🚀 go-pugleaf

Some of you have been following my situation, to others
it is probably new.  I have been harassed and tortured
right here in in Charlottesville.  More details are on my
web page at http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~alb.  I have now sadly
decided that I must go on a hunger strike to try to bring
an end to this intolerable situation.  I am obviously willing
to risk my health, reputation and career to stand up and
say what was and is being done to me -- knowing full well what
a few blowhards will say from their armchairs.  This letter is
a copy of one I have mailed out to various lawmakers, human rights
groups, and certain news organizations.  Thank you for
your attention, and please spread the word.

Allen L. Barker

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Dear Sirs,

This letter is to announce that I am embarking on a hunger strike
effective Nov. 8, 1996.  The purpose of the hunger strike is to
protest the torture I have undergone here in the United States.  Two
years ago I could never have imagined that I would be tortured right
here in the U.S.  I especially could not have imagined that I would
*then* have to mount a hunger strike to have my charges taken
seriously.

I am a U.S. citizen, living in Charlottesville, Virginia.  I am 33
years old.  I have been affiliated with the University of Virginia --
as an instructor, student, and researcher -- for many years.  My areas
of research include target tracking, classification, neural networks,
and other areas which have serious military applications, in addition
to their non-military ones.  I will not take more space here with my
background.  More information on my research, as well as some of my
writings on Zen Buddhism and poems, can be found on my web page at
http://www.cs.virginia.edu.  Updated information on my hunger strike 
and more information about my situation can be found there as well.

Around January of 1995 I became the target of a harassment campaign.
The incidents began when I started doing unclassified contract work
that was ultimately for the Intelligence and Electronic Warfare
Directorate.  I know that people there knew what was going on early
on.  For this reason, and the level of technology involved, I accuse
agents of the U.S. government of being *at the very least* complicit
in my harassment and torture.

The technology of torture is much advanced now; that is a simple fact.
To refuse to believe otherwise is simply wishful thinking.  You may or
may not already know about ``non-lethal weapons,'' directed energy,
and other exotic technologies that can easily be used as high-tech
torture implements.  That some of these weapons can cause effects in
people which mimic the symptoms of mental illness only increases the
likelihood that these weapons will be abused.  The sick rationale
being that the psychiatric system will then unwittingly punish the
victim should he protest.  [The truly mentally ill are violated as
well, by having their illnesses used as a ``cover.'']  But I will not
be deterred from speaking out.

My house was bugged.  My electronic and U.S. mail was blatantly read.
I was followed when I left the house.  Both my phone lines rang
several times a day, with the people on the other end always hanging
up after 30 seconds or so.  People showed up on the Usenet (Internet)
news groups flaunting their knowledge of the intimate details of
conversations and actions that had taken place in my ``private'' home
the night before.  They posted taunting poems about my ``private''
life, as well as death threats.  They seemed, childishly, obsessed
with anything involving sex.  This continued for months.

They tried to keep me from posting to alt.zen, a newsgroup for
discussions of Zen Buddhism.  ``New'' people showed up on the
newsgroup attacking me, and using information from my home to
intimidate me.  They would even parrot words right out of my mouth --
from my home -- to make it appear they had some idea what Zen Buddhism
was.  As though alt.zen were some subversive organization to be
infiltrated and neutralized.

As if this ``traditional'' harassment campaign were not enough, I then
began to experience symptoms that I now believe were caused by
microwave or directed energy devices.  Certain Usenet articles would
even hint that this was being done to me as it happened.  I lived in
terror of even going to sleep inside my own home, for fear I would
wake up -- again -- to find my brain being scrambled.  Several times I
even had to go and hide in my metal bathtub.  This was not some silly
Internet game.

As if this were still not enough, I now know that some sort of device
has been used on me which allows others to hear both my speech *and*
my subvocalized thoughts.  I know this without a doubt.  I could
speculate on how it is done, whether by an implanted sensor device or
by some other means, but I will not pretend to know the exact
mechanism.  I do not think there is even a term yet for this type of
extreme violation -- this mind rape.  Twenty four hours a day, for two
years: When I am using the toilet, having sex, or even dreaming, my
private thoughts are being raped.  I cannot even begin to describe the
horror of being tortured inside your own home this way, especially
when your very own thoughts can be used or fed back to harm you, and
nowhere is safe.

My home, family and person have been unspeakably violated.  My
religion has been defiled and my free exercise of it interfered with.
My unpublished scientific research has been blatantly stolen, and any
new research has been effectively halted.  Virtually every right I
ever thought I had has been trampled without even a hint of due
process.  Even my freedom of thought.

Perhaps due to the severity of what has been done to me (and some
people with consciences), or perhaps in an attempt to publicly
embarrass me, information has been leaking out.  News organizations,
including The Washington Post, have known the true story for some time
(and from sources other than me).  For reasons I do not understand,
they have not seemed inclined to openly report the story.  Perhaps due
to unnamed sources, legal matters, a false idea of national security,
or just the extreme nature of the atrocities that have been committed
against me.

The more I learn about the history of covert intelligence abuses the
less anomalous what has happened to me seems.  Even the extent to
which the press holds back the true story.  As Americans we seem to
want to pretend that intelligence agencies do really exist, and that
they are not really arms of the government subject to the Bill of
Rights or any treaties.  If the entire government is not bound by the
Bill of Rights we should stop teaching our children that, for example,
they have the right to free speech and the free exercise of religion.

I have not been charged with or accused of any crime.  I am not
perfect and never claimed to be.  I do not doubt that from close to
two years of unconstitutional and immoral surveillance and torture one
could find something ``wrong,'' out of context, or embarrassing I
might have done or said.  And I fully expect that this letter will
lead to further attempts to smear me.  But nothing compares to or
justifies the horrors and experimentation my family has undergone,
which can only be called crimes against humanity.

If nothing else I hope my actions will spur open discussions of these
new technologies and their unfortunate applications as tools for
political imprisonment and torture.  Perhaps someone else can be saved
from going through what I have.

It is only after much soul searching and failed attempts to obtain
redress for, and an end to, the crimes against me that I now feel I must
begin a hunger strike on Nov. 8, 1996.  I call on the press to openly
report what they know of abuses of this type, against me or other
citizens.  With regard to the appropriate offices of the
U.S. government:

   * The government should release to me any and all information
   about what has been done to me and why.  Particularly information
   regarding my health and that of my family.

   * All government intrusions into and attacks on the free exercise
   of religion should cease, particularly where surveillance is used
   to curtail religious freedom.

   * Those responsible for the crimes against me should be held
   accountable and punished in ways that reflect the severity of their
   crimes, and their violations of the trust put in them.

   * Other victims of similar crimes should be notified.


Sincerely,
Allen L. Barker



P.S. It is a sad day when someone can cast standing up for the Bill of
Rights -- in practice -- as unpatriotic, but I do not doubt that
someone will try.