Very good point CJ. I bet he knew the answer to everything he asked. Think
about it. If Michael would have said absolutely anything--ANYTHING-- that
didn't match his records he would have become suspect. Of course the agent
didn't act like he knew anything--he wanted Michael to think he was clueless
about it so that he would be more comfortable in making up a story if he was
a terrorist.

The story actually makes me feel a tad better about our anti-terror efforts.

Marco

"C J Campbell" wrote in message
...


The agent did not seriously believe that Michael was a terrorist and had
reason to believe that we knew enough about him that he was not a
terrorist.

He may have told Michael that he had not looked at his INS file and may
only
have been pretending to be ignorant of its contents. He might have gotten
more serious if Michael had answered questions contrarily to what the FBI
already knew.

The FBI routinely looks at your checking accounts when they begin an
investigation and would have done this before even contacting Michael.
They
would have checked to see whether endorsements on checks deposited in his
account matched other signatures they had of his, for example. They would
also have looked for anomalous disbursements or deposits. This technique
has
been so successful at uncovering terrorists that the FBI has not really
changed its methods in 40 years. Originally they started checking bank
accounts at random just to see what would turn up. They found one bank
account that had checks bearing five different signatures all with the
same
name. They sent a rookie agent by the name of Jason Moulton out to stake
out
the house and he ended up catching Patty Hearst and several other members
of
the Symbionese Liberation Army. Not bad for a rookie. He told me that when
he went in through the back door that Patty Hearst was sitting at a
kitchen
table, cleaning a disassembled weapon. He was real glad that she was not
armed.





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