Arrival at Ed Fluegel's Domicile

Ed Fluegel arrived at his domicile, a third-floor loft apartment in the Dumbo district of Brooklyn, New York, at 20:15 on Day 1 of the time period under consideration. His arrival was noted by CIA Agent Pound, who was conducting surveillance stationed in a vehicle bearing the markings of an (off duty) taxi cab. (No CIA agents are referred to here or elsewhere in this report by their real names.) Surveillance of the domicile had been initiated shortly after 18:00 to ensure that Ed Fluegel could be quickly located for pickup late that evening.

The domicile had not been entered by CIA in Ed Fluegel's absence, entry having been deemed unnecessary. Laser listening devices were trained on two windowpanes. The following conversation was recorded by these devices. From this transcript, this commission has concluded that Ed Fluegel was unaware of his impending recruitment by CIA.

The sound of the front door opening and closing is clearly indicated on the recording at 20:15.

Ed Fluegel: Hi, Bobby. How are you?

Bobby Fluegel: Yoo-Hoo. OK.

[Recording indicates a console video game was being played on the television set.]

EF: You want to pause that and help me put up the groceries?

BF: Sure Solid.

[Video game sounds cease.]

EF: Have you been playing games all day or working?

BF: Equal.

EF: That's good. I'm glad one of us has been productive.

[Shuffling noises. Clap from cabinets shutting.]

EF: Yeesh, what a day. I've got a really frustrating client, Bobby. I've had to deal with her all afternoon.

BF: Sorry.

EF: I'm writing this documentation for a voice-recognition application for blind, I mean for visually-impaired users, and, well, she keeps saying yes, it's only going to be available in the printed manual format, that's all the specification requires.

[At 20:21, a pneumatic sound, likely an office chair being repeatedly moved up and down. Tapping sound of keyboard manipulation.]

Records obtained by NSA from the Fluegel's ISP indicate that Bobby Fluegel had logged on and was working to mark up a Web page. The Fluegel computer retrieved a single message from the ISP's email server: a specifications document containing promotional text for a local store selling smoking paraphernalia clearly intended for illegal use.

ISP records indicate that, at 20:31, Bobby Fluegel uploaded an HTML document [Mirror] to the ISP Web server's staging area. The HTML file in question was a draft of a commercial Web page following the guidelines in the aforementioned specifications document. Although Bobby Fluegel was young, had recently come to live with Ed Fluegel from his father's domicile, and was listed as a developmentally disabled dependent of Ed Fluegel on Ed Fluegel's 1040-EZ, he was clearly gainfully employed as an adept freelance Web developer.

Bobby Fluegel's medical records do indicate he was suffering from an unusual, and perhaps even unique, speech aphasia, and could communicate only by uttering commercial or trade names.

[At 20:45, a brief flow of water from kitchen sink.]

EF: If you have a moment, Bobby, I'll show you a funny page.

[Cessation of keyboard and mouse activity, single mouse click. There was no accompanying network activity. Technical analysts believe that Ed Fluegel opened the browser history box with this mouse click, exposing a list of recently visited sites.]

EF: Hmmm. I think it's time we had a talk.

BF: Fantastic.

EF: Have you been visiting these sites? These ... porn sites?

BF: Nobody Beats The Wiz!

EF: Look, Bobby. I don't care about that, that's none of my biz ... none of my concern. But these sites are trouble, with all this language.

Logs from the ISP indicate a pornographic Web page was loaded onto the Fluegel computer from Sweden at this time.

EF: Look at this! What do you see here?

BF: Pert Plus!

EF: Ha, ha. I mean, what are all these around here?

BF: Persian Kitty. Magic Wand. Astroglide. LifeStyles.

EF: Exactly. We've agreed that you'll try to stay away from advertisements, right? Expanding your vocabulary this way isn't really going to help you. Remember, we want to see if you can manage to speak normally.

BF: Yes.

EF: They track everything you do on these sites with cookies, you know, it's a horrible invasion of privacy. And you know these sites have ads that you're not supposed to be looking at. You've been going back to them anyway.

BF: Depends.

EF: Come on, Bobby. I'm just trying to help you out. I really don't care if you look at smut. That's not the point.

BF: Promise?

EF: Of course. It's none of my ... that's totally personal and I don't care one way or the other about it. But I really want you to try to stay away from advertisements. Maybe ... hmm ...

The names of all newsgroups in the alt.sex.* hierarchy were sent at this point from the ISP's news server to the Fluegel computer.

EF: You could get your porn off the newsgroups instead?

BF: Yes. Yes. Fresh start.

[Silence for four seconds.]

EF: Anyway, it's just this site here I wanted you to see.

At this point a mock information graphic from The Onion, a satirical news Web site, was loaded onto the Fluegel computer. The graphic provided a detailed breakdown of the hypothetical sexual practices of the Amish.

BF: Chuckles! Chiclets!

EF: Pretty good, huh? Anyway, I didn't mean to keep you from work.

[The keyboard and mouse activity resumed. The Fluegel computer continued to send updates of Web pages to the ISP's Web server and load these pages back from the ISP's staging area.]

At 21:21 CIA Agent Virgule from the recruitment team called Agent Pound, the agent conducting surveillance, via STU III secured mobile line to verify that Ed Fluegel was at home. At 21:48, after a short traffic delay on the Brooklyn Bridge due to the shooting of a television commercial, the recruitment team - Agents Virgule and Dot - arrived. They effected entry at the ground floor by buzzing various other apartments until they were admitted, then climbed the stairs to Ed Fluegel's door and announced their presence with a knock. Ed Fluegel opened the door. The conversation between Ed Fluegel and the recruitment team was also recorded by the laser listening devices.

EF: Hello?

Agent Dot: Mister Fluegel?

EF: Yes, that's me. Is there a problem? Can I help you?

AD: Yes, you can help us. It's going to take a moment to explain.

Agent Virgule: You're not in any trouble.

EF: I'm not in any trouble.

AD: Can you talk to us for a moment?

EF: Um, I guess. You want to be let in? Are you asking to come in? Because...

AD: No, actually it's better if we talk in the van.

EF: Um, do you have, ah, badges? You're police?

AD: We're with the government. Here's my ID.

The secondary agent indicated that he also presented his ID at this point.

EF: Oh wow. The CIA? You're with the CIA? You know, I didn't think that you were ... I mean, this is, ah, we're in the United States right now ...

AD: We're not operatives.

AV: No, we're not here to arrest you or ... anything.

AD: But there's something we need to talk to you about.

AV: Yes, if you could step outside to the van.

AD: It's really best to talk in the van.

EF: Ah, well ... I guess ... all right.

The front door was closed at 21:56, indicating the departure of Ed Fluegel from his domicile. He accompanied the recruitment team downstairs.

During the conversation, the sounds of keyboard and mouse manipulation continued, indicating that Bobby Fluegel did not interrupt his work. It is not until 22:04, shortly before use of laser listening devices was discontinued, that the sounds of keyboard and mouse manipulation stop for a moment. Presumably Bobby Fluegel was evaluating the situation at 22:04 and noting the absence of Ed Fluegel.

At that point, other agents entered to retrieve the boy.