WORDS OF WARNING
Published November 04, 2004
Annie J. writes a blog called anniej's livejournal, which was brought to my attention by a friend. Subtitled "the moon & antarctica," it lives on a popular online publishing site.
Annie J.'s journal is a pop culture fandom diary about, among other things, "porn, werewolves, wizards, gay boys fucking, and the hotness of David Thewlis" and, not least, Harry Potter. (That's her own description.) Unfortunately, she posted something political not long ago that brought the Secret Service to her door.
If you take a look at her diary (click the link), you'll see it's chatty, very well produced, pretty ordinary fandom stuff, not at all pornographic as far as I could tell, not even the slightest bit kinky.
I know nothing about Annie J. except what she says in her "about me" note — she was born Nov. 6, 1981, in South Carolina — and what I can deduce from her postings. I also don't know what she said in the post that got her into trouble. She's taken it down to avoid further investigation, she says, and to protect the privacy of people who commented in response.
Here's her story in her own words, posted on Oct. 27, 2004 (shortly before the election needless to say), which I find entirely credible:
For all my LJ-loving friends, this is a word of warning, a word to the wise, and a word of utter exhaustion after the wringer I've been put through in the last twenty-four hours.A couple of weeks ago, following the last presidential debate, I said some rather inflammatory things about George W. Bush in a public post in my LJ, done in a satirical style. We laughed, we ranted, we all said some things. I thought it was a fairly harmless (and rather obvious) attempt at humor in the face of annoyance, and while a couple of people were offended, as is typical behavior from me, I saw something shiny and forgot about it, thinking that the whole thing was over and done and nothing else would come of what I said.
I was wrong.
At 9:45 last night, the Secret Service showed up on my mother's front door to talk to me about what I said about the President, as what I said could apparently be misconstrued as a threat to his life. After about ten minutes of talking to me and my family, they quickly came to the conclusion that I was not a threat to national security (mostly because we are the least threatening people in the entire world) and told me that they would not recommend that any further action be taken with my case. However, I do now have a file with the FBI that includes my photograph, my e-mail address, and the location of my LJ. This will follow me around for the rest of my life, regardless of the fact that the Secret Service knows that I am not a threat.
Obviously, I cannot link to the original LJ post that I made, because I have removed it from my LJ to protect myself and those who commented in that thread from receiving any further visits from the FBI. [See point of information below.] I apologized for the miscommunication, though I did not apologize for voicing my opinion of George W. Bush. I will never apologize for speaking my mind. I will, however, apologize when I say something [the] wrong way and for unintentionally offending/threatening someone, because I am an extremely nonviolent person.
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- WORDS OF WARNING
- Published: November 04, 2004
- Type: Opinion
- Section:
- Writer: Jan Herman
- Jan Herman's BC Writer page
- Jan Herman's personal site
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