After attending the fishermen's demonstration 10 days ago at the glass and steel fortress up the woods, sailing in Gloucester Harbor will never be the same again.

From where I launch and work my way up through Smith's Cove, tacking back and forth to get into the central harbor, I see its monolithic steel self, scanning all corners of the harbor. Remorselessly keeping vigil over its mostly unaware subjects, there it sits, up on the hill like some sentinent outerworld machine from War of the Worlds. Behind the lights at dusk that dot the dark bands of the top two floors, I now know that someone is keeping watch, maintaining surveillance on the boats, the water — and me.

The juxtaposition of that day, that demonstration and that column in the paper from Jane Lubechenco (The Times, Oct, 30) was a study in disconnect. Her happy, librarian-like, we-know-better-than-you simple folks tone was from another world:

Forget about what we're doing to your working fishermen, look what we're doing with the middle school visitation programs where we can show the kiddies how we collect and then play with the numbers — boil them down until they say anything we want, even until they evaporate. And we do it all up here in this magical, $25-million castle/fortress that is too wonderful to do anything but the right thing, hmm?

Now, how can you people be so ungrateful as to bite that hand that is managing your lives into the future — forever? We know more than you do, so you were officially deposited in the Not To Be Heard Category sometime ago. Everyone listens to us, anyway, not you people.

Below this blissfully disconnected Hallmark card from Lubechenko on that same Times opinion page was the incredible letter from fisherman Paul Cohan — his second brilliant bombshell of this year — about the elected chickens who didn't show up at the demonstration whose attendees had definitely noticed. To his credit, Sen. Bruce Tarr broke the boycott and made a statement of solidarity, underscoring how dependent the fishermens' effort was on its elected regional and national leaders. But Lubechenko's column underlined just how much the die is already cast, the outcome pre-determined in the World According To Pew. The other politicians obediently stayed home.

It was really strange too, knowing so many good people who work up there at the fortress, but not a soul was allowed to peer out a window the entire demonstration. It was more like a space-age Bastille with its lights blazing and its empty desks with no face but that of Homeland Security trucks, dogs and arms visible to the ants gathered around its mighty base. It came as no surprise that the agency's response had been organized and planned by NOAA's Office of Law Enforcement, the same marvelous people who brought you The Yellowtail Letter Fiasco, the planned fish-auction shutdown and the plethora of contested fines and draconian penalties that have paralyzed and galvanized the working fishermen of this region.

Now a rumor has leaked out that, in addition to nearly 14 cars full of federal and state shock troops, that there was a sniper on the roof too. Whether rumor or fact, the idea that there was one, or reportedly even more than one sniper, with an eye and possibly a high powered weapon trained on our citizens is another disconnect from normal life here as we have seen it. My neighbors and relatives were in that group of potential targets — as were yours — each one a faceless bullseye to a monolithic agency enforcing its not-debatable policy — nothing personal, people, but until our bosses tell us otherwise, this town is under our control.

So, there's control and surveillance, too, now that the fortress is up and running. It peers past me as I cross the harbor, keeping its tight watch on the boats that still remain; keeping count, keeping track, keeping surveillance on those that still can work, shift, move, dock and even fish.

Inventory them, control them, see how they will sort themselves out into sectors, common pools or just plain out of business. As we transit the harbor, I suppose we are all reachable by sniper or video camera from the fortress, even when demonstrations aren't going on. We'd never know even if they were.

Would any of this surprise you? I just hope they get my good side if they are video-ing. One side makes me look fat. The other just looks sad ....

Gloucester resident Gordon Baird is co-founder of Billboard's Musician Magazine, and producer of the "Gloucester Chicken Shack" TV show.