William C. Black, Iowa State professor of electrical and computer engineering, now knows what it’s like to be on the other side of the CIA.

It all began while Black was working at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich in 1986. Black shared an office with a Russian scientist who began to ask him intrusive and strange questions.

“We were office mates, so there were a lot of conversations,” Black said. “What aroused my concern was that he asked a lot of personal questions. He asked about my background, professionally and personally, and he also asked about who I was working with in Switzerland. He asked about 20 times to see my airline ticket.”

Black, who had security clearance because he worked on some projects related to military defense, had many colleagues who were working on encryption and coding computer software programs. The United States is forbidden from exporting even the most trivial encryption software, Black said. But Switzerland has a booming business.

“My understanding of the requirements of my security clearance was that I report anything unusual,” Black said.

Suspicious of his office mate, Black filed a report with the U.S. Embassy in Switzerland in 1986.

“They asked that I come in and meet with someone there,” Black said. “The United States has not acknowledged who she was. There was a Freedom of Information Act document that seemed to imply she was a representative of the FBI.”

In early 1987 Black had several more meetings with representatives from the CIA and the U.S. Embassy. He returned to the United States in July, 1987 and a month later he received a letter saying his security clearance was canceled because he had not made any more reports and was not working on defense projects.

“I called the person who wrote the letter,” Black said. “She was a defense investigative service official. I asked her specifically if this means I don’t have to speak to anyone anymore about my travel. She was vehement about it.”

In September of 1987, he made another trip to Switzerland. When he returned a month later he received a call from a CIA contact asking him to report on his trip before he did anything else. Black declined to comment because nothing had happened on that trip, and he wasn’t required to report anything.

“Truthfully, in the meetings I felt increasingly uncomfortable,” Black said.

Intimidation

Then things began to get weird, Black said. He began to find evidence that people had broken into his house.

“There were greasy fingerprints that kept appearing on a specific wall,” Black said. “I would clean it off, then a day later there it was again. I had a toilet kit next to the sink. I always left it open, but whenever I came home it was always zippered shut. There were telephone games. Once when I was sitting quietly in my home, I yawned. Immediately the phone rang and a recorded woman’s voice said, ‘I’m tired too. Sing me a lullaby before you go to sleep …’ click.”

At one point Black’s father called him and said that he had been approached by people claiming to be government agents.

“He is a frail old man, and it really bothered me,” Black said. “It was scary. I called the CIA contact and he said it wasn’t any of their people, that it must have been the other side. Like the KGB [the former Russian secret police] is going to send someone to the Midwest. It was completely ludicrous.”

Black then met with CIA representatives again, out of concern for his family.

“I met with three new individuals,” Black said. “One of them looked familiar. It wasn’t until after the meeting that I realized that I had seen him numerous times in Switzerland. I went from being scared to really angry. I was not only being monitored here, but also over there.”

The person had come to classes that Black taught in Switzerland.

Black thinks the intimidation started because he refused to report anything after he lost his security clearance.

State Secrets

In 1992 Black brought a lawsuit against the FBI and CIA only to find that the U.S. legal system was unable to protect him.

“You can only sue the U.S. government in ways that they allow themselves to be sued,” Black said. “They are basically above the law. They have allowed themselves to be sued through legislation. The Constitution says government agents can only enter a house with a warrant. But there is no remedy if that’s not done. Eventually they attempted to get me out of court on technical grounds.”

Black lost the case because the CIA claimed “state secrets privileges,” the privilege to withhold information from the court that might be dangerous to national security. Black appealed the lower court decision to the Supreme Court, but it declined to review the case last week, agreeing with the CIA.

“All that’s required, if you believe the Supreme Court here, to claim state secrets privilege is a letter from any executive agency, the Department of Agriculture or God knows what, that allowing the case to proceed would compromise national security,” Black said. “They have even claimed state secrets privileges in a traffic accident. They couldn’t discuss the automobile in court because it was a State Department vehicle.”

In Black’s case, the director of the CIA sent a letter that said the case could not proceed.

Patriotism or Skepticism

Black is concerned about new anti-terrorism legislation in the United States. He thinks such legislation will make it easier to deport people from the United States based on circumstantial evidence and that increased wire-tap privileges for government agencies will make it easier to conduct electronic surveillance.

“Even without legislation allowing them to do so, I am convinced that they are doing it anyway,” Black said. “It’s really scary. It is my impression that there is really no oversight. My case is not unique. I encourage everyone to read as much as possible about what’s going on and to be skeptical. I don’t think you should have your judgment clouded by any sense of patriotism.”