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The Domestic Intelligence State: A True Tale from the Annals of a “Disloyal American”
In 1943, while in the first grade, at the beginning of each school day I would stand, place my right hand over my heart, and solemnly swear, “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the country for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” I took these words very seriously, for I was proud to be an American, to live in a country where every person was guaranteed freedom and fair treatment. Never once did it occur to me to be anything other than a good citizen. My life journey proceeded like the lives of other middle-class American girls: Sunday school, Brownie Scouts, Girl Scouts, high school graduation, college, marriage and family. But in 1970, on President Richard Nixon’s watch, U.S. taxpayers unknowingly funded an FBI investigation which resulted in my having my very own FBI file. This several-page document branded me a “disloyal American” with a string of “aliases,” who intended to “overthrow” the United States government while engaging in activities dangerous to the well being of my fellow citizens. Several years later when I obtained my file under the Freedom of Information Act, I was astonished to discover my alter-ego as viewed through the FBI lens. How could anyone believe I was powerful enough to overthrow anything, much less the entire U.S. government, and assume that I would accomplish this feat while working three minimum-wage jobs as a waitress, adult basic education instructor, and part-time legal secretary, while attending evening graduate school at Georgia State University, and single-handedly rearing four young daughters. This government document made me feel denigrated to the level of common criminal, for the FBI had transformed my legal maiden name, legal married names, and professional name into “aliases” which implied that I conducted my life under false identities. If I were someone reading the file and unfamiliar with my actual self, I could not have imagined myself to be simply an ordinary twice-divorced mom belatedly struggling toward independence after divorce from an alcoholic-attorney-first-husband, and abandonment by an adulterous-attorney-second-husband when I was seven months pregnant with our now-one-year-old child. The names of the FBI informants who triggered the investigation were censored with black ink so I could not discover which neighbor, friend, relative or acquaintance, had acted to do me harm. Much of the information was downright false, and the remainder deliberately distorted to create the appearance of wrongdoing. The dangerous anti-American behavior reported by FBI informants was that I joined the National Organization for Women, supported equal rights for African-Americans and homosexuals, and participated in an anti-Vietnam-war protest. Other accusations stated that I “attended a Jane Fonda rally on the Emory University campus” and that my Austrian nanny—who took care of my children to enable me to earn a meager living while working toward a graduate degree, was in reality a “white slave being held against her will.” Fortunately, when two FBI agents appeared at my Atlanta front door to investigate these allegations, my unshackled “white slave” answered the doorbell while I was nude in my bathtub soaking my aching feet after my shift as a waitress in a Greek restaurant in Underground Atlanta. (Perhaps it was the word “underground” which triggered the investigation; the FBI ain’t telling, so I shall never know). One file leads to another. Twenty years later, I also acquired a North Carolina SBI file when I provided the public with true, documented information about a candidate campaigning for district attorney who had less than a savory personal history, including repeatedly driving drunk, abandoning two wives and two sets of children, using illegal substances including cocaine, committing adultery, obtaining an illegal abortion for the mistress of a married policeman friend, defrauding the IRS, and being documented as a sociopath by a respected psychiatrist. This candidate was well connected politically, so instead of investigating him and charging him with crimes, in its infinite wisdom the State of North Carolina chose to charge me with “anonymously publishing” the unhappy truth about a candidate during a political campaign, which North Carolina deemed criminal behavior. Though I “surrendered” voluntarily to the SBI agent, I was taken to jail, mug-shot, fingerprinted, and “convicted” by a retired judge the State of North Carolina specially assigned to accomplish this deed. Fortunately, the American Civil Liberties Union took my appeal and pointed out that my “anonymous” behavior consisted of personally delivering said document to the candidate himself at his law office, personally delivering it to the local newspaper editor, personally delivering it to the existing district attorney, and standing on a street corner identifying myself by name as I handed copies of the document to passersby, which included several local policemen. The ACLU had me exonerated in a precedent-setting ruling which found the North Carolina law unconstitutional and a violation of my right of free speech. But somewhere in the bowels of the SBI, this file lives on, and since North Carolina has no freedom of information law, I am prevented from checking my file for misinformation. Of course our government must implement reasonable and constitutional measures to investigate those who are a clear and present danger to us. But this should not include using FBI and SBI resources to intimidate citizens exercising our rights to free speech and free assembly. When the government investigates the National Organization for Women but does not use similar tactics on the Jaycees or the Elks Club, we should wonder whether a conservative political agenda might be at work, rather than an honest effort to protect us from those acting to cause us harm. Now that our post-9/11 government under President George W. Bush has reinstated the practice of using tax dollars to conduct surveillance over ordinary Americans, you, too, can have your very own FBI file in some drawer in some office in Washington. Should you apply for a job, loan, passport, or appointment to public office, a background check might produce a negative profile which could adversely affect your life. And you can have your very own SBI file to which you have no right of access. When, because of continuing problems with background checks in my professions as a college professor, licensed psychotherapist, and mediator, I requested from the court a copy of my successful appeal by the ACLU, I discovered my “conviction” still in the court file, but the not-guilty appeal ruling was mysteriously absent. To set my record straight, I was required to make a special request to the sitting judge to write an order to correct this serious error. Should I ever run for public office, I have no doubt my opponent would somehow resurrect my “conviction” but fail to present the public with my exoneration on appeal. And should I act to correct this misimpression, no doubt some citizens would vote against me on the premise that “where there’s smoke, there must be fire.” I highly recommend that if you have any doubt about your own government records, you contact the United States Department of Justice and request your file if one exists, so you may correct any misinformation from ill-intended persons who presume God appointed them to supervise your existence. As for me, when I obtained my own file under the Freedom of Information Act and discovered so much gross misinformation from “anonymous” and unreliable sources, I requested that the FBI save taxpayer money and come to the horse’s mouth the next time it was curious about my life. I would graciously provide agents with documentation of my medical treatments, marriages and divorces, professional pursuits, financial affairs, religious and organizational affiliations, romantic liaisons, and reading literature, whatever the FBI deemed relevant to the security of our nation. Thus its file on this citizen would be accurate, and upon request I would supply periodic updates. Somehow, over the years, FBI interest in me as someone dangerous to the public welfare appears to have waned, as does SBI interest, but in the atmosphere of paranoia which currently pervades our government, one never knows who might be tapping our phones, reviewing our library records and internet usage, opening our snail-mail, and conducting other domestic surveillance of our ordinary lives. We must not forget that inherent in the Pledge of Allegiance are Constitutional guarantees of liberty and justice for all, which includes you and me.
Dr. Anne Russell is a Wilmington writer and college professor who is a human rights activist. Write to her at PO Box 961, Wrightsville Beach NC 28480. |
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Carolina Civic Voice Spring 2006 Vol. 6, No 1 |