So the Guardian scored an interview with Edward Snowden this week and as expected he said a lot of stuff about his claims of the illicit behind the scenes activaty of the NSA. Of course, this is the internet, so everyone ignored all the black ops espionage stuff, his talking about the poor encryption that corporations use, his description of his current expat-exile lifestyle, etc. and they focused on the one thing that he mentioned very briefly but is clearly the most important. The NSA likes looking at all of the naughty pics you have of yourself on your phone!
People seem to be shocked and outraged because… Ummm… Uhhh… Well… honestly, I’m not quite sure why they’re outraged. Isn’t that what you pretty much expect. They’re the FUCKING NSA. You have naughty pics on your phone. It just sort of seems obvious to me. As my co-star Seth Rogen says in our (yes, “our” dammit…) film Zack and Miri Make a Porno:
EVERYBODY wants to see ANYBODY fuck. I hate Rosie O’Donell, but if somebody said “I got a tape of Rosie O’Donell getting fucked stupid” I’d be like “Why the fuck aren’t we watching that right now?”
So I dunno, I guess it sort of never occurred to me that anyone who works for the organization who’s entire job it is to sit there in front of a computer screen and mindlessly monitor electronic communications 24/7 wouldn’t be getting excited whenever something steamy comes up. No, I don’t think they’re LOOKING for it. They’re looking for terrorists. But if you’re the average guy on the cell phone hacking team who’s on photo monitoring duty, I’m betting that you maybe find an interesting terror threat what, a couple times a year? Maybe once a month at best? The rest of his life is looking at an endless stream of drunken selfies with duck lips. When he finds that occasional “jewel” of a topless and headless mirror shot that someone is sending their boyfriend, you know that’s getting pinned to his cube wall. If you have actual video of a sex act on your phone, then congratulations, you just became that guy’s screen saver. Dude has a hard life.
In related news, of the gazillion model photos I’ve taken, it turns out that I don’t have anything at all that’s really says “taking sexy cellphone selfie.” This shot from my voyeurism series with Sarah Prankha sort of works for this story, but really, that seems like an obvious hole I need to fix in my portfolio. Models? Who wants to help out?
There must be something wrong with me, then … I do NOT want to see Rosie O’Donell naked, under any circumstances …
Bill: to be fair, unlike the movie quote, Snowden actually claims that they only passed around hot pics.
I didn’t talk about the passing around hot pics part, but my whole reaction to the NSA “scandal” in the first place amounted to “wait, people actually thought they WEREN’T doing that?” I mean, sure, technically I suppose they weren’t supposed to be spying on Americans, but there’s a reason why there have been countless novels, movies, etc. where the antagonist was an NSA agent or was the NSA itself. The story of the NSA spying on the US or manipulating the US or trying to covertly take over the Presidency is older than Snowden and is so prolific for a reason.