The NSA values your privacy! Really!!!

The surveillance experts at the National Security Agency won’t tell two powerful United States Senators how many Americans have had their communications picked up by the agency as part of its sweeping new counter terrorism powers. The reason: it would violate your privacy to say so.

That claim comes in a short letter sent Monday to civil libertarian Senators Ron Wyden and Mark Udall. The two members of the Senate’s intelligence oversight committee asked the NSA a simple question last month: under the broad powers granted in 2008′s expansion of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, how many persons inside the United States have been spied upon by the NSA?

Well, DUH!!!

Obviously the senator's staffers have been asleep at the wheel.  Had they been reading Wired magazine they would have been able to tell the senators everything they need to know about how the NSA is building a MASSIVE spy center large enough to store every word phoned, texted, emailed, tweeted or otherwise communicated over the airwaves or phone/cable lines for the next millennium.

Don't ya miss the days when they did things the old fashioned way???

Of course, the geniuses at the NSA (despite all their fancy algorithms to capture certain words and phrases that might remotely indicate a sinister, terrorist plot) will, at some point, throw up their hands and ask, "Why the Hell did we waste a few trillion dollars for all this worthless information."

That being said, we can all rest a little easier knowing that they won't be violating our privacy while sucking all our phone calls, emails, tweets and picture messages into the Bluffdale Black Hole.  I'm going to sleep much better tonight.

A $2 Billion Black Hole. But don't worry, we're not violating your privacy!

The Utah Data Center will cost $2 Billion (or more) to build, an estimated $40 Million annually just for electricity and, I would venture, hundreds of millions in salaries, maintenance, various and sundry other costs.  At least they won't be spending much at the office supply store (no paper)!

And for your information senators, you can be pretty damn sure that everyone inside and probably a pretty good number of folks outside the United States have been spied upon by the NSA.  In fact, this post should get picked up just as soon as I click "Publish."  So NSA; stick that in your $2 Billion data center.

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Note: Paragraphs in italics are from Wired.com, The NSA Is Building the Country’s Biggest Spy Center (Watch What You Say), March 15, 2012