After Obama is inaugurated, will you make a FOIA request for any surveillance files on yourself?

[yurbud]

[Captain Hilts]

1. Why wait?

[TechBear_Seattle]

2. One very important thing to keep in mind

The act of making a Freedom of Information Act request will automatically open a file for you with one or more national security organization (it used to be the FBI, but that was pre-Homeland Security.) Right away, you will be under scrutiny by the feds for however long it takes for them to decide that you are not a terrorist threat. And once opened, these files are NEVER closed, merely classed at a lower level of supervision.

[Captain Hilts]

3. Most of the files - even of celebrities - are incredibly boring.

If you've applied for a passport, you've probably got one. If you've been bonded as a financial employee, you've probably got one.

Most of the files are really boring. I was the first person to read Katharine Hepburn's. Nothing interesting. And that recent book about her that claimed she was gay actually lied about the contents of her file. Nothing there. Spencer Tracy's also is boring.

But I've been meaning to apply for mine since I've been to Russia a couple of times.

[Citizen Number 9]

4. "When the Righties come back"?

I can only hope I've long passed by the time that day comes.

Every single one of us who feels the same way needs to keep in mind that helping Obama and his Administration over the next eight years is key to this. I'm not ruling out constructive criticism, but a storm of self-serving whining and destructive politics from within will be the one thing that will increase GOP chances in the next two elections.

Let's keep this moving forward for all Americans and not just for special interests, no matter how valid or overdue we might feel they are.

Jobs
The War
The Economy
The Environment
International Relations

Let's keep the big goals in sight.

[NightWatcher]

5. hate to break it to you, but 99.99% of people here will not have "files"

plus, you would have to know with whom to file the FOIA with. There is no once central location that acts as a clearing house of "files".

[yurbud]

9. really? so someone could end up on airport watch list without having a file?

I was stopped at the airport when I went to check in for a couple of years--until after 2006 election.

I'm guessing they didn't pull my name out a hat since I'm a union leader in addition to shooting off my mouth online.

[Ohio Joe]

6. Other - No

I am not going to be afraid of anyone. I do what I do and say what I say without fear.

[Luciferous]

7. Paranoid much? nt

[Sinistrous]

8. Somehow, I doubt that

I even rate a post-it note in anybody's surveillance file.

[yurbud]

11. it's not too late.

[nadinbrzezinski]

10. Don't need to. I KNOW they have a file

as an immigrant and then the wife of a USN Sailor... yep its there. Even if he retired.

Wouuld be funny just to see how thick it is, and what they got wrong