That the media industry felt the need to create its own museum is at once commendable (yea for nostalgia!) and narcissistic (must we really celebrate ourselves to the extreme?). But the Newseum was built and opened, and it's sitting there in Washington D.C. as an homage to the Edward R. Murrows of our time. It's also home to Ted "Unabomber" Kaczynski's 10-by-12-foot cabin where he lived in rural Montana; conservators snatched it up to put it on display, where it remains the largest of the museum's 200 artifacts in its "G-Men and Journalists: Top News Stories of the FBI’s First Century" exhibit. (It sits near Patty Hearst's coat.)

Kaczynski, locked up in a federal prison through eternity, got wind of it when he saw in the Washington Post a "full-page, full-color advertisement that features my cabin, which is being displayed publicly at something called a ‘Newseum.'"

We're not sure exactly how the Newseum legally got its hands on the cabin — it's likely on loan from the FBI, which seized the building and OK'd its move and display — but there's one thing we're sure of: They're loving the free publicity Kaczynski just offered.

Yesterday, Kaczynski's feelings about his cabin going on display were aired by The Smoking Gun. When the 66-year-old domestic terrorist saw the ad in the June 19 newspaper, he fired off a handwritten letter to the U.S. Court of Appeals, contesting the Newseum's use of his cabin, saying the move by the FBI further generates "publicity created by the government" when he just wants his whole bombing madness to go away.

And the Newseum couldn't be any more pleased with the attention, which explains why they quickly typed up a press release and spat it across the media universe:

Unabomber Ted Kaczynski Protests Newseum Exhibit

Kaczynski’s Montana Cabin is Central Artifact in “G-Men and Journalists”

WASHINGTON, D.C., August 12 — Convicted “Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski has written a letter to a three-judge U.S. Court of Appeals panel about the display of his 10-by-12-foot cabin as a central artifact in an exhibition at the Newseum marking the FBI centennial. For a video tour of the cabin, visit the Newseum’s Web site at http://www.newseum.org/exhibits_th/fbi_feat/video.aspx?item=unabomber_int&style=k.

The Smoking Gun (www.thesmokinggun.com) article, “Kaczynski Angered By Predatory Home Loan: Unabomber raps feds for allowing cabin's display at D.C. museum,” includes a three-page, handwritten letter from Kaczynski, dated July 15, that relates how Kaczynski learned about the display when he received a “full-page, full-color advertisement that features my cabin, which is being displayed publicly at something called a ‘Newseum.’”

The 10-by-12-foot cabin where Kaczynski lived — and was arrested — in rural Montana is the largest of approximately 200 artifacts featured in “G-Men and Journalists: Top News Stories of the FBI’s First Century.” The exhibit features some of the biggest cases from the FBI’s first 100 years, including John Dillinger’s death mask, Patricia Hearst’s coat and the electric chair in which convicted Lindbergh baby kidnapper Bruno Hauptmann was executed.

The exhibition, on display through June 2009, explores the role of the media in shaping the bureau’s image and the sometimes cooperative, sometimes combative relationship between the press and the FBI.

The exhibition section about Kaczynski, “A Mad Bomber and His Manifesto,” focuses on the FBI’s 17-year search for the Unabomber, whose homemade bombs killed three people and injured 23 others. Despite an investigation that spanned eight states and involved approximately 500 agents, the FBI was making little progress until, in 1995, the Unabomber mailed a 35,000-word essay to The New York Times and The Washington Post. If it was published, he vowed, he would “desist from terrorism.”

After much debate, the Post printed the manifesto, with the Times sharing the costs. Months later, a tip arrived from the bomber’s brother, eventually leading the FBI to a small cabin in rural Montana where the Unabomber, Theodore Kaczynski, was arrested.

Opened to the public on April 11, 2008, the Newseum — a 250,000-square-foot museum of news — offers visitors an experience that blends five centuries of news history with up-to-the-second technology and hands-on exhibits.