EMIL GUILLERMO, SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE - If you want to know how strange it's getting in America, talk to Barry Reingold. Reingold is a 60-year-old retired phone-company worker from the Bay Area who's old enough to withdraw from his IRA without penalty. His parents are Jewish. But Reingold prefers to be known as your basic, average American. Reingold works out every day at a gym in San Francisco, and has done so for the last six years.
Since Sept. 11, he's been exercising not only his muscles but also his right to free speech. Reingold recalls conversations he's had with people in the weight room about the war . . .
"People question my loyalty," Reingold continued. "They say, 'You don't support America.' And I say, 'Sure I do. I work here. I was born here. I pay taxes. I just have a problem with the ruling class.'"
Reingold's not sure, but he's next to positive that his First Amendment workout got him a visitation from the FBI . . . And, as Reingold found out, you don't have to be Arab or Muslim to get nominated for a house call.
"I have a speaker downstairs in my apartment building to let people in," Reingold said. "One afternoon, someone buzzes. And I said, 'Who's there?' And they say, 'The FBI.' And I'm thinking, 'Why is the FBI here?'" He buzzed them into the building and met them in the hallway. There were two young men, one white, one black, apparently in their 20s. Reingold asked them for ID, and the two flashed him their badges.
"And so I asked them what this was all about," Reingold recalled. "And they asked me if I was a member of the gym [in San Francisco]. And I said yes. "And then they said someone in the gym had reported that I had been talking about terrorism and Sept. 11, oil profits, capitalism and Afghanistan," Reingold said. "And I said, 'Oh, really.'" Reingold didn't think about calling a lawyer. "At the time, I was sort of shaken up," he admitted to me. "If I were in my right mind, I probably would have met them outside the building, where I could have witnesses for all to see this. Or at least have pencil and paper to take the agents' names and notes." But he didn't.