NSA Eavesdropping on GOD!!!

The National Security Agency is denying a report that it eavesdropped on the Pope, in addition to telephone prayer lines of a number of other religious denominations.

Before the Italian magazine, Panorama, published the report, it issued a press release that read "NSA had tapped the pope,"according to Reuters. The eavesdropping was on calls from inside and outside the Vatican and reportedly spanned a few weeks from December 10, 2012 to January 8, 2013. Additional calls to prayer lines of various denominations were also reportedly tapped.

"The National Security Agency does not target the Vatican or God."

- NSA spokeswoman

The calls were reportedly categorized in five groups: leadership intentions, threats to the financial system, foreign policy objectives, human rights and conversations with God. The magazine did not cite any sources in its report.

In addition to the eavesdropping on the Vatican, the NSA is alleged to have tapped the phone lines of various prayer lines to obtain information on people's conversations with God.

One of the largest prayer line operations is the 700 Club Prayer Centers, which receives over four million calls each year and provides a direct connection to God.  700 Club's Pat Robertson was disturbed by the spying revelations, and voiced his concern that the government is "disturbing the separation of church and state."

Pat Robertson

An NSA spokeswoman, denied the report, including the allegations of spying on God.

"The National Security Agency does not target the Vatican or God", she said in an email to The Los Angeles Times. "Assertions that NSA has targeted the Vatican, published in Italy's Panorama magazine, are not true."

The NSA’s post-Sept. 11 surveillance programs are coming under increased criticism at home and abroad, capped by recent revelations that the NSA monitored German Chancellor Angela Merkel's cellphone and those of up to 34 other world leaders. Those reports relied on documents provided by former NSA analyst Edward Snowden.

Documents released by Snowden have not yet produced any revelations of the NSA's spying on God, but according to some sources there are many yet to be released.

Congressional leaders who have been staunch supporters of the NSA programs are now saying it is time for a close examination. Speaker of the House of Representatives, John Boehner, said, "We live in a Christian nation.  God has Constitutional rights too you know. Enough is enough with this out of control wiretapping."

GOD

Sarah Palin, who has been crisscrossing the country touting her new book about the "war on Christmas", said that she was shocked, but not surprised, about the NSA's spying on God.  "Next thing you know they'll be spying on Santa Claus.  We need to put good old Christian values like prayer and Christmas trees back into our government," said Palin.

The White House said Tuesday that President Barack Obama had ordered a full review of the programs and was considering changes.

National Intelligence Director James Clapper defended the secret surveillance that sweeps up phone records and emails of millions of Americans as vital to protecting against terrorists. Clapper had no comment on God.

God had no comment on Clapper, or the wiretapping issue.

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Editor's Note:  OK, so some of this is true and some is not.  What difference does it make???

The NSA Comes Clean... at last!!!

Hey Kids!!! The NSA finally comes clean on all this electronic eavesdropping stuff, and guess what??? It's all been for our own good!!!  Aren't you relieved???

Thanks to Tom Tomorrow for clearing this all up for us.

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