Reading the wrong thing in public can get you in trouble

http://atlanta.creativeloafing.com/2003-07-17/rant.html

Careful: The FB-eye may be watching
Reading the wrong thing in public can get you in trouble

BY MARC SCHULTZ
7-17-03

"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 Paris, 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," Paris
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://charlotte.creativeloafing.com/newsstand/2003-06-04/news_cover.html.]