I spent this morning talking to the FBI. A friend of mine used to be involved in the ADL (Animal Defense League) and I guess there has been some recent arsonry.

I gotta tell you, I took a good hard look at those badges and IDs before I let them in the door. I've seen too many movies.

The spooks (are FBI spooks? Or just G-men?) were so smooth, so friendly... very calculated to gain my trust. They kept talking about the bar, wow what a
cool place, you guys make the bikes? "I need a cool nickname, maybe I can be Agent Payphone ha ha" etc etc and I said "I know you're not here to talk about the bar" and that's when they started asking the real questions. They said that some of the people he used to run around with back east were involved in some arsons, and they just wanted to talk to him. I told him where he was and gave them his email address and they asked a bunch of questions like "did he ever go to Iowa? Did you ever meet any of his old friends? Has he invited you to participate in activism?" I think they mentioned an arson incident in Chicago as well. I was as helpful as I could be, because frankly, I'm not really in support of arsonry as a means of fighting the fur trade. I mean I really think there's a time and a place for violence. But it's not like I had anything to offer except his email addy. They asked a bunch of questions about the Dive like who owns this place? What do you do here? Have a lot of parties? Any drug dealing in the building? Do you have any heavy machinery? (?!?!?) I acutally invited them to follow me downstairs to get the email, because we've got nothing to hide and I didn't want them to think I was trying to keep something from them. It was a scary experience for me just because of the way that American civil liberties kinda dissolve when the feds are involved. Like it didn't matter that I didn't do anything, they could lock me up and not charge me. I kept thinking "are they going to peek at my password and read my email? If I make a phone call are they gonna be listening? Are they reading my body language, do they think I'm lying?"

But they said repeatedly that they just wanted to talk to the guy, not take him away, and I told them there's no way I can believe it when they say that. But I was being frank and truthful to them, and I hope they recognized that.

They also showed me a sketch of a woman. Nobody I recognized, and I thought about it long and hard.

"Doesn't do the dishes" kinda pales as a roommate issue compared to "Brings the Feds to the house".