This is an update on my situation as of Mar. 14, 1996. I still have gotten no concrete response of any kind from anyone who has been involved, in whatever way, in the crimes committed against me and my wife.
The Washington Post has known the story for some time. Whether they will ever run it I do not know. I do not know what they or their lawyers have decided to do, or what they might have been forced to keep secret. I do not know what sorts of lies or phony national security lines they have been fed. The issue is really about my basic human rights being flagrantly abused, and this is not hyperbole. If my rights can be so callously trampled, how much are anyone's worth? Too many people seem to think it is great amusement to watch my life being ruined. Must I conform to someone's moving goalpost of so-called "proper" behavior and then we can discuss this constant abuse? I am not looking for fame or power, but for my basic rights as a human being and perhaps even justice.
As many of you suspect, I blame the U.S. government. Not the whole government, or even a large portion of it, since most government workers are dedicated and ethical. Nonetheless, there are some in government who are simply evil and who have the resources and technology available to literally torture U.S. citizens and get away with it. This whole business started when I began doing unclassified contract work for the Intelligence and Electronic Warfare Directorate (IEWD). Whether they are directly responsible or not I do not know, but I know that some people there knew what was going on early on.
The level of technology involved clearly indicates, to me, that this is beyond anything a private citizen could do. They can apparently read papers I write at my desk. They can hear conversations when I go for walks. More astonishingly, they can at times seem to access my subvocalized thought streams. I do not even think there is a word yet for this extreme type of violation. Even while I am having sex or dreaming they are raping the thoughts out of my head. I do not know how they are doing many of the things they are doing. I certainly do not know why. I do know what I know, and apparently I have become an unconsenting guinea pig for their latest high-tech experiments. That has never happened before, has it?
It is easy to dismiss me as crazy if you refuse to even consider that what I am saying is true. It is true, and I am quite sane, if a bit worn down after such prolonged abuse. The fact is that this technology really does exist. Bugging technology is quite advanced by now. For example, recall that they bugged Koresh by putting a bug in a styrofoam fast food container, and the resulting sound was quite good. Your local veterinarian can inject a microchip under the skin of your cat or dog as a permanent identifier. What do you suppose the state of the art is? The fact is that there really are unethical people who can and do abuse their positions and authority. After all, they can get away with it, since who would believe their victims anyway?
I knew the lies and smears they would throw at me when I started speaking out. After all, these are people who publicly taunted me over the net while they tortured me in my home. I knew that some people would not believe me. I knew they would attempt to blackmail me with any incriminating thing extracted over more than a year of torture, and that they would not see this as any reflection on themselves. Nonetheless, I still feel a duty to speak out, much as a rape victim might feel a duty to speak out even while knowing she invites further abuse by doing so.
In hindsight I suppose I should have known they would try to hush up this "dirty little secret". We march around the world preaching human rights, and think we can maintain the illusion that abuses do not happen here as they do in too many other places around the world. Besides, sanitized high-tech abuse does not really count, does it? Especially not if we have deniability! I had hoped that when higher-ups became aware of this they would treat me as a human being and deal with the problem. Unfortunately, dealing with the problem seems to mean continued surveillance and attempts to further smear me and lessen my credibility. They probably figure if they stonewall long enough people will forget, and they will be able to go on with their sordid business.
While I do not have the resources to even begin to match theirs, I can at least tell the world what they have done. Dealing with it quietly has not worked. The civilian "system", unfortunately, has not been of much use in dealing with this situation. This is partly because hard evidence is, by design, difficult to obtain. Also, most people are not used to dealing with a bunch of undisciplined, unaccountable children laughing from behind a wall of phony "national security". While I was being tortured (more directly than now, it has not stopped) I was too traumatized to think to keep records suitable for court. Assuming I could have anyway, given the nature of their remote-control high-tech harassment. How do you fight people who are able to monitor you, and possibly kill you, at will?
Why me? I really do not know, though there are several factors that may be at work. I recently talked with someone about having my house swept for bugs. He said that while it is illegal for agencies to bug the houses of people up for security clearances, some do it anyway. (Unfortunately he also said he would not be able to detect federal devices with his equipment.) Around the time this business started I would have been up for a clearance -- had I not made clear that I did not want one, which, ironically, may have made them more curious. Around this time I was also involved with much activity in alt.zen. Given some of the "cult fears" of the time, and the intolerance of some people to a cultural force they cannot control, I do not doubt that this was a factor too. They may have wanted to "play the game", as they saw my religion. Certainly people began showing up on the newsgroup flaunting knowledge they could not have legitimately obtained. Some are still there. (I am not naming them to avoid possibly falsely accusing someone; ask your congressperson.) Then there is the factor of my research. While it has many non-military applications it also has many important military ones. I know they stole my research notes, and they may have wanted to stop my research for whatever reasons. Finally, there is the fact that I resisted their abuse and spoke out. I suspect it was an interaction of the above factors rather than any one, though again, I do not know. Whatever the reason, there is no excuse.
p.s. to the people responsible: you have shamed our nation and everything it represents.