I Was a Twenty-Something Security Risk
Published March 09, 2007
At one time or another in his career as a lawyer, my father had prosecuted drug offences for the Canadian government, so one thing he was familiar with were the sounds indicating the beginning and end of a tapped conversation. After about a couple of months of being careful on the phone, of not even talking in the same room as the phone in case of a location bug, we gradually slipped back into our normal behaviour.
Eventually I just simply forgot about the whole thing, getting fully involved in my career in theatre and frustrated with the infighting among the political types, I became less and less involved with activist politics. If I hadn't had to apply for security clearance for the G8 event in Toronto I may never even have known.
Now, years later, I wonder if they still consider me a threat? Probably not, because I've the feeling if they did consider me so, I would have been talked to awhile ago. Maybe I'm on some sort of watch, but it’s not one where they consider me a major threat or anything.
But still, I don't try and cross the border into the United States because I've the feeling that would be pushing my luck, and they might decide to detain me for an indefinite period just to be on the safe side.
So there you go, confessions of a twenty-something security threat. I hope it hasn't shocked any of you too much, knowing that for these many months you’ve been sharing intellectual space with me. I figured I owed it to all of you to own up to my less than perfect past and warn you that associating with me could cause you problems.
Richard Marcus is a long-haired Canadian iconoclast who writes reviews and opines on the world as he sees it at Leap In The Dark and Epic India Magazine.
- I Was a Twenty-Something Security Risk
- Published: March 09, 2007
- Type: Opinion
- Section: Politics
- Filed Under: Culture: Crime and Court, Culture: Personal History, Culture: Society, Politics: War and Terrorism
- Writer: Richard Marcus
- Richard Marcus's BC Writer page
- Richard Marcus's personal site
- Spread the Word
- Like this article?
- Email this
Save to del.icio.us
Comments on this articleComments
capt, it's not your math that's lacking, it's your grasp of english grammar.
All good people should be on a watch list at one time or another. I was on the FBI watch list at one point in the early 80s because of my involvement in hiding draft-registration protestors, but I think that eventually files relating to that particular issue were purged, since I have subsequently been used as a reference by people seeking clearances and they've passed their reviews.
Dave
Of course, Dave, admitting this in a place where background-checkers could easily find it might prevent future clearances....
I knew it! Doggone your beady eyes, Richard!
Wonder what kind of watch lists I might turn up on.
Al
geez I've had you on my watch list for a long time now! I wondered when you'd catch the good news!
I think Dave nailed it though, if you haven't made it onto a watch list - well you're just not tyring hard enough or you need to ask yourself what you're doing wrong.
In the imortal words of Arlo Guthrie "I'm not nearly the threat I thought I'd be"
cheers
Richard (beady eyed Canadian with his head full of lies (TM Al Barger 2006))Marcus
Richard, you shouldn't even be breathing the same air on the same planet with me. The Israeli government probably has my phone tapped, I live in the wrong neighborhood (Samaria), I'm a damned settler. Over on DC, some have called me a member of the feared settler militia, a Nazi and all other sorts of things...
Are you sure you should even be reading this comment?
Add your comment, speak your mind
(Or ping: http://blogcritics.org/mt/tb/60765)
If you were in protests in the early 80s you're not a 20-something at all, though you may be a security risk.