Ever wondered if Big Brother has you in his files? Why not find out? The procedure is simple. Fill out some basic forms and mail them to the government agency of your choice. They should notify you within a month whether or not you exist in their files. If you do they’ll give you a number, and you start waiting. My dealings with the National Security Agency, for example, went on for 7 months before I got a definitive response.
More interesting is the FBI response. After telling me that no new material had been added to my file since my last FOI search, they added coyly that “new references identified during our search were documents that originated with another agency.” Hmm, what does that mean?
