A
BANGLADESH-born American
artist has gone to extreme
lengths to ensure he is
never accused of being a
terrorist.
Hasan
Elahi, an arts professor
from New Jersey, has fitted
himself with an ankle
bracelet that tracks his
every movement and posts
them on the internet, CBS
news reports.
Every time he
moves, he takes a picture
and a GPS pinpoints his
location. Then it's all
posted on his
website.
Web wanderers
can then view every airport
he passes through, every
meal he eats and every pit
stop along the way.
Plenty are
watching - his site gets
160,000 hits a day.
Video:
See Hasan
Elahi's incredible story
(CBS News)
Keep track:
Visit Hasan Elahi's
website
"You can even
see the toilets I used,"
Elahi said.
Isn't that a
little too much information?
"No, no,"
Elahi said. "I'm all about
full disclosure."
Why is he
doing this?
In 2002,
Elahi was detained at
Detroit airport for hours by
the FBI, who accused him of
being a terrorist.
"Literally
out of nowhere he asks me
'where were you on Sept.
12?'" Elahi told CBS.
He says
agents were tipped off that
he might be hiding
explosives in a storage
locker.
"Of course
there was nothing there. I
went through nine polygraphs
nine polygraphs,
back-to-back," he said.
The
questioning lasted six
months and left Elahi so
afraid he would be detained
he started telling the FBI
before he traveled anywhere.
Then he
decided, why just tell the
FBI? Why not tell everyone
everything?
"OK,
government, you want to
watch me, come and watch
me," he said was his theory.
They are. He
says his server shows hits
from the Pentagon, the CIA
and even the executive
office of the president.
"You can
accuse me of being a terror
suspect, but I can prove to
you that I'm not," he said.
Source:
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,21931016-8362,00.html
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Hasan Elahi
Assistant Professor, Mason
Gross School of the Arts,
Rutgers University
Hasan M. Elahi is an
interdisciplinary artist
with an emphasis on
technology and media and
their social implications.
His research interests
include issues of
surveillance, simulated
time, transport systems, and
borders and frontiers. He
has had numerous exhibitions
nationally and
internationally in venues
such as PS122 and Exit Art
in New York; the
Kulturbahnhof in Kassel,
Germany; the BBC Big Screen
in Manchester, UK; and the
Hermitage in St. Petersburg,
Russia. He has also lectured
at the American Association
of Artificial Intelligence
at Stanford University and
the Tate Modern in London.
His work has been supported
with significant grants and
numerous sponsorships from
the Ford Foundation/Philip
Morris, Creative Capital
Foundation, DuPont
Industries, the West
Virginia Cultural Center and
the Asociación Artetik
Berrikuntzara in Donostia-San
Sebastián in the Basque
Country/Spain among others.
Currently, he is an
Assistant Professor at the
Mason Gross School of the
Arts at Rutgers University
in New Brunswick, New
Jersey.
Australian citizenship by birth, descent or
naturalisation
Mula Nasruddin and
his mate, Nasrullah Jawad are working for the Brisbane
City Council.