I think it's kind of funny. Anyone devoting significant amounts of time monitoring my daily actives will probably slowly sink into an irreversible coma, because my life, more or less, is about as exciting as watching paint dry.

[Lilith Velkor]

12. As is mine.

My activities have been much more recent, so the probablity is higher for me. But if I'm being watched, it's not in an obvious way, like with you.

Do they just show up at your house or office and ask questions?

[ovidsen]

13. No, they just call me up

Sometimes they have called me and we meet in a person at an office, more often than not the phone chat suffices. There's no real coersion involved. I figure if I co-operate, and I have nothing to hide, eventually they'll lose active interest in me. It's just like they want to know where I am. They're nice enough, and I haven't heard from them in 3 or 4 years, but I have no doubt that in some dust covered file cabinet or rarely accessed hard drive, they have info on how much I eat, what I make, where I go, and so on.

Since I'm not doing anything (IMO) even remotely illegal, I'm amused by their waste of taxpayer time and money on little ol' harmless but registered to vote me.

[Kansas Wyatt]

11. Don't worry.... Your government has a file on everyone.

Even when they say they don't, they do. You even become more interesting to them when you file freedom of information requests, and your file grows significantly.

Now be a good citizen, and just move along.
:sarcasm: