Like it wasn’t creepy enough when it was about “security”

Since June, when the first Snowden revelations about NSA wiretaps of Verizon customers were published in the Guardian, there have been online jokes about #NSAlovepoems. However, with the release August 23, 2013, of initial details about “LoveInt” – jargon for the use of NSA listening technology for romantic purposes – it's looking like the jokes were (or could be) true.

Let’s be clear – this isn’t romantic. Putting it in terms of “love interests” obscures what’s really going on. This is STALKING. Nothing to do with security or counter-terrorism.

Never ones to let a fertile area lie fallow, the twitterati are all over it. #LoveInt, #NSAlovepoems and #NSApickuplines are have been providing (nervous) laughter all weekend. Let’s hope that once the laughter fades, the discomfort remains and leaves behind the understanding that this kind of invasion is never ok – not when it comes to stalkers, and not “for our own good” by government agencies either.