Reply #16: Could be, but...

[regnaD kciN]

...sometimes what seems like a joke about paranoia turns out to be more than just comedy.

Back in 1984, paisley went down to visit her mother in Colombia, while I took the time to visit my parents in San Diego. Anyway, the two of us were literally writing every day to each other. A week or so later, when my folks and I were driving up to their cul-de-sac, there was a man in a station wagon parked by the curb -- if you knew the neighborhood, you'd know that someone sitting in a parked car there is something that never happens -- and watched us as we pulled into the garage, then drove away. Naturally, we all started joking about the letters to Colombia triggering the attention of the FBI and/or CIA, and that we must now be under surveillance. It was just a series of quick one-liners and nothing more. I don't think any of us took it all that seriously.

But, when we both got back home, strange things started happening to paisley's monthly bank statements. Sometimes they would "disappear" in the mail, other times they would arrive late, and either open, or showing signs of having been opened and then clumsily resealed.

I don't think it's inconceivable, considering that we had been active in anti-Reagan demonstrations and activities of CISPES (a group opposed to U.S. involvement in El Salvador and elsewhere in Latin America), and also considering that the Reagan administration was spinning the line about how Colombian drug trade was being used to finance leftists in Central America (now, of course, we know it was exactly the opposite), that the powers that be were examining her bank statements and cancelled checks to see if there was anything that looked like drug trafficking activity.

And, considering that Snoopgate apparently targets people with large numbers of overseas phone calls, and that paisley still calls her mother and other relatives in Bogota several times a month, it wouldn't surprise me in the least to learn that we've been targets of King George's current investigation as well. In which case, as paisley pointed out to me, we can only sympathize with the NSA underling who has to spend far too much of his time hearing about the latest health problem suffered by one of her many aunts.