NSA: Hop Till You Drop

By Bill Maher

President Obama wants to reduce NSA surveillance from three hops to two hops. Because more than three hops and you’re playing with it. Right now, the NSA “collects” information on terror suspects and anyone “three hops” from a terror suspect. Ali Al-Explodi emails 10 guys? That’s one hop. We start vacuuming everything on that 10. Those guys each email 10 guys? That’s two hops. Hoover’em all. We’re up to 100 guys. They each email 10 guys, including EBay and Papa John’s? They go on the shit list too. That’s three hops. That’s a thousand guys. Pretty soon you’re tracking the whole town of Fort Lee because you don’t like the mayor.

 That sounds counterproductive, doesn’t it? Tracking 1000 guys who know a guy who knows a guy who knows Ali Al-Explodi? That’s a lot of leads to follow, when you’re working against the famous ticking time bomb. But what if the point of hops isn’t preventing the attack at all? What if the point is retaliation? What if the whole point is letting suicide bombers know we know everyone they know, and that after the attack, you may be a cheeseburger in paradise, but all your friends on earth are in deep doo-doo?

If I was a suicide bomber, knowing President Drone had a list of everyone my mother ever met would make me think twice.