#239 Al Jazeera! Gesundheit!

A while back, I was talking about Google, and how they had refused to turn over internet search data to the feds. I talked about how a trail of searches, for anthrax and bomb making and crime labs, may look bad to a hyper-security guy but was perfectly understandable when you saw that I was doing research for a novel I was writing. Farfetched? Hard to say. I did do the searches and I did write the detective novel, and as far as I know, I’m still not a terrorist. But the feds may not think so. The other day I went to Google News and I saw a headline that interested me so I clicked on the link. Up comes this news story. I read for a little bit and then my eyes are drawn to the masthead. I couldn’t help but notice that the news organization that was publishing the article was, um, al Jazeera. Spit, shizzle, and shinola! What have I done now?
I can imagine the consternation of anyone searching my searches, or perhaps looking across the internet for suspected links. If Google and Yahoo can get in trouble because in China they’re blocking internet links to websites with words like freedom and democracy and chatrooms discussing how involuntary organ donorship is wrong, how easy would it be for the sophisticated-electronic-monitoring federal government to come knocking on my door when I rang the hidden al Jazeera bell. Of course, everyone knows that reads National Geographic that al Jazeera is not a hotbed of terrorist plotting; they are an independent, Arab news station run out of Qatar. That said, they not always in agreement with the current administration and Fox News. And suspicion is nine-tenths of the law. When I was in the investment business, we had a list we were supposed to check before we accepted money. The list was of suspected terrorists, and the reason we were supposed to check it, was to make sure none of them were laundering money by giving it to a small investment firm and then taking it out again. The list had ten thousand names so it was a bear to check. Even harder was that practically every name on it started with Al, Ali, or Mustafa. Oh yeah and about 50% Mohammeds. That list at last count is up to 300,000. I’ve heard there is also a search engine that detects when someone spells out the letters Allah. Lucky my name isn’t Callahan.
The Patriot Act allows that if I’m even a suspected terrorist, I can be moved to Guantanamo bay for indefinite questioning—since once I am a suspected—not convicted—terrorist I have no legal rights. Like the right to hire a lawyer to prove I had written a book about terrorists and wasn’t one myself. You can bet that al Jazeera thing ain’t gonna look good on my internet resume. Maybe if I expressed an interest in investing in a company that’ll operate a major US port...
Dubai or not Dubai, that is the question...
America, ya gotta love it.