I was wondering why they never asked me any
questions when I came through Immigration. “Where
have you been?” “Sudan.” “Oh.” And Sudan’s on the
terrorist list, you know. It seemed to me that they
would at least say, “Why were you there?” or
whatever. Maybe a couple of them did, but they never
stopped me, and I never got a follow-up phone call
until two years later after what was then my latest
trip. The call was left on my machine here at
school, and the fellow said, “This is the FBI, and
we’d like to have you come in and talk to us about a
few things.” I thought, “Yeah, okay, this is it.
This is the moment. They were just waiting.” For
what, I don’t know, but they were just waiting. This
was post-9/11. So it was a message left. I didn’t
answer the message. I got on the phone and
immediately called the National Lawyers Guild, which
is a Left lawyers guild, and I’d done some asylum
cases for them gratis and so on, so they owed me
some favors. So I got hold of this lawyer that I’d
worked with and told her the situation. She said,
“Well, I’ll call him and find out what he wants.” So
she did, and he just wanted to ask me a few
questions about Sudan, he said, surprise, surprise.
I said, “Well, can I refuse to go in?” And she said,
“No, not really, you can’t.” I said, “Well, can I
refuse to answer questions?” She said, “Well, yes,
but it’s not a good idea. I’ll just teach you how to
answer the questions.” So she taught me techniques
for asking questions that so frustrate your
questioner that he or she changes gears. She said,
“What I did do was arrange to meet at my office.”
Because I know I had already told her, “I don’t want
to go there, and I don’t want them coming here, and
I don’t want them at my house.” So we agreed to meet
at her office. It turned out this young man was head
of the anti-terrorism unit in Los Angeles and
basically he wanted connections with Sudanese. He
wanted me to connect him with Sudanese. He explained
to me that the agency is split, that some want to do
the old surveillance techniques and so on, but
others, the newer generation, wants to work through
networks, and that’s his point of view. So he wants
to know if I know any Sudanese in Los Angeles, and I
said no, which actually was true. Most of the
Sudanese are in Anaheim [California] or other places
quite far outside of L.A., and I don’t really know
them anymore. I used to know a lot of Sudanese here.
So I explained, “Most of my Sudanese friends are in
Sudan or scattered all over the world, but I don’t
know any in L.A.” Well, he didn’t really believe me.
He continued with his—he said that, you know, since
Osama bin Laden lived in Sudan for six years that he
figured that he must have been building up some
Sudanese cells during the time he was there, and he
said, “We have good reason to believe that the next
major attack will be Los Angeles, and so we’re just
trying to prepare ourselves.” So then he said, “Do
you know any place where Sudanese hang out?” By the
way, he’d read a lot of my material. He’d read my
book. He’d read articles and so on. He came
prepared, and that came up in various ways
throughout this interview, which lasted a little
over an hour. “Do you know any place where Sudanese
hang out?” I said, “Look, if I did know some coffee
shop or whatever where Sudanese hang out, I wouldn’t
want to tell you because you would just go and
harass innocent people.” He said, “No, no, no, no.
We don’t do that anymore. We used to park outside of
mosques and write down all the license plate
numbers.” That was an interesting piece of
information. I mean, Muslims are paranoid about
that, and I thought they were paranoid, but it
appears that it was quite a usual tactic. He said,
“No, we don’t do that. Do you know any Sudanese who
would be willing to talk to us?” I said, “No. You’re
asking me to link you up with Sudanese in a way that
would make them informers somehow. I can’t do that.”
He looked a little surprised. So then he asked me a
series of other questions, one of which was, “Do you
know any Sudanese who had been members of the
Communist Party but became Islamists?” I still
can’t quite figure out the reason behind that
question. I said, “Well, you know about one of them,
because I wrote about it in my book, and I know
you’ve read my book,” and I named him because
everyone knows him, Ahmed Suleiman. I said, “I don’t
know any others.” And he didn’t quite believe me. I
don’t think he quite believed anything I was saying.
Then in the end, he gave me his card and he said,
“Well, if you think twice about any of this stuff or
you come across anything that Sudanese are talking
about, any links that you might see with al-Qaeda,
let me know.” When he left, I realized that I’d
found out more about them, in a sense, and the way
they worked, than he was able to find out from me. I
was still appalled, but my lawyer was quite—she said
she was disappointed in me. Surprised. No, she
didn’t say disappointed. “I’m surprised, Sondra.” I
said, “Why?” She said, “Well, if there were a
terrorist attack, wouldn’t you want them to be able
to stop it before it happened?” She said, “I’m
actually quite worried.” I said, “Well, first of
all, I don’t think it’s going to happen, and,
second, I’m simply not going to cooperate with them
because I never know what they’re going to do to
these people. Look at Guantanamo. I’m sure there are
an awful lot of innocent people there. I don’t want
to be responsible for linking up the FBI or the CIA
with Sudanese.” So then I got a call two weeks later
from another FBI person who wanted to talk with me
about female circumcision and honor killing. Now,
what? Why? I thought it was, once again, just to
make connections so they can ask me other questions.
But I don’t know anything they don’t know, I don’t
think. They just want to hear it. They want names.
They want names, and I’m not going to give them
names.