Queer n There	Queer n There Archive

"At a time when a terrorist or predator could be literally anyone, the ability of Homeland Security to continually track and identify citizens and aliens has become our greatest challenge," declared department chief Michael Chertoff, opening an extraordinary April 1st press conference at the US Capitol. Standing side-by-side were the heads of Washington's LGBT lobby groups, the Human Rights Campaign and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. "In meeting this challenge," Chertoff said, "how fitting to acknowledge the vital role played by leaders of the political groups who celebrate 'identity' most."

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The dignitaries were on hand for the unveiling of the latest weapon in the war against terror-- a discreet inside-the-bowl blu-ray camera that quickly scansa user's anus, generating a digital "Anal Sphincter Signature," or ASS. The 666-digit code, unique to each individual, is then quickly checked against the corresponding entry stored in a national FBI registry (see sidebar).

For now rolled out only in Butte, Montana, and Love Canal, New York, the innovative AnuScans are set to become mandatory in all toilets by July 4th, 2008.

"Once fully launched, AnuScans will track the position and movements-- bowel and otherwise-- of everyone within the Homeland perimeter," Chertoff promises.

"The AnuScan represents not just a triumph of American technical know-how," he said, "but could never have been implemented without the vision, hard work, and sheer political backbone shown by America's national LGBT leaders."

NGLTF Executive Director Matt Foleyman beamed at the accolade and then spontaneously hugged the DHS chief.

"As a gay American, it was my duty to help my country fight its enemies," said Foleyman. "But I also had an obligation to my community to insure that the Toilet Security Administration-- from its inception-- undertakes its vital work in a spirit of fairness and equality."

Bottom-line: justice

Whether the AnuScan works as precisely with veteran, frequently pleasured anuses as it does with virginal, cherrylicious ones became a top, secret concern for national LGBT groups in August 2001, when plans for the bottom readers were first whispered in upper- echelon Washington.

At stake was not just whether lesbians and gays would be fairly and accurately tracked. As well, LGBT leaders feared that right-wing Republicans would seize upon the issue of fuzzy AnuScans to attack sodomy under anti-terror statutes.

At an emergency joint NGLTF/HRC summit in late 2001, the groups' executive staffs examined disturbing classified data leaked by Rep. Barney Frank's office. NSA analysts had found that AnuScan accuracy fell by 80 percent when confronted with well-plowed, winky "lily pad" anuses compared to tightly clenched "rosebud" controls. As a result, the devices often mistakenly IDed gay men as individuals on FBI lists of AWOL US Marines or militants in Muqtada Al-Sadr's Mahdi Army.

"The flawed readings were no joke," Foleyman contends. "For gay men using public toilets for non-sexual purposes, it meant risking one-way tickets to lockups at Camp Pendleton or Guantanamo Bay."

Once jailed, there would be little hope. PATRIOT Act III provides for automatic 30-year prison terms for falsifying one's identity to federal agents. And each of the 48 million in-toilet AnuScans on order from defense conglomerate Brown & Root has been deputized as a Toilet Security Administration "officer."

Reports that AnuScans could b e tricked by users with prolific anal experiences under their belts were indeed seized upon by Republican Washington. In January 2002, Florida Rep. Mark Foley drafted legislation to classify anal sex involving males over 18 as "aiding and abetting."

"When perverts pack fudge, they may as well be cooking up phony American passports and pilot licenses for Al Quaeda operatives," Foley told a closed-door session of the US Armed Services Subcommittee.

And yet frustratingly, say LGBT activists, the same hard-right Republicans refused the modest $15 billion request that Homeland Security together with Brown & Root insisted was necessary to re- engineer the AnuScan to the tighter tolerances required for looser, bloomy bottoms.

"It's as if they wanted a faulty homeland- security technology just so they could spite LGBT Americans," the NGLTF's Suzanne Hide tells The Guide. "That's not just unfair, it's pathetically unpatriotic."

The thuggish meets the inane

That's when an unexpected alliance itself "bloomed" between Homeland Security officials and the leadership of the inside-the-Beltway LGBT lobby groups. DHS wanted lesbigay support for the $15 billion outlay, of course. But more importantly, officials say, they needed to marry the Washington groups' political expertise to Brown & Root's top-dollar engineering talent.

The secrecy of this collaboration meant it was one job that could not be delegated to the HRC's and NGLTF's young interns and pages. Rather, the LGBT groups' senior executives-- excusing themselves for pretend meetings on Capitol Hill-- made trips to Brown & Root's "Skunk Works" at Fort Meade.

In the laboratory-- rigged up to simulate a lavatory-- the LGBT executives in turn squatted and strained "like pregnant pigs in labor with an unusually large and unruly litter," recalls one DHS official who attended the arduous sessions.

On the other side of the faux toilet stall, Brown & Root scientists struggled themselves, endlessly tweaking the device's optics and frequencies to no avail. At last, one night last July, with Foleyman working in the lavatory, the scientists found just the right aperture and shade of azure ray. They knew they'd hit paydirt when the monitor wirelessly attached to the test- toilet's AnuScan spontaneously displayed Foleyman's precise Social Security number, prescription drug records, recent Amazon purchases, and Manhunt.net user profiles.

Foleyman was previously famous for working with New York State lawmakers to drop the word "sodomy" from the statute books in exchange for sharply increasing penalties for consensual gay sex offenses. Later he won notoriety for urging authorities to throw the book at a troubled Spokane mayor who had made online gay sex-chat with fully-fledged adults. But for his collaboration with Brown & Root engineers last July, Matt Foleyman passed from the annals of gay politics into those of science.

The key moment came, researchers who were present recall, as Foleyman simulated vigorous toilet use, and the AnuScan's blu-ray beam suddenly found it wasn't bouncing off plush rectal walls as expected, but the cavernous base of the NGLTF Executive Director's skull.

"This was the exactly challenging anatomic limit-case we needed for a breakthrough," Brown & Root engineer Colin Dowell reveals. "That's what set us on the path to find the advanced pinhole optics that allow us now to scan anuses accurately across the rainbow spectrum."

With certified-equitable AnuScans now ready to roll off Guangzhou assembly lines, the Toilet Security Administration says that accurate, real- time tracking of predators, suspected terrorists, vulnerable children, and other Americans will create unexpected benefits.

Already, Brown & Root scientists have proof- of-concept for a new generation of extra-toilet AnuScans designed to work at supermarket checkouts. With all banking records indexed to consumers' ASSes, buying groceries may soon be as easy as bending over and spreading one's cheeks.

"Paying through the nose will be a thing of the past," Foleyman quips. "But seriously, saving time and money, and having the state continually affirm your location and identity is what we at NGLTF feel freedom's all about."

Author Profile:  Bill Andriette
Bill Andriette is features editor of The Guide
Email:	theguide@guidemag.com