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TIMOTHY MCVEIGH: There was a businessman in Chicago who was offering to buy Christmas presents for all of the children of the sailors on the USS. Chicago. So in my effort to help coordinate that, I needed to get the names of the children and their ages and sexes, so that he could have the information for him and his wife to go out and buy these presents. I had talked to the ombudsman for the Navy, the head of the Wives' Club, she gets information to the other wives, and in trying to get the information from her -- I had asked her a couple of times and she had failed to get it for me -- and so one morning, before going out to sea, I sent her e-mail requesting the information. ...Basically there was someone waiting on the pier to take me to legal, and that was the same day that I was removed from my job.

I guess what happened, looking back, is that she had got the e-mail and then she went in search of a profile to go with the e-mail, and because the word "gay" happened to be in that profile, she basically took it, turned it into the Navy, and they searched from there.

PAUL SCHINDLER: How do you feel about the AOL end of what happened?

"The investigator represented himself as a friend of mine. And that's very troubling, that [AOL] would give out the information."

MCVEIGH: Well, AOL, I mean initially they went out, they revealed my name, they didn't require that the Navy give them ... regardless of whether it was the Navy or anyone else -- their policy on information is that they will only give out that information with a court order or warrant. But that information was given freely to the investigator that called, he didn't represent himself as a member of the military or that he was even conducting an investigation. He misrepresented, and supposedly, at least from AOL's version of it, he represented himself as a friend of mine. And that's very troubling -- that they would do that, that they would give out the information.

SCHINDLER: Do you feel that your trust was abused by AOL? Clearly it violated its own published policy, and, for example, did it ever apologize?
MCVEIGH: Well, I did get an apology from America Online. I've since worked and resolved my differences with America Online. They have come out and sent a letter to the court explaining what had happened and how the Navy basically "duped them into giving out the information" is how they put it. And I think that was very helpful, that and in addition to their letter that they sent to Judge [Stanley] Sporkin in the district court, there was also a letter from Dr. Charles Moskos, who was the author of the "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy. C O N T I N U E D . . . 2 of 2
SCHINDLER: Because of your previous experience, did you feel it necessary when you moved to a new service to discuss with its policies on information release?

"Prodigy offered me a free lifetime account and guaranteed my confidentiality."

MCVEIGH: Well, when all of this started, basically Prodigy offered me a free lifetime account and guaranteed my confidentiality.

SCHINDLER: Do you have advice for other people about e-mail privacy, based on your experience?
MCVEIGH: Well, obviously I would say that you can't ever totally trust that the e-mail you're sending is private. You can only sort of trust in the system. I think people really need to write their congressman and let them know that they're interested in privacy in Internet communications, so that congressmen can continue to fight that issue, especially with the upcoming encryption debates that are happening, certainly.

SCHINDLER: If you can describe, what has this whole thing done to your life, to your professional and personal relationships. In essence, how hard has this been on you?
MCVEIGH: Well, that is an interesting question. It's been very hard from the standpoint that I don't have my job anymore. The jobs that I have been put in really don't require a whole lot to do and have been fairly boring. So I definitely am looking for more challenging work to do, and that's why I want to get back to the job I was doing.

Personal life, it's a lot harder now. When I walk down the street, I mean people from Australia stopped me last week and recognized me and started talking to me about the case. So, I mean, it's hard.

SCHINDLER: I'm curious, when people stop you do you tend to get positive and supportive remarks or negative and unsupportive remarks?

"I think people really need to write their congressman and let them know that they're interested in privacy in Internet communications."

MCVEIGH: Oh, they've all been positive. I have gotten very, very few people that have said anything negative at all. Even with e-mail, I would say maybe 1 percent of the e-mail that I've gotten in response to my whole case has been negative. Everything else has been positive. All the people that I work with are all positive. The only people that maybe aren't so positive are people who don't know me and have never met me.

SCHINDLER: Do you ever have the sense of "why me"? It certainly doesn't sound like you intended to put yourself in a position where you would become an international cause celebre.
MCVEIGH: Yeah, I've really thought about that. I've tried to figure out what may be the underlying, you know, what really was the cause of this whole thing. I mean if you look at the "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy, and I mean I didn't violate that at all, not one portion of it did I violate. So it kind of makes me wonder if the regulations are there and I didn't violate any portion of the regulation, then why did they go after me with that regulation and continue to press on it to this day. And so I still have some questions there as to what's going on. I'm not sure.