4 Reasons to Be Angrier That the NSA Is Tapping Your Phone

4

There's Nothing Remotely Illegal About It (and That's Bad)

Like anything with the word "scandal" attached, the first question on everyone's mind always is "Who's going to jail for this?" Well, you can take those truTV-watchin' pajama pants off, because there's no single person taking the rap for this one ... since technically no one did anything wrong.

Andrea Chu/Digital Vision/Getty Images
"Here's to institutional sociopathy!"

3

Both Political Parties Are Fine With It

Just after the story broke, two senators from the Intelligence Committee came out to reassure the American public that there was absolutely nothing legally shady about secretly recording every single outgoing and incoming phone number for millions of people without their knowledge. But hey, anything to defend their party's president, right? Nope: One of those senators is Saxby Chambliss, a Republican.

Weird, he looks more like a "Shaft" or something.

2

It's Not Just One Phone Company

So, why did the government only ask for Verizon's phone records? Does the NSA really have that much customer loyalty, or is Verizon the only company evil enough to go through with it? Actually, let's go with the third option: They're doing this with all companies.

Jean-Christophe Verhaegen / Stringer / AFP / Getty
All carriers are cut from the same cloth, which the government has taken to using as a spooge rag.

1

This Scandal Already Happened Years Ago (and We Forgot About It)

When the scandal broke, a White House spokesperson tried to lessen the blow by explaining that this has been going on for years. It's the ol' "I've actually been banging your girlfriend since we met" excuse that always works so well.

Karen Bleier / AFP / Getty
"And she's a screamer!"

Oh, and by years, they mean an entire fucking decade (since 9/11). In fact, we already had this exact same scandal back in 2006 during the Bush administration, when it was revealed that the NSA had a contract with AT&T, BellSouth, and (you guessed it) Verizon. Just like today, they were creating what was then called the "largest database ever assembled in the world" of telephone information. To continue the girlfriend analogy, we caught the NSA making out with our fiancee in 2006, then just forgot about it, and now we're raising their kid.

Cultura / Zero Creatives / StockImage / Getty
She's reading our emails right now.