Big Brother Is Watching, Listening
SAN FRANCISCO, May 15 2002
(CBS/AP)
"If it's your job to hunt Islamic fundamentalist
terrorists, then it's your
job to know that they don't hang out with Jewish
lesbians in San Francisco."
Peace activist Kate Rafael
(CBS) It is America's new reality: security and
surveillance. From intense
scrutiny at airports to expanded government
authority to track Internet use,
federal agents now watch American citizens more
closely than ever, reports
CBS News Correspondent John Blackstone.
Such scrutiny seemed over the line to retired
phone company worker Barry
Reingold, after the FBI got interested in remarks
Reingold made at his health
club. After loudly criticizing the war in
Afghanistan, Reingold had some
unexpected visitors a few days later.
"I said, you know, 'Who's there?' And they said,
'It's the FBI,'" said
Reingold, 60.
Reingold says the two agents wanted to know more
about his locker room
outburst.
"Someone's reported to us that you've been
talking about what happened on
9/11 and terrorism and oil and Afghanistan,"
Reingold said the agents told
him.
The FBI insists agents do not interview people
because of their political
views. But since 9/11, the agency says it needs
to cast a wider net than ever
in its search for information.
That's helped create fears the FBI could slip
back to the days of J. Edgar
Hoover, when the agency went outside the law to
watch Americans whose
politics Hoover disagreed with.
The current FBI director Robert Mueller says
investigations today are lawful
รข€” and thorough.
"If we get a threat," Mueller said, "We will do
everything we can to
interview anybody who may have some information
about that threat."
When a locker room bull session can bring
questions from the FBI, it's clear
agents are casting a wide net indeed.
Kate Rafael, a California peace activist, often
takes part in anti-war
demonstrations. But she was stunned when an FBI
agent called her, seeking
information about Muslim men.
"If it's your job to hunt Islamic fundamentalist
terrorists," said Rafael,
"Then it's your job to know that they don't hang
out with Jewish lesbians in
San Francisco."
Josh Thayer got a surprise, too.
"I'm about to go to a meeting, very stressful
day, all of a sudden, the FBI
calls."
The agent wanted to know about the computer
systems at Independent Media, a
leftist Web site where Josh occasionally works as
a volunteer technician.
Thayer said he has no idea how the FBI got his
name.
"I really don't. That is, to me, that's the
scariest part. You are being
watched, you know, like what you do isn't
anonymous."
From left to right, government surveillance since
Sept. 11 is raising privacy
fears.
U.S. Rep. Bob Barr, a conservative Republican
from Georgia, has joined
liberal Democrats to back new privacy
legislation.
"That sphere of what's left of privacy gets
smaller and smaller and smaller,"
said Barr. "Each incremental taking away of that
privacy by the government
becomes much more important." |
