Background on JG Ballard's, um, paean to Ronald Reagan, published some 13 years the Gipper became prez: http://books.guardian.co.uk/authors/author/0,5917,-15,00.html Anyone who's been online for a while knows that Secret Service visits and phone calls about threats to the president are part of the background noise of the Internet. It may be that they've expanded the scope of what they consider a credible threat after Sep. 11, but it's too early to tell. -Declan --- Date: Wed, 5 Dec 2001 13:18:10 -0500 To: declanat_private From: Sean Gullette <kgbat_private> Subject: U.S. Secret Service responds to "Why I Want to Fuck George Bush" This summer I had a telephone call from the Secret Service to ask me about a piece I had published online called "Why I Want to Fuck George Bush," an homage to JG Ballard's classic essay. Did I want to 'talk to the President,' I was asked? I laughed. After reassuring the polite and intelligent agent ("I have a great sense of humor," he assured me) that I was a harmless satirist, I asked about his job. The Secret Service has an office devoted to investigating possible-threat items on the Internet. They use search engines to look for potentially hostile word patterns. Agents do telephone assessments on around 30 cases a day, year round. To my surprise I didn't feel harassed or bigbrothered. There had been no impingment of free speech, no chilling effect. Clearly my case would be routinely marked "no threat" and filed away. If I had vibed hinky, though, I might have gotten a house call the next time the Prez came to town: "So, pal, are you planning to come down to the motorcade tomorrow? You been taking your medications?" These guys are professional bodyguards for the executive branch, trying to preempt bad guys, asking questions, doing their job. An expensive project, no doubt. But other cops should be so fine-tuned in their threat assessment process. One crucial thing to remember: if my piece had been titled "Why I Think John Ashcroft is a Big Dumbass" and the government gave me a call, this would be a very different story, and I'd be hollering bloody murder. __________________________________________________________________ Sean Gullette kgbat_private 77 Bleecker #631 http://www.kgbmedia.com NYC 10012 212 475 1953 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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