If You Were a Miniature Dachshund, What Would You Carry in a Backpack?
Now that FBI director Robert Meuller has been raked over the coals by the Senate Judiciary Committee and after that brave John Doe’s op-ed in the Washington Post about how a National Security Letter wrecked his life, surely I can finally reveal my own NSL sufferings without automatically landing in Supermax or Guantanamo.
The first wave of National Security Letters to me, six in all, involved my dogs — five miniature long-haired Dachshunds, four black and tans and one blond, all hairy little dust mops.
These Dachshund NSLs wanted to know about what my dogs ate, their access to explosive materials and knowledge of bomb construction techniques. The final Dachshund NSL asked for information about the little dogs’ access to canine backpacks and how much weight each dog could carry in a backpack.
The second wave of National Security Letters, seven in all, seemed to focus on Dachshund outings. Please provide, they said, “all records of subject canines’ activities outside the confines of their yard: when, where, how long, were they accompanied by humans and, if so, who were the humans. Leashed or unleashed. With or without backpacks. If with backpacks, what was the contents, what did it weigh, did it make ticking sounds, etc. How many outings involved entering shopping malls?”
Finally, it dawned on me. The FBI thought it had uncovered a plot to use miniature Dachshunds as suicide bombers.
Of course, this was laughable on the face of it. Blow up my little dogs? Are you crazy?
Still, a premier, or perhaps once premeir, Federal agency seriously believed a pack of 10-pound dogs standing a mere eight inches high at the shoulders might be terrorists. Moreover, I was forbidden, on pain of imprisonment, from telling anyone about the NSLs. I couldn’t consult a lawyer, confess to a priest or even write my congressman — not that his eventual form letter reply would mean much.
How had I fallen into this War on Terror black hole? I wracked my brain.
“Well, Dummy,” my brain said. “What about Satirium?”
O.K. So I’ve made fun of the Bushies in this space. I have ridiculed the FBI, the NSA, the CIA, and Tom DeLay. I wrote about how Internet satirists now keep a pair of orange coveralls by the front door in case they are scooped up in the middle of the night and hauled off to jail with no access to habeas corpus, all because of something they wrote.
Worst of all, I have asked, incessantly perhaps, whether the Bush twins are still virgins and, if they aren’t, what their parents think of this.
So how do I get out of this mess? A first step, I hope, is finally telling the world what I have been through. Thank you, Senate Judiciary Committee, for giving me the courage to speak out.
Maybe a next step is to wrangle a summons from the Judiciary Committee for the Dachshunds and me to testify at the next hearing about National Secuity Letters. The dogs would love it. No backpacks. Nothing would make ticking sounds. No one would go to the bathroom on the committee room floor. No barking.
Maybe a little barking. Joyous barking. Freedom of speech barking.