Get your FBI file -- and your NSA and CIA files too, while you're at it
Phil says: "The Freedom-of-Information-loving folks who brought you Get Grandpa's FBI File have just launched a sister site: Get My FBI File . This site helps you automatically generate the letters you need to send in to get your own FBI file ... and while you're at it, you can also get your NSA, CIA, DIA, DSS, Secret Service, etc. files too, just by checking a few boxes. If you throw in UnSecureFlight.Com, we're getting perilously close to one-stop shopping for all your government security file needs."
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Previously on Boing Boing:
• HOWTO Request your Homeland Security traveler file
• Website helps you get your grandparents FBI Files
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And if you don't already have a file, now's your chance to make one! Yabba dabba DOOOoooo
This is all well and good, but supposing you *do* have a file because you contributed to moveon.org, protested the RNC, are Islamic, are a maker of "hoax devices", posted snarky comments on boingboing, etc, what assurance do you have that any of these agencies will be forthcoming about it? I mean, if the NSA were really in the business of giving everyone a copy of their file, wouldn't the EFF be having a much easier time with their lawsuit? Do you seriously believe the FBI is just going to mail you the evidence that they have been engaging in surveillance of your political activities?
I think in the current political climate it is much more likely that they just deny that you have a file by default -- for national security reasons, obviously -- and put you on a list of "undesirable persons" for being interested in it.
An interesting experiment would be to get half your friends who fly a lot to do this and see if there is a correlation between requesting your FBI file and having SSSS show up in the corner of your future airline boarding passes.
@CS Loser: You don't know, and there is no way to know. You have trusted your entire life to a government that has ensconced themselves into every facet of your life. There isn't one thing that they can't monitor you on.
You trust them because you have nobody else to trust, because they won't let you.
i'm casually interested. Not because i'm paranoid, but be cause i'm interested in seeing how paranoid the government is. Thinking that the government could have a file on you for belonging to groups you should be able to belong to, or saying things that you should have the freedom to say or for holding unpopular ideals is not paranoia, It's a fact of life, we simply have to look back to the McCarthy era or the FBI's interest in John Lennon.
I seriously doubt i'm important enough to have a file, but if the government had a file containing some of my deviant internet rantings or a list of newsletters i've subscribed to i wouldn't be the most surprised person in the world.
I have a feeling that they will play fair on this. One things that a bureaucracy can do, and almost always does is follow rules. They need some kind of justification from above to break the rules.
Unless the President or the AG said "lie about these files if anyone asks" they'll play it straight. I'll admit there's a non-zero chance of that happening, but in general they will follow the rules.
One thing I've read is that Joseph Stalin had a signed confession from everyone he executed. Not a forged signature either. (And basically everyone who ended up in Siberia wouldn't sign the confession. So its not exactly damned if you do and damned if you don't. More like the devil and the deep blue sea.)
TRUTHFRICTION$ : Or maybe not everyone has led a life identical to yours and they might HAVE things in their past that could have possibly gotten them a file.
Maybe they married someone from Afghanistan fifteen years ago; maybe they attend a lot of protests; maybe they have the same name as someone on a no-fly list.
For you it's paranoia, for them it may be a real concern.
What if there's a separate database for people who have requested their files from the government? How do you request for a file on you from THAT database? What about the database that records all the people who have publicly blogged/written about asking the government for their files?
Wait...does this mean I'm going into another database for mentioning the second database? Dayum...
I mailed off my requests back when this story first appeared on boingboing. The one to the Virginia office bounced back today. They said that it couldn't be processed, because it didn't have the following information on it... and then proceeded to list spaces for filling in that information ... which was all information that had been on the original request. Oh well, I sent it back again, filling in all the information on in the spaces they provided. I would be happy to believe that they're actually so clueless that they can't find data when it's listed for them in a letter -- if my country has to have a secret police force, I'm much happier if they're an inefficient, bumbling secret police force.