You hear these horrible stories about the FBI just doing all these nasty things to people. And you know what? In my case, I didn't experience any of that, probably because the way I treated them. I was like, 'Okay, what do you want to know?' So I kept going back to their offices on a regular basis.

Hasan M. Elahi

The concept of surveillance is ingrained in our beings. God was the original surveillance camera.

Hasan M. Elahi

It's incredibly disturbing when a country, particularly your own country, uses discrimination as a basis for an investigation.

Hasan M. Elahi

I'm an artist. And usually when I tell people I'm an artist, they just look at me and say, 'Do you paint?' or 'What kind of medium do you work in?'

Hasan M. Elahi

You can accuse me of being a terror suspect, but I can prove to you that I'm not.

Hasan M. Elahi

We're all creating an archive of our own lives, whether we're aware of it or not.

Hasan M. Elahi

You hear these horrible stories about the FBI just doing all these nasty things to people. And you know what? In my case, I didn't experience any of that, probably because the way I treated them. I was like, 'Okay, what do you want to know?' So I kept going back to their offices on a regular basis.

Hasan M. Elahi

If 300 million people were to offer up the details of their private lives, you would need to hire another 300 million people just to keep up.

Hasan M. Elahi

I've pretty much accepted the fact that you're going to meet ignorant people, and that's okay. You can't control that. You can't change that.

Hasan M. Elahi

Big Brother doesn't like all these Little Brothers looking at it.

Hasan M. Elahi

How do you manage your online identity? It's something I talk about with my students all the time.

Hasan M. Elahi

We don't know what the next generation of art is going to look like. We're kind of making it up as we go along. Not unlike the tech industry.

Hasan M. Elahi

To this day, I get very nervous coming back into my own country.

Hasan M. Elahi

I'm convinced that if we don't define ourselves, other people will do it for us, and inaccurately.

Hasan M. Elahi

Despite the barrage of information about me that is publicly available, I live a surprisingly private and anonymous life.

Hasan M. Elahi

It's really weird watching the government watch me.

Hasan M. Elahi

Information agencies operate in an industry that values data. Restricted access to information is what makes it valuable.

Hasan M. Elahi