The NSA Thinks Consumers Are “Zombies” For Buying Easy To Spy On Smartphones

Revelations that the NSA harvests the data of hundreds of millions of people, without their permission or a valid legal warrant, have sickened many. Its been around 3 to 4 months since we saw the first leaks and since then the leaks have just kept piling up, every day new revelations show just how widespread and extensive the surveillance operations really are. The latest revelation from Der Spiegel doesn’t actually reveal anything about surveillance, but it reveals what the NSA thinks of the people it spies on.

Der Spiegel reports that an internal NSA presentation makes several references to George Orwell’s 1984 and quite proudly compares what the NSA has achieved with the book. The presentation congratulates Steve Jobs for being a “Big Brother” character by putting “surveillance devices” in the hands of so many. These “surveillance devices” are of course smartphones. The NSA goes as far to say that it believes smartphone buyers can be compared to zombies and that it is happy about the new smartphone culture because it makes surveillance so much easier and more fruitful for them – they can follow you everywhere and track everything you do if you are an avid smartphone user who keeps your smartphone with you at all times.

Image courtesy of Koushik Dutta