I want to be cool so I'm trying to find out if the FBI has a file on me. I hope they do. Then I can go around saying, "Hey, man, the FBI gave my file to the Clintons. Can you believe it?"
I don't know why the FBI would have a file on me. I've never tried to smuggle plutonium or anything. The most radical group I belong to is the Elks, which I joined mainly to have a parking place in Waikiki. I did cover the federal trial of swindler Ron Rewald in the 1980s. Rewald claimed he worked for the CIA and that the CIA said it was okey dokey for him to steal money from widows and blind people.
That case brought a lot of wackos out of the woodwork. Half the people watching the trial claimed that they either worked for the CIA or that the CIA was following them. These are the kinds of guys who scrawl notes on telephone poles and believe extraterrestrials have implanted computer chips in their brains.
I'm sure the FBI had files on some of those guys. So maybe, since I was hanging out at court every day and secretly meeting with a few Rewald associates, the FBI opened a file on me. That would be so cool.
If the FBI has a file on you, it means you're kind of important. I'm not talking about if you are a major criminal or anything. It's assumed, or at least hoped, that the FBI is keeping an eye on those kinds of people. But for normal, law-abiding citizens, it's kind of nice to think that you are perceived by a large law enforcement agency as someone more important than you actually are.
The FBI can start a file on you for just about any reason. If your suspicious neighbors don't like the way you take out the trash or if you walk around in your underwear, they can rat you out to the FBI. They can tell the FBI they saw you meeting with some dark, swarthy guy in a turban, and, blammo, you've got an FBI file. Could be that guy was a taxi driver just dropping you off at home, but that doesn't matter.
MOST of what is in FBI files isn't even true. It's just gossip and rumors supplied by disgruntled landlords or colleagues. I suspect a lot of it would be libelous if it was made public. That's why they are supposed to remain sealed in the FBI offices. And that's why so many people are upset that the FBI simply sent truckloads of personal files over to the White House.
I look at it a bit differently. I imagine Hillary lying back in bed going through my file for light reading before she goes to sleep. I imagine her telling Bill, "Wow, honey, that guy in Honolulu is pretty interesting. Says here he lets his dog out in the morning in his underwear. I wonder how the dog gets in his underwear? And it says he's a card-carrying member of the Elks Militia. According to a homeless man who lives on a bench, he drives a truck "large enough to hold weapons or small atomic devices." The truck is often seen in the Elks parking lot, yet "the subject never actually enters the building."
That would be so cool. I've got to find out if the FBI has a file on me and what kind of neat stuff is in it. If you want to find out if there's an FBI file on you, here's how:
Send a notarized Freedom of Information request along with your birth date, place of birth, Social Security number and a daytime telephone number to:
Federal Bureau of InvestigationDon't bother to wait by your mailbox, though. They currently are dealing with a backlog of 15,279 requests for files, so it could take as long as three years for them to get to yours. In the meantime, just be cool.
Freedom of Information/Privacy Act section
935 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20535
