Fox Mulder on Trial

A growing list of Canadians are getting upset with the United States government. For most Canadians this is a normal pastime, a long-favoured distraction from getting upset at our own gouvernement.

This time, however, it's going to court.

A coalition of 'concerned citizens' has filed a class-action suit against the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation over what the coalition refers to as a 'blatant infringement of our basic human rights as protected by both the Canadian and US constitutions.'

Which rights? Respect, and privacy are the two mentioned in the suit. Specifically, the coalition is upset with the FBI's procedure of tagging a computer that visits certain sites and then tracking all the sites that computer visits. This is done by re-routing or 'hijacking' the computer's internet feed through FBI headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

"By what right are they tracking Canadian citizens' internet usage?" asks Coalition chair Lawrence Howard. "This is spying plain and simple. They are infringing on our privacy, and possibly even controlling what information we have access to. Every page I view goes through their hands first. How do we know they're not 'sanitizing' it or even sowing disinformation? It amazes me that a country that proclaims Freedom of Speech, Freedom from persecution based on Race, Creed or Religion, can be so willfully ignorant."

Howard's crusade began when a friend showed him a little application that maps out where the webpage you're viewing actually comes from, showing all the intricate little detours and various servers you've used. Avid users describe it like peeling away the skin of the Internet, and actually being able to see the veins that make up the enormous cardiovascular system that is the heart of modern communications.

Howard noticed that all of his pages were detouring through a server in Langley. He thought nothing further of it until one night he watched the X-Files and the light went on in his head. The FBI was watching him.

Lawrence Howard, accountant, husband, father of two, with no criminal record, was being watched by the United States government. Without ever having set foot outside of Canada.

As the Class-action suit gathers steam and supporters, Howard lobbies Americans to join in the fight. His vitriol is spread through Reveille, a widely distributed newsletter published monthly and read by nearly a quarter million Americans.

We provide here, with permission, an excerpt of his first article which has been hailed as 'a rousing bugle-cry for democracy' by the media.

"The Land of the Free is bathed in the soothing flicker of the Television, the new and infinitely more profitable and insidious Opiate of the Masses, all showing the Correct, Sanitized Truth, as approved by the crooks in the Bush Administration."

The FBI declined to comment on their intended response to the class-action suit. A fact which causes Lawrence Howard to shake his head in dismay."You know why they push for a smaller government all the time?" he asks,"Fewer witnesses."