The FBI thinks that Hasan Elahi is a terrorist and he doesn’t trust
them to get things right. So, he records pretty much everything about
his life and puts it on his website.
The globe-hopping prof says his overexposed life began
in 2002, when he stepped off a flight from the Netherlands and was
detained at the Detroit airport. He says FBI agents later told him
they’d been tipped off that he was hoarding explosives in a Florida
storage unit; subsequent lie detector tests convinced them he wasn’t
their man. But with his frequent travel — Elahi logs more than 70,000
air miles a year exhibiting his art work and attending conferences — he
figured it was only a matter of time before he got hauled in again. He
might even be shipped off to Gitmo before anyone realized their
mistake. The FBI agents had given him their phone number, so he decided
to call before each trip; that way, they could alert the field offices.
He hasn’t been detained since.So it dawned on him: If being candid about his flights could clear
his name, why not be open about everything? “I’ve discovered that the
best way to protect your privacy is to give it away,” he says, grinning
as he sips his venti Black Eye. Elahi relishes upending the received
wisdom about surveillance. The government monitors your movements, but
it gets things wrong. You can monitor yourself much more accurately.
Plus, no ambitious agent is going to score a big intelligence triumph
by snooping into your movements when there’s a Web page broadcasting
the Big Mac you ate four minutes ago in Boise, Idaho. “It’s economics,”
he says. “I flood the market.” [link]
I wonder if he uses AT&T?
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