"The Feds Are Reading Every Word You Write"

     "The feds are reading every word you write," one of my employees warned me.

     Later, my brother said the same thing--and he doesn't even read my blog.

     Then my mother concurred, saying, "I wouldn't doubt it."  

     She asked me to delete every post that had the names of FBI agents, prosecutors, or my attorneys.  

    "You don't know what they can do to you," she admonished.  She had stopped reading the blog after the tenth post.  "It makes me too nervous," she apologized.

     My lawyer said:  "You should be circumspect," in his usual, level-headed way.  I didn't quite know what he meant, but it sounded like smart advice.

     "Just don't talk about your case," one of my friends told me.

     "But the blog is about my case!" I said.

     "Can't you stick to topics about doctoring?" she asked.

     "There are plenty of blogs like that," I said.  "I don't have to duplicate stories about the wonderfulness of medicine."

     "They're going over it with a fine-toothed comb," the first employee went on.

     "Really?" I asked.  "How do you know?"

     "Come on."  He shook his head at me, implying that I was hopeless.  "They're the feds.  They know everything."

     I thought that sounded kind of silly.  How could anyone know everything?  Besides, the proof that he's wrong is that they're investigating me, they think I'm committing a federal crime.  Surely, that's something they didn't get right. I told him so.

     "Stop nitpicking," he said.  "Just remember that whatever you write, they're reading it.

     "But why?"

     "To look for evidence you might slip up and give them."

     "But 'slipping up' implies that I have something to hide."

     "Well, whatever..." he hesitated, squinting his eyelids and looking at me through the slits.  "You don't know how they can twist things around."

     "Have you seen any so-called slips?" I asked.

     "Not so far," he said. "But you never know." 

     "So you are admitting that you think I have something to hide."

     "No," he said, "I know you have nothing to hide."

     "Then why the big paranoia?"

     "They could take something you say, and make it out that you're saying something different, or try to show that you contradict yourself."

     "Then, if that happens, I'll clarify things for them."

     "They don't want your clarification," he said.  "They want to be right."

     "There's an option for that.  They can finish researching my office, and withdraw.  It's simple."

     "Don't you think that's a little naive?" he asked.

     "No, I don't."  I was feeling a little irritated over the warnings by all these people that I should look out for apparitions, which is what false accusations are.  I can't imagine what I'm supposed to be keeping secret."

     "Well, then, all I can say is good luck," he said, and went back to work at his computer.

     At the very least, I hope that if the feds really are reading this, they make that peach roll-up cake I posted, because I'm eating the last piece right now, and it's really good.