Surveillance...

Under The Eye

Dear Friends,

My head is like a swarm of bees as of late, I have purpose, but all seems a bit chaotic and overwhelming. As time goes along, I have more & more projects percolating and now is the time to put a cap on adding new ones until all that I have presently going are done. This includes writings on this substack, which I have a back log of…

Eventually these writings and others will end up in two volumes, one with art, and one on a semblance of a timeline. Presently though, I am working on an entry that covers some of my DMT experiences, going back decades. I hope to have that out soon.

Thanks again for reading my entries, feedback is always appreciated.

Bright Blessings,

Gwyllm

This story covers several years going from 1968 to probably 1986. The main focus of it occurs after our marriage in 1978.

Northern California…

I have to set it up a bit though. I became involved with a group of people in Northern California in early 1968. What started out as an excursion in the spiritual practices turned out for at least a few years of my time then, in the radicalizing of yours truly and becoming peripherally involved with politics and the concept of revolution. I met many people during that time who were involved in the same stream of consciousness.  Eventually, our group’s main location was raided by state/federal officers in mid 1968 but nothing was found to incriminate anyone. Really it was more talk than any action in truth. Yeah, I did know people who have been deeply involved with the concept of revolution and resistance during that time period. There are other tales to tell of course from then…

Further Background: (My father whilst in the US Air Force worked with the CIA in the late 1940s and early 1950s. If he continued to do so after that he never said. Because of his working with the CIA and also being a high-level officer in NORAD we found that on occasion our phone would be tapped. Not the sophisticated tap nowadays that you can't hear but back then you could definitely hear when something was interfering with the line on occasion. My father always cautioned us away from the phone not to say stupid stuff, so that is a bit of background on what I'm about to talk about.)

After I left Northern California and moved south to LA I let all of that go. I got deeply involved in the music scene, along with art and poetry leaving that previous life behind. I consciously decided to step away from it all, becoming emersed in Los Angeles, and the scene there. …

As Time Went By: As I started to travel extensively in 1977 something strange started to occur. Every time I went through customs whether in the United States in the UK or other parts of Europe after I presented my passport, it seemed that an alert would show up on the computer at immigration and I'd be thoroughly searched. Of course, to no avail. I was only traveling.

Although I'll cover it in another posting, I met my wife in late 1977 in London. On my way out of London on the 17th of December and Heathrow awaiting my flight in the terminal I was grabbed by security/police and taken and searched thoroughly... no explanation, no pardon me, but stripped down to the flesh by whatever agency they represented.

4 months later I tried to bring Mary to the US for a visit and her visa was refused at Grosvenor Square, the US embassy back then because she couldn't remember the politics of her grandfather who died 10 years previous to her birth during the blitz in Glasgow. (He was from Georgia, and had served in the White Russian Army, before fleeing with his family to Scotland in 1917. One would think that the staff of the US Embassy could figure it out with that information, but perhaps that takes reasoning to its logical conclusion…)

I went back to London in May 1978, and we were married in October of that year.

US Embassy, Grosvenor Square

We decided to move to the States in early November which involved another visit to Grosvenor Square, this time together.  We spent a grueling 2 days being interviewed together, separately, together, separately… finally with what seemed like great reluctance, her visa (and later on in the US her Green Card) was issued.

A couple of weeks on, we flew to Los Angeles. We thought that all was set, but no there was another gauntlet to run, US Immigration. Consulting his computer, the Immigration Official looked at me squarely in the eyes and said, “If you answer incorrectly, or I don’t like your answer, she goes back on to a flight to the UK and you go to jail”. A lovely greeting to the USA… We were there for at least a half hour, watching others get turned away. I remember a young couple, she being from France, he of course being from the US. I watched her be seized by officials for lack of a visa, and he was frog marched off by the local gendarme. After that display of low-level violence by the State, we were grudgingly allowed to enter the customs area.

In customs, once more my bags were torn apart as was Mary’s. Mary had brought along her Teddy Bear (now our son’s) from her 21st Birthday. The Customs Officer turned his attention to the poor bear and started poking and prodding it. I looked at him and spoke: “Look, we just went through hell in Immigration. We are not smuggling anything, and we just want to get to our friends and catch some sleep.” (it being 10:30PM) Humanity emerged: “You are free to got, welcome to the US!” I could have hugged him as we made our way out into the L.A. night and our waiting ride…

In Our Flat, 1979

Further Along: Two months later, we have our own apartment, off of Bundy in West Los Angeles. Mary is thrilled with the weather and the community of good and brilliant people she had met. We attended concerts, dinners with friends’, long walks down to the beach on our days off, exploring the coast, and more. It was a golden time.

We set about setting our first home, acquiring furniture, curtains, dishware. It was a lovely moment. Along the lines, I brought home a kitten… Mary said, “I guess we aren’t returning to Britain?” (as had been our plan….) “Not for a while” I replied. We named the little furball “Mouse”. She was a handful.

After a few months, I started to notice problems with the phone line. Echoes, feedback etc. Then, mail started to turn up looking tampered with. Of course, this sent off alerts in my head. Since we were not engaged in anything nefarious, I tried to ignore it. The phone line situation went off and on for a few months, and then died down.

We started a small publishing collective with my old roommate Michael and his girlfriend, Vera. (DIY Press) We were publishing street poets, and those who hadn’t any access to publishers (like yours truly…) It was all great fun, and within the year it crashed and burned, then we then decided to start a band based solely on synthesizers… Mary had been a sound engineer in the UK, and I had been playing & performing since the 1960’s. We saved up our money, bought a drum machine, a Korg Polysynth (first of its kind in the world that model!) (The Korg was bought from Westwood Music, from Fred Walecki… the synth itself had an interesting history. It had been ordered from Westwood Music by Mike Pinder of the Moody Blues. One look at it, and he said no. Too complicated. Yes, it was but… too complicated for live shows) which we found out later but excellent for Studio Work!

Then we purchased a Tascam 4 Track Cassette Recorder... And our living room became a recording studio for keyboards and drum machine, and the bathroom for vocals when the neighbor upstairs was away as he flushed frequently....

Anyway, it's somewhat strays from the narrative but it is setting the scene….

Returning To the Subject at Hand: One Monday afternoon after work I meet up with Mary on Santa Monica Boulevard and we walked home together as we liked to do.

Arriving at the flat we stepped in, and I noticed what appeared to be papers for notation on top of the Korg appeared to have been moved. I didn't recall doing that, so I found it puzzling, then I noticed our bedroom door was open which was usually closed. We talked about this for a minute and then set about our evening, forgetting about the anomalies in the flat.

One of the soundtracks from those daze:

Another month passes and again we walk into the flat, and this time I noticed things definitely have been moved around, papers on the main, mail etc. At that point I had hackles run up my neck as I realized someone had been in our flat and probably had been previously as well. We both sat down on the couch stunned at the idea. The phone as well had been acting up again and all I could think of was that we were being checked up on to see if we were indeed married and living together or perhaps something else for my past...

We try to figure out what to do to ensure our privacy... The realization that we were under surveillance at that point was astounding… Truly though one had to wonder why... How was the relationship that we had a threat?

Never mind: In the eyes of the watcher and the surveiller all is suspect.

I decided at that point that I was going to monitor the situation. Both occurrences happened on a Monday. Next Monday I taped a strand of hair on the bedroom door and frame. This was done at the bottom of the door where it would be unnoticed.

The first week, nothing occurred. I retape a strand the next week and bingo when we come home, I check the door and the strand of hair has been broken.

These events went on for about a year and a half. Between phone taps and illegal entries, we knew we were in the lens of those who did not have our interest at heart.

Eventually I figure that we were not that interesting to the powers that be... And they figured out that indeed our marriage was valid. She was not a menace to the USA, and I was not marrying her just to get her a green card.

My troubles with immigration/customs still continued on though up through 1986. I haven’t traveled out of the States since, so I assume all of this has gone by the wayside. I doubt if I would raise alarms anymore, the Surveillance State has bigger fish to fry.

Still, it makes me wonder just how deep everyday surveillance of the population goes. It has probably only increased since 2001 as well as the advent of the smartphone and other devices. Nowadays I assume that we are all under surveillance 24/7 365 days a year. Your devices, and especially your phone is monitoring you constantly. There is more than likely a delicious file on a system somewhere in the Utah desert that gets replenished with your computer searches, conversations, etc. on a daily basis.

We have to strive to bring this beast of the State and technology to heel. It won’t get better by just accepting it.

Thanks For Reading!

Gwyllm