Government Snooping

The National Security Agency (NSA) has been in the news lately for snooping.  It seems they are reading emails, listening to phone conversations, and who knows what else.  We have been assured that they are not snooping on us now nor do they plan to.  They are snooping internationally to protect us from bad guys.  I suppose that is reassuring.

I remember the Soviet Union as being huge snoops.  They would regularly invade the privacy of their citizens looking for deviant and anti-Soviet behavior.  Back then snooping involved reading letters, bugging rooms, listening in on phone calls, and tailing people to see whom they met with.  Snooping was manpower intensive in those days.  That made me wonder just how many people they could possibly snoop on at any given time.  It was a phenomenal task to keep up with at any significant level.  Other than using the general population to snoop on each other and tattle-tale to the KGB, the KGB, I believe randomly arrested people just to put real fear into the citizenry that they were being watched.  

The NSA is taking the game to a whole new level.  They are using technology to snoop more effectively, efficiently, and on a massive scale.  They are building a massive facility in Bluffdale, Utah.  They are building a $1.2 B data farm (snoopery) that will have 1.5 million square feet with state of the art super secret computers that will take up 100,000 square feet.  A football field, including the end zones, are 57,600 square feet so we are talking 1.736 football fields of computers.  That is truly.

This new snoopery using, I imagine, the latest technology, will no doubt be able to data mine, analyze, and interpret on a grand scale.  This sounds like Orwell's 1984.  He was only off 30 years.  I imagine the ex-KGB and Soviet wonks wished they had the kind of capability we are now building.

Everyone is aghast.  The left is fearing the shadow of Big Brother and all the 1960s paranoia that goes along with it.  The extreme right is probably confused.  On one hand, they want us to nail the bad guys.  On the other hand, it is just another piece of evidence that government is too big and spends too much.

Me?

Of course, I have a totally different perspective.  Since these are my tax dollars at work, I want the NSA to use their snoopery to do good for us average Americans.  What do I mean?

1. Find all those Nigerians that keep sending me emails saying they need me to transfer $56.7M of theirs into my bank account.  Make them stop.
2. We have a No Call List law in these United States.  Simply, and in poor grammar, it don't work.  Use the the 1.735 football fields of super computers to find, track, and then prosecute (like throw in a gulag or Guantanamo) the c-level executives or owners of any company that calls anyone on the No Call List.
3. Find the people that for some reason know my penis should be larger and make them stop sending emails reminding me of my shortcomings.
4. I like the idea of a No Call List.  I think there should be a No Extreme Political Viewpoint list that covers email, twitter, facebook, and whatever else is on the horizon.  OK I get it.  You hate Obama or you absolutely love him.  I got that in your first 300 postings and you are up to 12,477 and counting.  Filter that shit out.
5. We all have an older parent, uncle, or aunt that falls for every hoaxy ridiculous email that comes there way... and then forwards them to everyone they know.  Make this stop.  In fact, find out who started these idiotic stories and fine the daylights out of them for detracting from the general mood and productivity of the county.

If they snoop my email, phone, facebook, and twitter the above is a lot of what they are going to find.  Well they will find more.  They will find two ads per day from Jos A Banks, ProFlowers, and anyone else I may have ever bought something from on line in the past ten years.

Let's hope these super computers don't become self aware like in the Terminator movies.  They will surely turn against us for making them sort through all this mind numbing crap.