Guilty as charged. I live next to a mosque.

So once in a while something interesting happens to you that inspires you to finally set up a blog and announce to peoples unknown why you're better than them. This is that instance in my life.

I get a phone call from the service department of the mitsubishi dealership that I was naive enough to take my car to a year ago. This is the third such call in a month. I fail to recall why exactly I fail to remind the salesperson of why exactly they should absolutely not fail to delete my number from their listings. The forgiving nature in me is however not called upon the second time my phone rings, an hour later, at which point I correctly use the sternest of my "Hello"s. It wasn't a mitsubishi dealership.

"Hi, this is Agent Harley from the FBI in San Jose"

Now, that's a blog-starting moment if I've ever experienced one. Warning bells are clamoring in the hind portion of my brain and the lower portion of my heart as I instantly recall everything I've ever felt guilty about in the past 14.5 years. To save you the trouble, I shall not enumerate them right here (I need to save them for future blog-starting moments.)

I breathe. I think quickly. This must be a joke. "I'm sorry, from where?" I stall for time.

"Special Agent Harley, from the FBI office in San Jose. I'd like to meet with you and have a small chat."

"Okay..," I say, still being a little skeptical. I need to stay on my guard, just in case this is a smart reporter trying to procure confidential information about my company. Yeah, I could see that happening.

"Do you still live in San Jose on .. and ..?" He confirmed my address, I told him I was at work in Mountain View, and I suggested meeting the next morning at home. He suggested we could meet right away somewhere near my office. I complied and suggested a Starbucks nearby. Finally I mustered up a "What is this about?"...

"It's about an incident in Alaska."

I'd been to Alaska 4 weeks earlier, I met up with a buddy of mine who travelled there from the East coast. It was a last-minute decision on my part, I had spent quite a bit on the flight ticket, but I didn't regret it. We did a bit of touring up there and it was a good experience.

What did I do wrong in Alaska? I could think of nothing. Maybe I was witness to something I didn't realise I was witness to? While I waited for the agent to drive the half hour to my workplace, I walked over to my friend's office (I didn't want to use the phone/email), and told him I'd call him if I was, like, locked up or something and needed bail or whatever. The only possibility I could think of was the number of photographs/videos I had taken on the trip, and maybe I had taken too many pics of airplanes?

He skipped Starbucks and drove straight to my building. As I walked downstairs, I half expected three cops with guns and handcuffs, and prepared myself for the possibility of arrest, reminding myself to ask for a lawyer if that happened.

It didn't turn out that way, of course - that would've been a blog-ending moment. He parked the car and walked up to me. He was dressed regularly, but he was purposeful and exuded authority. We shook hands. I led him to a picnic table outside where we wouldn't be disturbed. Finally, the story.

Turns out, my friend whom I'd met in Alaska (name withheld to protect the innocent), had taken photographs of the oil pipeline north of Anchorage while we were there. He had been questioned immediately upon return from Alaska, and he had provided my name and address so that his story could be corroborated. An hour or so after he had taken the said photographs in Alaska, he had stopped at a gas station, where a trooper showed up and asked him a lot of questions. He didn't realise the issue was the photographs though. Anyway, as it turned out, I wasn't of much help to the investigation, because I hadn't even reached Alaska when the incident occurred. The FBI guy asked me a lot of questions, about how I knew the guy, what we did in Alaska, the dates I was there, etc.

He had done his homework and had pulled up some 'dirt' on me though. He questioned me about my costly last-minute tickets to Alaska. He casually asked me how I got a name like the one I had, and I used the opportunity to let him know I was catholic (yes, it's sad, but I DO reach out to my faith only in times of need!) Most of the information I gave him willingly, much more than I needed to, cuz, well, I was scared and he was a figure of authority. Looking back, it sucks that all that info is now on a file with the FBI, and it's a sacrifice of privacy that I find uncomfortable with. Just before he left, he casually explained that he was familiar with the area I lived in, and he tried to get me to describe it. Okay, so he was suggesting that I was lying about where I lived. Fair enough, I described the place, the athletic club across the intersection and the park across the street. And there's a mosque right here, he added.

Okay, I see what you're saying. I went to Alaska to collect the photographs of the oil pipeline that I then delivered to my terrorist contacts at the mosque next door.

I proceeded to pretend to be the islam-hating person we are all expected to be out here in the U.S. - I denied knowing about the mosque, and indeed, I never knew about it. I later confirmed there really was a mosque, but it looked like an apartment building from the outside, and you'd never know.

At the end of all this, it was just a random false lead for them, they were just doing their job. Sure, but am I still under surveillance? Is my phone being tapped? Were my emails ever subpoenaed? Are they in process of being so? There's no way for me to know. Will my 'record' on file with the FBI affect me in the future? My chances of getting a Green card? Will I be locked up straight away the next time I take a photograph at a tourist destination? Am I just being way paranoid? There's no way to know.

Meanwhile, I've dug up some dirt on the FBI. The next time an Special Agent from the FBI comes knocking at your door, know that you are not required to answer their questions, except for your name and your address. (FBI agents are trained in obtaining information using trickery or appearance of authority.) They cannot tap your phone for domestic calls, only international ones. There *is* something called the National Security Letters (NSL), a provision from the Patriot Act, that essentially allows the FBI to bypass the courts, forcing persons or companies from disclosing information about you without producing a subpoena. Also, every NSL comes with a gag order, prohibiting the person from revealing to "any person" that he/she received an NSL. The FBI has been misusing NSLs ever since the Patriot Act, signed immediately after the Sept 11th attacks.

Stay trigger happy photographers!