Too many of you are painting this black and white. "Is she a spy?" That's the sort of question that allows Jimbo and his friends to ridicule us. There is nothing black and white in the spy business. That's why CIA officers are frequently chronic alcoholics.

I'd call Slim an "agent of influence." The thing to remember is that troubled, confused, and unstable people are used as agents all the time. The deciding factor is whether they have access that the control officer can exploit. For example, if you're a crazy janitor, and you use pail and mop around Bad Guy's office once a week, a control officer would be interested in you no matter how unstable you are. The key word is "control." Money, flattery, blackmail — these are tools of control.

Let's say that you are working for ABC News in London on the Lockerbie investigation, and the media has been following the leads for 18 months and already has a fairly good idea of whodunnit. The bosses of U.S. and British intellignece suddenly get orders to finger Libya. That suddenly makes you makes you a delicious target for recruitment as an agent of influence.

By the time she gets to Wikipedia, she may have been out of the game for a long time. In central Canada, there isn't a whole lot to do, except write letters to UK newspapers denouncing foxhunting in the name of animal rights, and knit a jacket for her poodle. Maybe when she discovered Wikipedia, she got nostalgic for the excitement of the early 1990s. Back then she felt important. Perhaps she started out at Wikipedia thinking she could become important once again if she worked hard enough.

Slim probably realized that by owning articles on PanAm 103, and on LaRouche, it's possible to once again prove your access and your influence. If British intelligence didn't discover her on Wikipedia and give her some encouragement (perhaps through a cut-out), then Chip Berlet probably did. I've long felt that Berlet is an agent of influence for U.S. intelligence or, through the Anti-Defamation League, Israeli intelligence.

The more interesting question at this point is, "Why doesn't Jimbo have any inclination to look into the circumstances surrounding the SlimVirgin and Jayjg cabal? What does he know that he's not telling us?"

Daniel has a point. That's why SlimVirgin kind of reminds me of Jaws. She was basically for hire to whatever James Bond arch-villain needed henchmen.

Also for Tony Sidaway, who is a big Doctor Who fan, I don't see him fitting into this James Bond analogy. He reminds me of a Dalek. One of these daleks that bob its parts up and down all agitated and full of hate, but really just looking silly, and scream stuff like "MUST EXTERMINATE THE DOCTOR." On the last episode I saw, a Dalek had a wonderful line, "But the urge to kill is too strong."

That is very likely, and is the most plausible explanation behind SV's activities. Whether she continues to have insider knowledge or not, I doubt it would make any difference to her edits. And she's just another editor after all.

I've reconstructed the oversighted Slimv edits to Pan Am Flight 103.

As Daniel Brandt predicted, there were indeed several non-barking dogs to be found.

Because these edits would be impossible to adequately reconstruct in a post like this, I've put them in the traditional "compare differences" format and uploaded them here.

By the way, the only links that remain are those that move you between the five diffs.

You'll also note that the first and fifth are at first glance the most significant.

Thanks so much WordBomb. Your work is invaluable.

What is your analysis of this? What was she trying to cover up? What false ideas was she planting?

I'm not sure about what is a false idea, but some edits that struck me:

"Privately, some CIA officers who worked on the investigation believe that the PFLP-GC planned the attack, but that it was handed over to Libyan intelligence after October 1988, because the German arrests meant the PFLP-GC was unable to complete the operation. Others believe there were parallel operations intended to ensure that at least one would succeed."

Claims inside knowledge of "private" CIA officer theories.

In a later edit she names names:
"Vincent Cannistraro, who worked on the investigation, has told reporters he believes the PFLP-GC planned the attack at the behest of Iran, then subcontracted it to Libyan intelligence after October 1988, because the German arrests meant the PFLP-GC was unable to complete the operation. Other investigators believe that whoever paid for the bombing arranged two parallel operations intended to ensure that at least one would succeed."

This actually points more toward her being a "reporter who interviewed CIA" than "CIA agent".

"Many Lockerbie-watchers found it revealing that the Americans began to shift blame to Libya only after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in August 1990. America needed Syrian support for the [1991]] [[Gulf War]], the theory goes, and therefore did not want to blame a Syrian-based Palestinian terrorist group. For this reason, it is alleged, Colonel Gadaffi became a useful patsy. This theory is naive in two respects. First, although America blamed Libya publicly for the bombing for the first time after August 1990, insiders knew from around October 1989 that the focus of the investigation had turned to Libya. Secondly, it would not necessarily have harmed Syria had a Damascus-based terrorist group been held responsible. These Palestinian groups are based in Syria only in the sense of having their headquarters and press offices there. There is no evidence or suggestion that the Syrian government would have approved of an attack against the United States in response to the American attacks on Libya or Iran."

Attacks a strawman suggesting that Libya was a scapegoat pushed by "Americans" (really the US government).

Changes "The blast tore a large hole in the fuselage and cabin floor" into "The blast tore a small hole in the fuselage and cabin floor". This change goes along with her edit warring to use the term "catastrophic systems failure". One possible significance to this is where she adds:

"For several years, investigators wondered whether an insider had steered the bomb into that precise location in the forward cargo hold, because an explosion that size anywhere else on the plane, and possibly even anywhere else in that hold, would not have triggered a systems failure, and the plane might have limped to safety. In the end, investigators concluded there was no way the terrorists could have placed the bomb so precisely, and that it was merely a matter of dreadful luck for those on board that the suitcase containing the bomb ended up where it did."

Also later she adds "Other passenger jets have managed to limp to safety after similar explosions." She removes at this time "The 243 passengers and 16 crew members were killed almost instantaneously" which would be somewhat inconsistent with a small blast. In fact she adds later about how a couple passengers actually survive the fall and die shortly after im

Another strawman argument she provides and claims there is no evidence for: "Another conspiracy theory suggests that the bombing was carried out by a group of rogue [[CIA]] agents trying to cover up their involvement with a Syrian drug-smuggling operation; or that they turned a blind eye to the Libyan or Palestinian terrorists who had planted the bomb because the agents wanted to kill CIA officers who were passengers on PA 103. [....] No evidence of any kind has been put forward to support these claims."

I'll let someone else go through this now. There's a lot to digest.

Why? There was a point in time where I was worried that ASIO were going to murder me in relation to my knowledge of PA and hence whenever I wrote about it I claimed that I was interviewing an unknown someone in relation to it. In fact, it was my own personal knowledge. I did this for my own personal safety.

Say that SlimVirgin is a CIA agent, who then wants to push this agenda. Why would she want to act like she was the one responsible? Surely she'd do the same thing that I did, and pretend that she was interviewing someone else, when in reality it was her view. This also allows her to falsely adhere to NPOV. If people knew it was her own personal experience, would they have so easily allowed her to add it?

This is the first I've heard that "insiders knew from around October 1989 that the focus of the investigation had turned to Libya." This provides more support for John K. Cooley's statement: "Once the two Libyan suspects were indicted, she seemed to try to point the investigation in the direction of Qaddafi, although there was plenty of evidence, both before and after the trials of Maghrebi and Fhima in the Netherlands, that others were involved, probably with Iran the commissioning power."

Additional support for Cooley's statement was found in the book by Susan and Daniel Cohen, mentioned in another thread. They stated that Linda Mack took the lead in a petition drive to suppress the Allan Francovich film.

Mack calls this theory "naive." In fact, it's not considered "naive" by anything I've read about Lockerbie. No wonder Mack had second thoughts about posting something like this. By now everyone would be pointing to it and wondering, "Who told her to say this on Wikipedia?" "How would a Wikipedia editor by the name of 'SlimVirgin' know anything about what 'insiders' knew in October 1989, concerning a topic that was not made public until ten months later?"

I can see why that one got memory-holed.

Strong agreement here.

So you guys are saying that the Spy Biz is more Black & Tan ???

Jonny

All interesting points, but I must dispute some of them. I think that Cberlet is an agent of influence for private intelligence networks, which must, of course, inevitably overlap somewhat with the goverment ones. One of the simplest indications is that his organization receives substantial funding from the Ford Foundation, which is not a philanthropic organization. They are in the business of political intervention and social engineering. But the John Train Salon material illustrates best how Berlet is "tasked."

Also, I don't think that the Anti-Defamation League works for the Mossad -- with the Mossad would possibly be more accurate. I think the ADL works for other groupings which do not necessarily have anything to do with Israel or Jews. It is a very complicated case. Like Berlet, much of its output and activity is cover story. Then, we get occasional glimpses of its operational nature.




It's very grey. Variegated grey.

It could be nothing more complicated — complicitated ? — than his realizing, as most grant-seekers in the US do, that all the Big Bucks are doled out from under the Aegis of Big Daddy Warbucks Darpa Vader.

It's true, Luke ...

Jonny

I still stand by my statement that the primary reason for the mass oversights was to cover up what SlimVirgin's original agenda was, and was nothing to do with protecting her own privacy. I don't think that we'll find anything definitively private in any of the oversighted edits. Just more of the same stuff that she was doing later on, proving that the agenda she developed wasn't one that she developed through experience, but was a deliberate plot.

As I read the newest edit supplied by WordBomb last night, this stood out:



Which constitutes original research, etc, but who is an insider here? Slim? What kind of insider? This need to discuss inside knowledge is not compatible with someone in fear of their life for being exposed as a spy. It rings true Brandt's theory of a former insider remembering back to the "good old days".



Slim has never said that she has interviewed anyone, to my knowledge, and she has never confirmed that she was a journalist. All she claims, in a roundabout way, is insider knowledge. This suggests that she doesn't mind so much keeping herself in a grey area, and may actually find it quite "sexy" that people do/did believe she was something more than she is/was.



I have it on your word that you are not an intelligence agent, so it doesn't surprise me that you would do that. Suggesting that SlimV the intelligence agent would do the same thing as you, the non intelligence agent, then saying that she is an intelligence agent because she did the same thing you would is not linear thinking. A decent agent, with convictions, would not even discuss this, and even if they did, it would not be via anonymous edits to WP claiming insider knowledge. This smacks of a person that wants to show off what they know, a quality not becoming of someone in intel/counter intel, etc.

I understand why these edits were oversighted, as they add evidence to Linda Mack the journalist, but it is contrary to Linda Mack the intelligence agent. Linda Mack the intelligence agent is the story that made slashdot, because it is the sexier story. The coverup has created more controversy than the original deed.

If anyone involved in this were in intelligence they would be fired, and folks like this get fired a little differently than you and I. In my mind, the idea of Linda Mack the intelligence agent can be put to bed, but the unwitting (dupe) asset or agenda pushing activist remains, among other possibilities.

If she was just your bog standard journalist why does she (as far as anyone can find) only appear to have published one article? Has she been writing under a pseudonym?

$1,000,000 question:

If Linda Mack wasn't SlimVirgin, why on Earth would Linda Mack have been following Daniel Brandt's activities into the investigation of SlimVirgin?

You're like an information wrecking ball, I love it. There is no way, or doubt, in any sense, that Linda Mack is SlimVirgin. If this wasn't enough, "Linda Mack" going after Cooley to keep him from speaking with you is the clincher. Linda handed you a winning prize by contacting Cooley because of you. What was the first tip off way back in the day to tie into Linda Mack, anyhow?

Okay, let's consider some scenarios:

Scenario 1) SlimVirgin changed history on Wikipedia, and isn't Linda Mack at all, but is in fact a separate person, Sarah McEwan, a volunteer at an animal shelter.

Scenario 2) SlimVirgin changed history on Wikipedia, and is Linda Mack the journalist, but is not a spy, and never has been a spy.

Scenario 3) SlimVirgin changed history on Wikipedia, and is Linda Mack the journalist, was at one stage assisting MI5, but no longer is.

Scenario 4) SlimVirgin changed history on Wikipedia, and is Linda Mack the journalist, was at one stage assisting MI5, and later began assisting a different secret agency.

Scenario 5) SlimVirgin changed history on Wikipedia, and is Linda Mack, and has always been working for MI5 and many other secret agencies.

Now, we get to the point. Which is more relevant? That she changed history or who the fuck she is?

It is obviously important to prove who the fuck she is, but that is not the important issue. The important issue is that she changed history, from truth to untruth. Regardless of why she did it, the fact is that she did it, and this is what we need to focus on. If we are purely interested in who she is, then we are not really criticising Wikipedia.

The King's College alumni listing, with the SV e-mail address attached to her name, wasn't it?

Yes, a member of this Board found that email address on page 23 of the King's College alumni listing, by hovering his mouse over the name "Linda Mack." Until then, the name "Linda Mack" was just one name on 22.5 pages of names that he checked. The email address of slimvirgin1@yahoo.com was more than a tip-off — it was a smoking gun. He then did some googles on the name Linda Mack and discovered that she was involved in the Pan Am 103 investigation, which correlated with SlimVirgin's interest in the same topic. Up until that time, I only knew that Sarah McEwan was probably SlimVirgin's name.

Some of us had poked around the Cambridge University site, but until that happened, no one had discovered the alumni list. If they did, they didn't know about the mouseover for the email address, or didn't have the patience to check them all.

When this Board member emailed me to inform me of his find, I recognized the name Linda Mack. The fact that the email address at King's College was exactly the same as the email address on the slimvirgin.com registration under the name S.McEwan was a slam dunk. The second slam dunk came when Linda Mack called John Cooley and asked him not to talk to me.

Still, we have Durova and others on the mailing list, not to mention Jimbo himself leading the charge, referring to the SlimVirgin story as a wacko conspiracy theory by a bunch of banned, malcontented lunatics over on Wikipedia Review.

One thing we have to remember is that Linda Mack apparently made a serious effort to change her name, or at least start using a different name online. Her slimvirgin.com domain was registered in May, 2002 under S.McEwan, and she wrote letters or posted replies on that British newspaper site under the name "Sarah McEwan, Canada" and signed "Sarah" on Wikipedia. If Linda Mack was merely a former journalist who did her best to uncover the truth about Lockerbie, why would she try to hide her identity? This is one step beyond "just a pseudonym, and I don't regard it as a problem." Using a screen name on Wikipedia is one thing, but registering a domain under a different name 2.5 years before she started editing on Wikipedia means an additional level of obfuscation.

Why did she feel the need to do that?

I think that, unquestionably, Linda Mack changed her name legally to Sarah McEwan, and that she is now called Sarah McEwan, in the same way as Scott Gohring is now called Kelly Martin. If that is not true, then I'd be surprised. Furthermore, this happened before SlimVirgin started to use Wikipedia. I mean "SlimVirgin" is her username online - Sarah McEwan is supposed to be her real name.

So then we go in to reasons why people change their real names.

Here are the ones for people that I personally know changed their real names:

1) A girl I knew stole from her employer to the tune of $50,000, then ran away, changed her name, and fled interstate. In those days if you changed your name AND fled interstate then you could not be prosecuted for any petty crimes (and $50,000 was considered to be petty).

2) One girl was physically assaulted by her own mother, and decided to change her first name because her mother had named her, and instead chose the name that her father had wanted to name her.

3) One girl I knew was named one name at birth, and developed a nickname from the age of 3 months old, and they changed their name to that nickname.

4) One guy I knew was named one name by his father, and then when his father left when he was 1 month old, his mother in protest named him a different name. He changed his name to get around that.

5) One guy I knew found that his family was historically Jewish, and, like many Jews that fled to Australia to escape persecution, they had changed his family name. So he changed it back to what it was before, when they were Jews, to recognise and be proud of his Jewish roots. (Our family actually considered doing this, but decided that since we'd only added an "s" that it was not really worth it).

6) One girl I knew was given the name "Crystal Dick" at birth, and as an adolescent was teased repeatedly for it, so eventually changed her last name (she liked the name Crystal) and became Crystal Smith.

7) One guy I knew was seriously in to roleplaying, and decided to change his name to be what his Dungeons & Dragons character name was.

Now, are any of those kinds of reasons likely to apply to SlimVirgin? Most likely not. However, those are the kinds of reasons for why people change their name.

Let's think of the normal, everyday kind of reasons first. Then let's see if the CIA answer fits.

There are unexciting possibilities one can explore, but I do not know this to be fact, although I agree with you that's all I know of. Perhaps she did write under a pseudonym. But let's not forget that she seems to be an emotional person. For instance, she did drop out after the plane went down. For her to simply up and quit journalism due to an emotional issue seems likely.

Daniel Brandt may be able to address this, although I sometimes wonder if there are some things he is holding close to his chest...

You talk about journalism but as far as I can see she was always more of a researcher not really a journalist- I imagine she played a researcher role in the 1994 article also. If she was a researcher working behind the scenes that would be why her name didn't appear in print. Then we have to ask the question what happened after the 1994 article that made her change her name? Did an intelligence service warn her that she was in danger? Why would she have been in danger? Who from?

Fuckin' nut imo.

Slimmy has claimed to have "journalistic experience":
http://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=U...rev&oldid=27217 : "I'm a Wikipedia editor and have journalistic experience so I'm going to try my hand at Wikinews. "
(Somehow ED managed to miss that quote, in spite of their extensive quote-farm)

Also; one of Slimmys oversighted edits mentioned Ari Ben-Menashe; that is interesting as Ben-Menashes article is one that Slim "owns". That Slim should be interested in him is not surprising; he is after all Jewish, Canadian and associated with the cloak-and-dagger business. However, take a look at the talk-page, and the deleted edits and the archive. Among other things, Slim writes in
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Ari_Ben-...chive1#Maxwell:

"The distinction tends to be that an informant is not paid, though it varies from country to country. In the UK, the intelligence services apparently won't even buy an informant a cup of tea, in case any allegations about expenses are made, because as soon as payment is made, certain responsibilities apparently kick in toward the informant, and/or the information might be seen to be tainted. An agent, on the other hand, is generally understood to be someone who receives expenses or even a regular fee. An officer is a paid employee"

This is probably pure [[WP:OR]]!!

My guess: Slimmy didn´t even get a cup of tea
(However, she possibly got a few millions from Libya from the death of her friend Julian)

Also: note how Steven Emerson is referred to. Steven Emerson co-wrote a book on Lockerbie (which I have not yet gotten hold of). AND Slim "owns" his article, too. Emerson is actually a totally discredited person (he blamed the Oklahoma bombings on "Arab terrorists", among other things), but you wouldn´t guess that by looking at his WP article. Another fine case of whitewashing b y Slim. (see: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Steven_Emerson I am sure Daniel B. can tell us more)

This might add some insight to the oversight. It's the diff from the oversighted edit made by Slimv to the Robert Maxwell article.

There's just one in this case.

And may I say, that based on the content of this edit, SlimVirgin has clearly read the book The Secret History of the Mossad, and seems to be liberally borrowing from it...like a sort of hanger-on. Remember Robert Jordan, the guy who settled for the FBI when he couldn't get CIA, and then turned spy for the Russians just to get closer to the action? Maybe she's living out a fantasy on Wikipedia...and on Wikipedia Review, as far as that goes.

What was it?

Kelder Marge (I can't remember the spelling). We insisted on continuing to call him "Trevor" though.



Or maybe she was kicked out of MI5, tried to get a job with CIA, and ended up working for the Russians just to get closer to the action.

"I went home with a waitress,
The way I always do.
How was I to know
She was with the Russians, too?"

Send lawyers, guns, and money.

Magical Trevor?

See, if you just added "...then got kicked out of Russia for running a phony mail-order bride business, operated a small haberdashery in Ulaanbator for a few months, returned to the US in a shipping container with two dozen underaged Chinese girls destined for indentured servitude, and then wound up in the IT industry just in time for the internet bubble to burst," you'd have the story of my life right there.

No, that was his real name. Kelder Marge was his Elf Ranger. It was back in the day when Rangers were a new you-beaute Dungeons and Dragons class that was far superior to anything else. Apparently if you were in to D&D heavily, you'd understand what that meant. You needed virtually perfect stats on your first roll to get a Ranger, but once you did they were just about unbeatable. He loved his Elf Ranger so much he decided to become him.

Only his "true friends" called him Kelder Marge. Everyone else called him Trevor. Some people simply called him "Marge", or even "Marge Simpson".

Anyway, just saying that's one reason someone gave for why they changed their name.

So if perhaps Linda Mack had a roleplaying character called "Sarah McEwan", and another one called "SlimVirgin", then perhaps that's why?

Hmm umm I heard someone here say you lived in Western Europe. On the side your profile says "From: Central USA"




Kelder Marge just sounds too plain.

Also Rangers now seem to be basically crappy classes.

For some reason Blissy made me think that Sarah McEwan might be an anagram, so I ran a few:

Charm Anew As
Each Mans War
Arcane Whams
Can Shame Raw
Aha Scam Wren
Ace Harm Swan
Chaser Man Aw
Crewman Ah As
Can Wear Hams

and the winner is (with added parens):

Narc (Ahem) Was




Kelder Marge <---> Quel damage?

Was a Narc? As a hint that she was a spy??? Hmm, maybe. Sounds a bit far-fetched, but you never never know. These spook types do like to have hidden hints thrown around everywhere just for a laugh.



Stuffed if I know why he chose the name. We all made fun of it. And yes, nowadays Rangers are a crappy class. But at least for a while (1-2 years I think) they were the ultimate class. Of course, then D&D developers made changes to balance them, then the balancing went too far, and now they are crap. But as at when he changed his name, they seriously rocked.

I think it is more likely she or they chose the surname McEwan as that name is common in Canada which has a large Scottish descended population. Alternatively perhaps it is her mother's maiden name and her mother's family came from Alberta (and her father was English?).

That sounds likely (the first suggestion). You don't pick Smith as its a little too obvious, but you pick the local version of Smith, which in this case seems to be McEwan. And Sarah is also a pretty common first name.

Of course a snag in that would be what if you meet some other McEwans who say they are doing their family tree and wondered from what branch of the McEwans you descend from...

Not really. Its very easy to get around such arguments, and its pretty rare that they seriously investigate any discrepancies. Just think of your own personal experiences with it.

No comment.

As someone who's lurked these related threads, blogs, websites for a good while, that's always been my guess. Applying a little OR (Occam's Razor), LM was an aspiring journalist who was identified by Intelligence agents as a person that could be useful as a conduit for distributing misinformation. Drop a kind word here and there along with a few nuggets of "The Truth" (or at least the "truth" that particular agency wanted to see in the media), and watch the story percolate out there. LM probably enjoyed influencing what was being reported and at the same time, the feeling of importance that was being fed by the agency. At some point LM was no longer useful to them, possibly due to a loss of credibility with her employer. She was cut lose, and as somone that had no official relationship with the agency that was very easy to do. She returned to Canada. As for why she changed her name, I again think the simplest answer is the best. If you accept Byrne's published characterization of her as valid, it's not that hard to speculate that she may have felt some (unwanted) sense of celebrity for her role in Lockerbie. This is pure speculation on my part, but I've known people similar to Byrne's published descriptions of LM, and the people I've known have always been prone to overstatement. Maybe LM changed her name to SM because she felt she was too well known after the Lockerbie/ABC/Salinger events, even if she was not. A new name invokes the romantic notion of a fresh start as a new person, detached from the events of the past. I reiterate that I don't have anything to back this up, but the idea of a young woman caught up in her own romantic notion of changing her name to avoid the unwanted "fame" of her past life just seems a bit more plausible to me then the explanations that seem lifted from the pages of a le Carre novel. Heck, maybe she always wished her parents had named her "S" and the similarity between the old last name and the prefix of the new last name would probably make it easier to remember.

And so, after changing names, the newly dubbed SE laid low for a number of years, until she discovered Wikipedia, and the rest is history. Everybody here is aware of the draw of the site as a forum for pushing pet agendas. For someone who once upon a time had a pet agenda (and a sense of importance around that) that had been forced to lay dormant for years, I have to imagine discovering Wikipedia was like a heroine addict discovering oxyContin. Becoming an admin just sealed the deal. Maybe it is just me, but for some reason I have an easier time believing in a person approaching middle age who is trying to recapture the excitement of the past than a completely machiavellian concept of a former Intelligence Agent trying to utilise a chaos driven website to spread disinformation.

This is the most reasonable, and to my eyes the most plausible, explanation I've seen yet of the conflicting mass of data we have regarding the editor in question. It's pretty close to the conclusion I had reached. It lacks the dramatic appeal of declaring her to be an intelligence agent, while at the same time harmonizing with all but the abject denials (most of which come from people who would be in no position to make such denials with authority). And there's no "you must be kidding" reaction to reading any part of it.

It could also be entirely wrong. But until I see something that credibly contradicts some part of it, it's the theory that I personally plan to stick with.

I agree.

I have also considered the possibility that the name change was done for professional reasons, i.e., LM was hoping to re-enter the journalistic profession, but switched to SM to avoid the stigma of having been fired by Salinger.

Perhaps this is why she accuses her detractors of "damaging her livelihood"? By associating her nom de plume with her Wikipedia nom de guerre, she is exposed again as the whackjob she is. I can see how someone would be reluctant to hire her, given that background.

Gets my vote also, especially while she stays in Canada. It's not at all the same case as Durova down there in the US, where we know the government since 2002 has been engaged in a massive hiring spree of all kinds of cops and agents and marshals and analysts and spooks and whatnot, especially female ones.

By comparison with Canada, the US is Agent Capital, Cop Central, Prison City, and Military Base. Sometimes all in the same place. I'm getting very sick of it.

Has she actually published anything, other than letters to the editor, as SM?

What "letters to the editor?"

I'm not sure I want to go to the trouble of looking it up, but apparently she wrote a letter to the editor of a Canadian newspaper about a story they published on the Animal Rights movement and their activities up there, or some such thing. It was online for a while, and might be still, though I'd be a little surprised if it is.

Exactly. I worry most about what will happen after the next terrorist attack. I envision these authoritarian types hovering over our beloved Constitution, with the real life equivalent of WP:ROLLBACK, ready and willing to revert those pesky amendments as vandalism by those America-hating SPAs, our founding fathers. After all, why would any real American create rules which make fighting terrorism difficult? Obviously, these trolls were closet French!

What is it now, somewhere around a thousand US troops have fled to Canada while still in active duty. That kinda says something. If Canada was anything like Iraq, those thousand men would be treated as enemy combatants.