The publishing world may have known William T. Vollmann as a National Book Award-winning author, but the FBI at various times suspected he was "the Unabomber, the anthrax mailer and a terrorist training with the Afghan mujahideen," the Washington Post reported. It cited Vollmann's piece, "Life as a Terrorist: Uncovering My FBI File," in the September issue of Harper's, where he explores his FBI file in a "brilliant, chilling essay about America and privacy."
Speaking with NPR Morning Edition's David Greene yesterday, Vollmann said he was bothered by the FBI's secrecy almost as much as the invasion of his privacy: "If we're not allowed to know what they're doing with this information, I can't help but think that we are headed for really serious trouble."
In Harper's, Vollman wrote that his "motives for writing this story are conventionally American. I value my freedom to be what others may not wish me to be. I am proud to read whichever book I want, from The Satanic Verses to S&M pictorials to the speeches of Saddam Hussein. Although I sometimes write about politics, I do not consider myself political--or is it in fact political to hold some degree of disrespect for whichever fellow citizens have been set in power over me? In this, if Steinbeck is to be believed, I am very American: 'Americans almost without exception have a fear and a hatred of any perpetuation of power--political, religious, or bureaucratic.' "
