Security!

I spent the majority of today at the National Archives (above) as a favor for my mother.  She's been doing genealogical research on our family for several years now and needed some post-Civil War pension records which are kept at the archives' central repository here in DC.  Applications for widows' pensions are actually a great source of genealogical information because the widows had to prove who they were and provide lots of information about their marriage, their husband, dependant children, financial circumstances, and so on.  Not all of the documents have survived, of course (one file had been attacked by mice at some point in its existence - what else would take neat semi-circular bites out of the binding?), but I've got somewhere in the neighborhood of three hundred pages of records to send back to Wisconsin.  I'll make a trip to the post office tomorrow.

One of the most noticeable features of the research wing of the archives, which is completely separate from the wing open to tourists, where you can see the original Constitution, Bill of Rights, and the Declaration of Independence, is the security.  In the past things have been stolen from the National Archives (!), and they don't intend to let it happen again.  All the public areas are under surveillance, there are guards posted at the doors, and every piece of paper you bring in or out is checked to make sure it isn't a document, or that you aren't concealing a document in a sheaf of papers.  This means that every single one of those two-hundred-some pages I printed was scrutinized by a security guard on my way out of the building, and I had to leave most of my things in a locker, because such commonplace items as notebooks aren't allowed in the reading rooms (because one could slip a document inside it).  This did not, however, prevent the security guard from upending my notebook (which had spent the day in a locker, remember) and scrutinizing the scraps of paper which fell out of it (old note of mine - shopping lists, for example).

Now, I understand completely why they do this, and they don't have any reason to trust me, even though I've been cleared to work for the government (more I will not say, except that I have been investigated and found harmless).  But since I signed on to this whole coming-to-Washington-and-working-for-the-government thing, I've been investigated not just by my employer, but also by the real estate agency through which I found my apartment and the co-op which administers it.  Verizon performed a credit check to determine - well, I don't know what, actually; were that many people defaulting on their internet payments or something? - and security at the archives goes through every scrap of paper I bring out, even though my copies of original document were cleared by an archivist before I left the reading room and placed in a locked bag so security wouldn't need to go through them.  I've been background investigated, credit checked, photographed, fingerprinted, carded, badged, scrutinized, interviews, and passed through electromagnetic scanners.  I know and understand why all this has to be done (except for Verizon), but when I think about it too much I begin to feel like a piece of meat being examined for imperfections before it can be packed up and sent to a supermarket, where it will be bought, broiled, and served with twice-baked potatoes and root vegetables.

I suppose the key is to just not think about it.  And not buy potatoes.