I now have added respect for the intelligence community in the United States. I've always known they were efficient, and when motivated, were among the best in the world at gathering and interpretting intelligence. Today, I have seen an example first hand. Let me explain.

A few days ago, my sister received an email from some politically aware friends of hers. It concerned the history of the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians, and urged all Jewish people to write to President Bush, partly to offset similar writing campaigns by persons of Arabic background. Ordinarily, I don't do stuff like that, but the email was compelling, and I decided to add my two cents. The letter I sent was respectful, reasoned, and in no way militant. To underscore the fact that I was a "real person", not just another croney putting a rubber stamp to somebody's template letter, I was quite personal, and signed my full name and address. That was on April 3rd.

Today, I was looking through the hit log of visitors to my personal website. Prominent among the April 4th visitors was a single hit originating from the U.S. Department of Justice. Coincidence? I think not.