Updated June 5, 1999
(with some copy CENSORED June 19!).

Sometimes things get so weird!

On the other hand, things in my little corner of the world are often so quiet and peaceful I hesitate to believe weirdnesses reported by correspondents. So when a stranger who had done no more than send me two innocuous e-notes later wrote to say, "...some Friends in my Best Interest have been talking to some of our 'guardians of the gates.' What'cha think Claire? They watchin me or you or both?" I kinda figured...well...some people are a tad paranoid.

Sure "they" are watching. But in general, they aren't doing much more than that. For instance, for all the noise I've made in the last couple of years, the Men in Black haven't shown up on my doorstep (yet). So when someone thinks he might be watched simply for saying hi to me, you can understand my skepticism.

Only thing is, it was true. Turns out this guy works in...well, let's just say he has a "sensitive" job. And these days, when freedom lovers hold certain positions in which they might -- even just potentially, theoretically, in the wildest of scenarios might -- be able to toss a big monkeywrench, they are watched.

It probably wasn't just his notes to me that drew him his warning. But clearly someone was monitoring both his e-mail and his Web surfing habits.

In another case -- which happened more than a year ago, but which I just learned about yesterday -- a Wolfe's Lodge contributor was investigated solely on the basis of an essay he'd put on Wolfe's Lodge. CENSORED. When I first posted this Den page on June 5, I described the incident and put a link to the essay (which had quietly lain in the Friends' older article archive since a few months after it was first posted) here and on the front page of the Lodge. Saturday morning, June 19, I got a desperate e-mail from the writer, pleading with me to remove these links and intros because "they" had come after him again after I called renewed attention to his work.

Now, I don't know this guy personally, but I know he's got guts and that he's proud of that essay -- so much so that, when he once thought I'd removed it from the Lodge, he reamed me for my cowardice. So if he says, "Take the heat off me!", you can bet something nasty's going on.

Anyway, I've removed all the special links and references to the article. And I hope to hell that this friend of liberty -- who's guilty of nothing more than being angrily vocal -- rides out this latest invasion of his life.

These incidents underscore the dangers of being outspoken in America circa 1999. They also make it clear that somebody -- other than true freedom lovers -- is monitoring what goes on at Wolfe's Lodge.

(For the record, you tyranny-loving bastards, the only thing going on here is some fed-up people exercising their inborn rights to be free. Nobody I know wants to hurt anybody. We just want you to quit the hell messing with our lives. Leave us alone to make our own decisions, accept our own responsibilities, keep our own property and pursue our own non-coercive pleasures, and you might suddenly find that there's no big "threat" out here for you to be so paranoid about.)

Troublemakers

More often than I like to think about, I get disturbing e-mails or letters from strangers -- maybe from people with whom I've exchanged two or three messages. These guys ask -- nay, they assume that if they send me their PGP keys, I'll just happily crawl under the covers of encryption with them and listen to all the illegal stuff they have on their minds. Or better yet -- they hope, they hope! -- I'll spill all my juicy, illegal stuff to them.

Some of these people might be perfectly sincere, just not too tightly wrapped. (They sure haven't paid attention to a word I've written, if they don't know how I feel about babbling.) Some are definitely snitches. A few of the attempted snitches are so obvious it's almost laughable. But as I've said before and before and before common, garden-variety idiots are as dangerous as snitches. And sometimes you can't tell one from another until your defense attorney shows you a copy of the paycheck the guy got from the FBI.

So please, people -- avoid anybody who encourages you to "plot" oh-so-casually with him about anything, or even encourages you to discuss "in theory" things that might be dangerous to you. Just remember, all your "theoretical" talk can be carefully edited out of the transcript the jury sees.

These are difficult times. No doubt about it, freedom lovers are going to have to do illegal things in hopes of winning freedom. Not violent, mind you -- not if we can avoid it -- but against the law. That inevitably means some people are also going to have to talk with each other about illegal matters. And inevitably, sincere folks are going to get burned -- yea, even by their closest friends, with whom they talked only on a need-to-know basis. But don't increase your risk by babbling heedlessly to those characters who go out of their way to encourage you to do it, okay?

And you would-be "plotters," gimme a break, wouldya? I may choose to be rash at times, but I'm not that sheer, brain-dead stupid!

Claire Wolfe