September 10, 2009 1:34 PM
- Text
The Perfect Alibi
(CBS)
The reason almost anyone can find Hasan Elahi isn't because of his bleached hair or florescent green shoes. It's because of a small device on his ankle.
It behaves frighteningly like an tracking ankle bracelet.
Every time he moves, he takes a picture and a GPS pinpoints his location. Then it's all posted on his Web site, CBS News correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi reports, so anyone, anytime, can track his every move from one place to the next.
A lot of people are watching. His site gets 160,000 visitors each day. They view every airport he passes through, every meal he eats and every pit stop along the way.
"You can even see the toilets I used," Elahi said.
Isn't that a little too much information?
"No, no," Elahi said. "I'm all about full disclosure."
Elahi's over-exposed life began in 2002, when the Bangledesh-born American was detained at the Detroit airport for hours by FBI agents.
"Literally out of nowhere he asks me ''where were you on Sept. 12?'" Elahi said.
Elahi, an art professor, says agents were tipped off that he might be hiding explosives in a storage locker.
"Of course there was nothing there. I went through nine polygraphs — nine polygraphs, back-to-back," he said.
And he passed all of them?
"I guess I did, or I wouldn't be talking to you," he said.
The questioning lasted six months and left Elahi so afraid he would be detained he started telling the FBI before he traveled anywhere.
Then he decided, why just tell the FBI? Why not tell everyone everything?
"OK, government, you want to watch me, come and watch me," he said was his theory.
They are. He says his server shows hits from the Pentagon, the CIA and even the executive office of the president.
"You can accuse me of being a terror suspect, but I can prove to you that I'm not," he said.
Some may see all this as an invasion of privacy — but to Elahi, the 20,000 images add up to a picture-perfect alibi.
It behaves frighteningly like an tracking ankle bracelet.
Every time he moves, he takes a picture and a GPS pinpoints his location. Then it's all posted on his Web site, CBS News correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi reports, so anyone, anytime, can track his every move from one place to the next.
A lot of people are watching. His site gets 160,000 visitors each day. They view every airport he passes through, every meal he eats and every pit stop along the way.
"You can even see the toilets I used," Elahi said.
Isn't that a little too much information?
"No, no," Elahi said. "I'm all about full disclosure."
Elahi's over-exposed life began in 2002, when the Bangledesh-born American was detained at the Detroit airport for hours by FBI agents.
"Literally out of nowhere he asks me ''where were you on Sept. 12?'" Elahi said.
Elahi, an art professor, says agents were tipped off that he might be hiding explosives in a storage locker.
"Of course there was nothing there. I went through nine polygraphs — nine polygraphs, back-to-back," he said.
And he passed all of them?
"I guess I did, or I wouldn't be talking to you," he said.
The questioning lasted six months and left Elahi so afraid he would be detained he started telling the FBI before he traveled anywhere.
Then he decided, why just tell the FBI? Why not tell everyone everything?
"OK, government, you want to watch me, come and watch me," he said was his theory.
They are. He says his server shows hits from the Pentagon, the CIA and even the executive office of the president.
"You can accuse me of being a terror suspect, but I can prove to you that I'm not," he said.
Some may see all this as an invasion of privacy — but to Elahi, the 20,000 images add up to a picture-perfect alibi.
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