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THE GOVERNMENT
INVESTIGATES THE HLF! Last week, I learned the United States government is investigating the operations of the Hamster Liberation Front. I came home from the HLF Headquartes building one evening to find a business card taped to my front door. I felt a cold, dark dread creep down my spine. I always knew this day would come, but I expected it to be announced with a flash grenade. Instead, the government was taking a much more sinister route. Remembering what we teach our new recruits in basic training ("It is always better to face your enemy than hide, only to be dragged out from under your bed by your ankles, screaming and crying for your mommy"), I took the card inside and called the number listed. Of course, since it was already 7pm, the "Senior Special Agent" had already closed up shop for the day some 4 hours earlier, but I was assured by the running-dog lackey/secretary that he would return my call tomorrow as soon as he returned to the office. That would give me only 15 hours to prepare myself for the interrogation to come. T minus 15.0 Immediately, I sprang into action. I got on my cell phone and alerted HLF HQ; staff there immediately initiated Plan A-1/q (last revised: 12/27/99). I then broke the seal on my Emergency Cabinet in the den and opened my Action Manual to the appropriate checklist. For security purposes, I cannot list for you my next actions, but suffice it to say that none of us got very much sleep that night. T minus 1.0 I awaited the call on my cell phone (harder to trace should it become necessary). Following the plan, I went ahead and went to my cover job at the local Barnes & Noble cafe where I spent the next hour serving overpriced coffee to petulant wanna-be poets and listening to them moan about how the world doesn't appreciate their art (it's almost as bad there as the last cover job I had working the graveyard shift at Denny's). T minus 0.05 I clocked out for my break, telling the "supervisor" I had to call my agent to check on my latest screenplay (she completely understood). I went into the back room and awaited the call. T plus 0.05 My cell phone chirped. I picked it up. "Hello?" He said he had to get a haircut and wash his car but would stop in after lunch. 3pm that same day I spotted him the moment he walked in, wiping his mouth with a Wendy's napkin. I walked over to him and greeted him. We then walked to a table near the back that was secluded but highly visible. I won't trouble you to give you a word-by-word transcription of the conversation. The basics were this: He told me he was investigating a high-school friend of mine for a security clearance but that didn't fool me for a minute. I know the FBI has a file on me (you write one angry email to Tipper Gore, calling her a fascist for her policies regarding censorship, and THIS is the thanks you get!) and this "high school friend" he was investigating was certainly a thin ruse at best. Still, I played along with his little game, providing the "correct" answers in response to his every question. Still, though, his queries became more and more pointed as the interview ground on, reaching a climax with the following transaction: "Does <name omitted> have any connection with any
terrorist groups?" He smirked a little bit at me but knew he wasn't going to get any more from me. Finally, after a few more questions about more mundane topics ("Have you ever heard her sing Communist songs in karaoke bars?" "Has she ever gone door-to-door to sell copies of Das Kapital?" "Would you trust her with the nation's security in the area of web browsers?"), he wrapped up the conversation with, "If we have any more questions, we'll be in touch." Well, I certainly know what THAT means--they're going to be watching. So, now that we know they're watching, we went ahead and set our tracking services to monitor how much they're monitoring our website. As it turns out, the United States military has visited it quite a few times. As of 5:52 PST, the U.S. military has visited our site between 84 and 105 times (our tracking services don't agree; we suspect it's because the government tries to hide its visits through various nefarious means). We will be keeping our eyes on them--rest assured of that, Constant Visitor. (FEBRUARY 2001 UPDATE: We have now received 133 visits from the US military and 127 visits from the US government... and we suspect these numbers are low because the agents are using anonymizers--we've received 9451 hits from "unknown" domains. Their surveillance of us continues unabated, but WE SHALL OVERCOME!) Nevertheless, you, the innocent public, do not need to fear on our behalf; we are used to such scrutiny and promise to keep ourselves ever vigil for the rights of rodents everywhere. Our mission is one that not even a corrupt oligarchy of the wealthy can stop. We remain (and shall forever remain) dedicated to the tasks we have set before us. And if you ever see a bunch of suits chasing after freedom fighters, stop and applaud our efforts--we do it not only for the rodents and for ourselves, but we also do it for you.
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