Friday, June 23, 2006

An Important Message From the Prez

Stay tuned for an important message from the President of the United States:

"Good evening Ladies and Gentlemen. It has recently come to the publics attention that we are tapping the phone calls that go from the United States out side the country without a warrant as required by the constitution and statute.

In the fight against terrorism... and gay marriage... it is important to do such monitoring. But the scope of the program is extremely limited. It only applies to anyone who places a call to a know or suspected terrorist, or any phone calls that are placed to a country that has a vowel in its name.

I promise, that is the extent of our invasion into your privacy... I swear.

Well, except maybe we are also collecting the data on every phone call placed inside the United States without a warrant, also. But rest assured, the scope of this program is also extremely limited. Only people who use the phone are subject to this program. I promise you that people who do not make any phone calls will never have their personal calling history loaded into the worlds largest database ever created.

But, I promise that the illegal tapping and data mining programs are the only, and I mean only programs that we are utilizing that invades the privacy of the American people.

And... we have been gathering all of your library records also. But this one, I am pretty sure, is actually legal under the US PATRIOT Act. We have rounded up hundreds of suspected terrorist who have checked out book titles such as the popular children's book "Mohammad goes to Mujahideen camp" and for the mommies "From Baklava to Bombs: The Complete Middle East Cook Book." By the way, just incase you have never checked out "my Pet Goat," I highly recommend it. The story was so well written and the illustrations were so great that I was stunned. I was was so stunned, I could even regain my senses for 7 plus minutes. But, I digress...

Um... ok, illegal phone tapping, data mining, library records, and we have been looking at your bank records too, but hey, as long as we are collecting phone calls, data mining, library records, credit card statements, and medical reports, might as well get the bank statements, too.

Oops... y'all didn't know about the credit card statements and medical reports, did ya?

Heh, heh... Well, I am sure you would have found that out soon enough anyway. After all, my administration does leak like those cheap disposable diapers that we have been placing listening devices in.

But, that is it. The phone taps, phone records, medical statements, bank records, library records, and credit card statements are it. In no other way are we invading your privacy.

Well, there is an FBI agent sleeping with your spouse, but that really doesn't have anything to do with the war on terror. We just didn't have any money left in the budget for raises due to all the earmarks my Republican compadres have been adding into the budget, so we threw that in as a fringe benefit to the agents.

Thank you for your time and may God bless this great, non-gay country of ours.

Good night."

Bank Data Is Sifted by U.S. in Secret to Block Terror

Bank Records Secretly Tapped

U.S. gets access to worldwide banking data

Treasury Department Defends Record Tapping

3 comments:

Simon Barrett said...

Hahaha, good post. I have been watching the eff v att story as it unfolds. There are many layers, most of which the government would like to quash under the 'its to secret to talk about law'.

Data mining is what credit card companies, banks, and any other sleasy organisation does to target victims for their next 'great' not quite free offer.

Anonymous said...

That's *one* application of data mining, zzsimonb.

Another was used to identify Atta, et al, prior to the 9/11 attacks, but due to FISA concerns the information wasn't passed to law enforcement.

Data mining is also being used to analyze traffic on our phone networks, to detect patterns of activity into and out of terror hotspots.

There are enormous applications for data mining.

The Imaginary Diva said...

Great post. .... I wonder when Canada will catch on with this one. Big brother is always watching.