Hello, NSA App Lets You Get on a Government Watch List the Fun Way

The U.S. government is watching your online activity. They’re looking at your social media posts, your emails, and plenty of other types of online communications. We’ve always known that &...
Hello, NSA App Lets You Get on a Government Watch List the Fun Way
Written by Josh Wolford
  • The U.S. government is watching your online activity. They’re looking at your social media posts, your emails, and plenty of other types of online communications. We’ve always known that – to some extent. Now we really know that.

    But even before we all learned about PRISM and the extent of the participation from the tech community, we knew that the Department of Homeland Security routinely scanned social media sites like Facebook and Twitter in a search for certain trigger words that could tip them to an impending terrorist plot. And we know which words they look for as well. There are hundreds of them, ranging from topics like disasters and emergencies, to border violence – from infrastructure security buzzwords to general terrorism terms.

    Well, if you find yourself wanting to catch the attention of the U.S. government in the snarkiest way possible, a new app is here to help. From the folks at Vice, I present to you “Hello, NSA.”

    Hello, NSA is a phrase generator that uses many of those DHS buzzwords to construct some suspiciously unsuspicious (or unsuspiciously suspicious?) posts for your Twitter and Facebook accounts.

    “Let’s play a word game! Use our handy phrase generator to come up with pearls of keyword-loaded Twitter wit and perhaps earn you a new follower in Washington. Tweet it out, email it to a friend, share it around, you know the drill – and remember that the NSA and other government agencies might be reading along. And don’t forget to say hello.”

    Here’s are some gems that just may land you on some sort of watch list:

    I guess you don’t have to get this creative. Just tweet out “Anthrax bomb cops, H1N1 Metro Kidnap Marijuana” and that should probably do the trick

    Check out Hello, NSA here.

    [via Motherboard]

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