Virginians living just outside of Washington, D.C., are up in arms because of the constant drone of 230 high-velocity fans atop an unmarked office building on the fringe of their neighborhood. The CIA originally occupied the three-story building, but the spies left, only to be replaced by the FBI.
The FBI’s landlord gutted the building, and placed 23 powerful air-conditioning units on the roof, each with 10 fans. The bureau flicked them on in August 2010, and they’ve been driving the locals nuts ever since with their high-pitched buzz, according to a story in Saturday’s Washington Post. The building’s sole tenant: the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Center, busy assembling no-fly lists and other post-9/11 vitals.
You can think of it as the sound of freedom…or as aural waterboarding.