Imagine being followed by the government? Your every move is noted and every person you meet is open to investigation. This is Hasan M. Elahi life. When traveling back to America, he was questioned for months by the F.B.I., accusing him of having explosives and asking him where he was on September 12, 2001. Luckily, Elahi had his phone which had his schedule with detailed accounts of his daily events. He used this, and passing polygraph exams, to convince the F.B.I. that he was not a threat. So once he was cleared an agent told him to call whenever he was planning on flying, Elahi agreed, but he went one step further. Elahi set up a website with a complete schedule of his entire life, complete with picture of the places he had been, the flight number of every plane ride, satellite images of him walking down a street, and more. Elahi wanted to make sure that he was never accused of anything like this again.
Elahi compares his website to Facebook because they both have picture and "status updates", but his site came first. Elahi is very brave to tell this story because many people could read the first three line and think that he is a terrorist, but that is not the case. He tone is a little sarcastic when talking about the F.B.I. and how they can now watch his every move. I find it a little creepy that he set up this website with pictures and wrote about his whereabouts in such detail. Anybody could see this information and what happens when a crazy person gets their hands on this kind of personal information, it's scary. I would never set up a website like this, but it seemed to work out for Elahi.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/30/opinion/sunday/giving-the-fbi-what-it-wants.html?_r=2
So strange!
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