Thursday, May 11, 2006

Phonerecordgate

"In order to find an enemy who is hidden in a cave,
collect everybody's telephone records."


Lao Tzu - The Art of War




USA Today is reporting that the NSA has been collecting all our phone records in order to fight terrorism.

Now, before we all go off on a big fuss about this, let's look at it rationally. First off, this program is not "spying on everybody". It's only spying on the people with phones. There's lots of people in America who don't even have phones, so let's not have go flying off the handle with a lot of irresponsible rhetoric about Bush "Spying on Everyone." He's not. He's only spying on the people with phones.

There are some perfectly reasonable explanations as to why the government might need our phone records to fight the war on terrorism. We are a Nation at War. Because our enemy remains hidden in a cave in Waziristan, it is imperative that the government have a complete record of every phone call made within its own borders: that's just common sense. Waziristan is a strange and lawless place along the Pakistan/Afghan border. It's entirely controlled by warlords, (for whom, apparently, our military is no match...) and they play by their own rules. In order to get things done there, you have to be willing to play ball: "You tell us where Bin Laden is, we'll give you all our phone records."

It could also be that the Pentagon is planning on printing up all our records, stacking them on pallets and then dropping them over Waziristan in hopes of either hitting Bin Laden directly, or possibly containing him by blocking the entrance to his cave.

Anyone else have any ideas?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Loved your post today above 580 near lakeshore, saw it twice!! You are a modern day robin hood and a hero to everyone in ouur town. Bless you patriot!

xyq

quixote said...

The quote is, obviously, a perfect translation of the original, but I wanted to mention that Sun Tzu wrote "The Art of War." Lao Tsu wrote the Tao Te Ching. (Not that either of those broad-minded gentlemen would care much about attribution.)

I think you're wrong about any plans to hit Bin Laden directly. They've been trying for years, and have had no luck because he's so thin. His cross-sectional area for aerial bombardment is just too small. Admittedly, the initial research on the innovative use of printed records, with their much wider flutter radius, showed that a direct hit was likelier. But a subsequent top secret "black box" program went deeper into the matter and found out that the fluttering process reduced impact velocity below lethal levels. The cave-blocking maneuver, however, is sure to work. Bound to. Absolutely certain. Everyone says so. I'm sure we'll all be supporting our brave troops in the bold new campaign to win by littering.

Anonymous said...

Brilliant composition and commentary by all!!

Anonymous said...

We're establishing democracy there so we don't have to have it here. :) Great site. Gives me ideas. Keep up the good work! Juno