Can you hear me now?

From today's USA Today, a nice little Q&A to help us understand how the NSA is using your tax dollars to make us all more secure:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-10-nsa-qna_x.htm

One item caught my attention:

Q: But I'm not calling terrorists. Why do they need my calls?

A: By cross-checking a vast database of phone calling records, NSA experts can try to pick out patterns that help identify people involved in terrorism.

Expanded answer: While you might not think you're calling terrorists, you don't really know for sure. Thanks to this program, however, the NSA now knows. For example, they know that on September 21, 2001, you called your Aunt Harriet in Hoboken, HJ. Shortly after that, she called her brother Al (your uncle) in Manhattan. The details of those two calls are unimportant. The patterns, however, are important. Al later that day called an Afghan restaurant in New York City, allegedly for carry out and to assess the prospects for "delivery." However, the words he used were "Do you deliver to midtown?" The response was "Of course!" Clearly, this is a coded reference to the planes that struck the WTC ten days earlier.

So, you see, while you yourself didn't call Osama bin Laden, your uncle has been making calls to those who support and harbor terrorists in general, and Osama in particular, and you have been in indirect contact with your uncle. The good news is that if you tell us everything you know about your Aunt Harriet and your Uncle Al (which we know is a shortened form of Ali), we won't rendition you to a secret torture prison in Albania.

Q: Why are you focusing on me, rather than using your resources to find Osama bin Laden?

A: Because you're much easier to find.