FBI suspected (writer) William Vollmann was the Unabomber

[Newsjock]

Source: Washington Post

The celebrated writer William Vollmann has revealed that the FBI once thought he might be the Unabomber, the anthrax mailer and a terrorist training with the Afghan mujahideen.

In the September issue of Harper’s magazine, Vollmann describes the alarming and ludicrous contents of his 785-page secret government file, 294 pages of which he obtained after suing the FBI and CIA under the Freedom of Information Act. Spiked with sarcasm directed at what he sees as the agencies’ arrogance, presumptuousness and ineptitude, his Harper’s essay, “Life As a Terrorist,” is inflamed with moral outrage at the systemic violation of his privacy. “I begin to see how government haters are made,” he writes.

A winner of the National Book Award and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, Vollmann is considered one of the most insightful writers in the world on the subject of violence and war. His acerbic exposé in Harper’s about the government’s decades-long investigation into his personal life follows a series of recent revelations about National Security Agency surveillance.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/style-blog/wp/2013/08/21/fbi-suspected-william-vollmann-was-the-unabomber/

[leveymg]

1. This part caught my eye

Perhaps most alarming, he discovered in his heavily redacted file that he was considered a terrorist suspect even after the Unabomber had been apprehended in 1996. After the 9/11 attacks, he realizes, “I had graduated from being a Unabomber suspect to being an anthrax suspect.” Even today, his international mail often arrives opened. A private investigator explains to him: “Once you’re a suspect and you’re in the system, that ain’t goin’ away. . . . Anytime there’s a terrorist investigation, your name’s gonna come up.”

It’s a terrifying essay, only sporadically leavened by gallows humor. Vollmann admits that he’s hardly the worst victim of our overzealous government. But anyone who cares about the unraveling of our civil rights and the destruction of the American way of life should heed this chilling and deeply personal story. What he describes is a mostly invisible and completely impervious class of bureaucrats — he calls them “the Unamericans” — who systematically violate our privacy and disregard the presumption of innocence. The worst irony, of course, is they do this under the guise of protecting us.

Timely, considering how many of us have been profiled and are now "in the system." Probably, never to leave.

[Hydra]

2. The "Haters" as the Ministry of Truthiness like to call them

Have usually seen or been the victim of Gov't or corporate abuse.

It's not so abstract or funny when they show you how much power they have and how much YOU don't.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

3. I wouldn't be surprised to hear they suspect Rachael Maddow of something.

[sarcasmo]

4. I smell a movie.

[DeSwiss]

5. K&R

“And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed—if all records told the same tale—then the lie passed into history and became truth. 'Who controls the past' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.” ~George Orwell, 1984

[Comrade Grumpy]

6. I really enjoyed his Seven Dreams series, especially "The Ice Shirt."

He's a good and interesting essayist, too, plus, he wrote about smoking crack and hanging with whores in San Francisco. It may have been his Afghanistan stuff that got him noticed by the spooks; he was there in the early '90s.

[RainDog]

7. incredible n/t