They bugged my house.
They stole my work.
They tortured me for months.
I've tried to play with the system.
Kept quiet and worked through channels.
Through death threats and blackmail attempts.
All I've gotten: remote words, unreal.
Now I should trust those who treated me
like you oughtn't treat an animal?
Who won't even acknowledge me?
Who still try to inflict harm on me? Surprise,
psychological warfare works.
"Intelligence" agents; I thought on my side;
I guess just the opposite.
Me, an American citizen, not hurting a soul.
Did they not like my ideas? My religion?
Do they think they can stamp me classified
My brain and ideas, too secret even for me?
Or is my "foreign" religion a threat to our youth?
So they send in their plants with blackmail tries.
With threats and stolen information.
Crudely defiling a religion to put me down.
Why, why, why, why I've asked for months.
Maybe one of the hardest parts --
no why and I've done nothing to deserve this.
Did someone just not like me?
Want to "teach me a lesson"?
Go out of control with unaccountable power?
One of the hardest parts -- not knowing.
They started around last January. [1995]
But I had no idea who it was.
Postings on the net with my words
and actions from the night before.
And I was worn out and depressed
from my semester teaching a class.
And I didn't think I could get any lower;
They tried to drive me insane.
My phone would ring twice a day -- silence.
Often it would ring in "response" to things I said
Taunting poems written by "children"
Laughing at my helplessness, with even my bathroom
wired for sound and pictures.
Gleeful at anything involving SEX.
Luridly "reviewing" my relations with my girlfriend
(and soon to be wife, read on).
Her another innocent victim of their tormenting
Still the why, why, why, and who?
And was it the Zen or the techreports
or the agency I was doing contract work for?
Me who never had or wanted security clearance.
And couldn't imagine why anyone
would inflict this hell on me & us.
So on it went, grinding on and on,
While I tried to finish my dissertation
Despite their interference.
At first I thought I was going insane.
How could I guess this would happen to me
I thought I was losing my mind --
slowly I came to realize what was going on.
It seemed like so many people were involved.
All over the net and at the school.
Surely it couldn't go on for long --
With all the public death threats
and the taunting on the net.
They followed and harassed me on the highway
They blatantly read my U.S. mail
and gloated about it on the net.
Surely this couldn't go on long, I thought.
So I tried to stay calm and figure it out.
And shouted at the walls from time to time.
And tried to live my life.
While the death threats and jeers rolled in.
And we were alone -- who would believe
that this extreme violation could go on?
And who could be doing it?
More and more people seemed to know.
Apparently my words and pictures (clothed and not)
were being widely spread.
(I know I cannot convey the terror.)
On and on, depression deepening.
Defiance alternating with despair.
Months and months, the only things
Suicidal ideation, Lao Tzu, my wife, and God.
Keeping up appearances to the outside world.
Trying to go through channels.
Trying to work with the system.
Trying to end this torture.
Driven away from family and friends.
Not wanting them tainted
with the poisonous threats and harassment.
With the violations. The constant unspeakable
And like some grotesque haunted carnival
As my health declined under the stress
My reputation boomed. Unmeetable expectations.
Agony become entertainment
for unempathetic bystanders.
People going to all lengths to sling mud my way.
I can be the universal scapegoat.
And the compassionate ones could only look on the scene
But unable to stop the cruel spectacle.
They broke in my home, bugged it,
and copied all my personal papers.
All my personal journals -- stolen.
Used by these children to violate more people.
More innocent people.
They stole all my research notes -- ideas.
Ideas generated over years, meant to last years,
stolen for their own use.
Stolen with no attribution or compensation.
Only torture and harassment --
To get me to give up and shut up.
They ruined my engagement party.
They ruined my wedding.
They ruined my honeymoon.
No privacy for month after month after month.
Pulling out all their horrible "toys".
Because I had to be stopped
for some reason...
for some reason...
They tried to keep me from posting to the net.
They tried to control me inside my home --
what songs I could play, TV I could watch
political opinions I could express.
Finally driving us out of one home
and following us to another.
All their (our?) money and technology,
Against me and my pen and my mouth
and Jefferson's notions of free speech
and freedom of religion.
While they churned out slander after slander.
Because once you've tortured an innocent man
It's too embarrassing to let him go and admit.
So they tried to make me look like some
Called me an alcoholic because I drank beer
Purposely confusing effect with cause
to "justify" their slow water torture.
Trying to magnify any minor infraction to look like
the moral equivalent
of their heinous, callous abuse.
Poring over everything I said for anything
to take out of context and "make me look bad".
Jumping on any and all chances to kick a down man.
It still goes on.
Not like before -- not so blatant.
Because many people already know (or suspect).
And several news organizations know the story.
And several prominent politicians know the story.
I've literally been a political prisoner for months.
They'll deny it.
They'll say I'm crazy.
They'll try to shame and discredit me.
They may try to "retaliate".
But I am not lying or delusional.
The Constitution is not just a piece of paper.
I am an American citizen.
Not a circus animal.
Why would I risk my reputation
like this.