I’ve had a somewhat busy day. Or I guess you could say 1.5 days…

I slept quite a bit yesterday and decided to stay up through the morning. Overnight I worked on Adam Eidinger’s campaign website. I made a bunch of new banners for the webpages. Before there was only one, and I was getting tired of it and I bet Adam was too! This morning I met up with Adam, Zoe, and a bunch of DC activists at the corner of 2nd & East Capitol St. to protest the current street closures in DC. It was very ironic how I strongly feel that one street in particular should be closed. (I’ll get back to that)

I rode my bike around during much of the protest to get the feel of the area and basically see how the Capitol Police were conducting the “heightened security measures.” These measures basically meant that every person’s car was looked into and if anything remotely suspicious was noticed, then you’d have to get out and be searched. Large cars and vans were searched more often than sedans and other cars. I sincerely feel that it is a complete violation of my 4th Amendment to be searched like this. I am glad I was on a bike! I felt some areas within the new “secure area” were not as secure before! And cars got backed up nearly 8 blocks in some places. The actual protest itself consisted of about 17 of us standing on the street corner with various signs. I’ll have the pictures up on Adam’s website soon.

The media did come and we did get some local media coverage, which makes the protest 10X more valid because thousands of people, miles away from our street corner, saw our message of dissent. During the protest the U.S. Capitol Police began to out number us, but they were rather cordial to us, expect the part of video taping us…..and….

As I was leaving I was trying to hail down a taxi for Adam, his wife & daughter and Zoe. Due to their location, no taxis were heading to their intersection, so began riding my bike down the street to get a taxi to come and pick them up. Halfway down the street I yelled over to the taxi cab driver to pick them up, a truck pulled up behind me and told me to come to the side of the road. The passengers of the truck were two plainclothes undercover U. S. Capitol Police Officers. It turns out that taxi ended up picking Adam and kru ended up being “detained” like I was…. Now I can see the situation- me, a dark haired ethnically ambiguous male, yelling over to a middle eastern man to pick up the people on the street corner at the end of the block, all-the-while it being code Oranga-glad-yer-an-American….

But still… I spoke with the “agents” for about 10 minutes while they checked my Missouri ID and asked me a slew of questions. In the end I was able to pitch them the new portion of my E. Street Risk Analysis. Which is the inherent irony or the morning.

Protesting all street closures, while you feel one street should be closed. As conflicted as it might seem, the search of the taxi cab would not have happened in front of the State Department! If the searches are supposed to stop an explosion, then you SHOULD close highway exits that bring cars very close. I asked for the undercover agent to check out the website, I even wrote down the URL on his notepad he was using to take notes about me with! I created the “new chapter” simply because I felt the whole heightened state was bogus, and since I’ve made the “new chapter” I have sent the link to Department of Homeland Security,the State Department, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency , and a friend of mine’s mother at the CIA. The undercover officer gave me his generic U. S. Capitol Police Investigations Division Task Force business card so I e-mailed them as well. I don’t think I will stop contacting government agencies until that exit is closed. I dunno why I am actually trying but I feel that I should- and hell I am the only one doing anything about it. I think.

When they returned my ID to me I went on merry way back to my room. I decided to look through all my website logs for the last 3 days to see if anyone from a government IP visited the “new chapter” and I didn’t get one hit! That kinda pisses me off, but oh well. At least I am trying to get my ideas out. Ahh, back to working on a different website then off to buy a lock for my bike.