
After 9/11, dark skin + frequent travel could land just about anyone on the FBI’s most wanted list. That’s exactly what happened to artist + professor Hasan Elahi. Returning from a trip abroad, Elahi was detained by the INS and questioned by the Feds at an airport in Detroit. His crime? Looking Arab (he was actually born in Bangladesh) + renting a storage unit in Tampa pre-9/11. After several more chats with agents and a few polygraph tests, he went into defense mode. The FBI cleared his name, but refused to put it in writing. Elahi, a US citizen, feared a Guantanomo vacation. That’s when he came up with the ultimate alibi – a Web-based art project called "Tracking Transience: The Orwell Project." Now he traces his own movements for Big Brother through a home-made tracking device on his ankle, raising questions about surveillance and privacy in the information age with each step. On his site, a red arrow on a map shows us Elahi’s whereabouts. We can see a picture of his meal on that last trip to Hawaii. A bank statement shows us he spent $81 dollars at Wal-Mart store #0772 on March 2. What did he eat at Bennigans in New Jersey on March 1 for $14.82? Apparently, there are a few things Elahi still keeps to himself.