Notice: All forms on this website are temporarily down for maintenance. You will not be able to complete a form to request information or a resource. We apologize for any inconvenience and will reactivate the forms as soon as possible.

Sorry, WikiLeaks. The CIA Doesn’t Need Our TVs to Get to Know Us

The CIA can spy on us through our televisions and phones.

At least that’s what a huge cache of leaked documents recently published on WikiLeaks alleges. That’s right: While there’s no evidence they’re using these tools on us, the CIA apparently has the means to surveil what we say and do at any given moment.

I immediately took to Facebook to vent.

“People!” I said. “Did you know that the CIA could be listening in on your conversations even now?”

“Horrors!” the people responded.

“They could easily learn so much about you!” I groused. “What you like! Dislike! Everything!” In protest, I immediately removed my Facebook “Like” from the CIA’s own Facebook page. That’ll teach ’em.

“It’s not like I do anything incriminating,” I wrote, turning to Twitter. “I have nothing to hide. But I don’t like the idea of strangers poking around in my business.”

“Preach it, brother!” A stranger on Twitter wrote.

“That’s right,” I said. “And you know what? Sometimes you say dumb things when you’re on the phone or watching TV. Things that might be embarrassing or inappropriate.”

“How so $%^&$# true that is,” another stranger said. “Sad!”

“Sad is right!” someone else wrote. “I don’t want people I don’t know judging me like that! I don’t want people determining whether I’m a good person or a bad person based on what they might learn about me through these Internet-abled devices!” He said he was going to update his Tinder profile to express his outrage.

“I think the CIA may even have the ability to track exactly where we are at any given moment using our phones!” I said on Foursquare. “They could know what businesses we visit, what restaurants we frequent!” I sat down at the counter of Abe’s Lard and Fries as I typed. “What an incredible invasion of privacy! Why, they might even know the music we listen to or the food we eat!”

I stopped typing, because my deep-fat-fried quintuple cheeseburger with a diet Coke had just arrived. I took a picture and promptly posted it on Instagram.

As I ate, I turned back to Twitter.

“Incredible, isn’t it?” I wrote. “Whatever happened to the idea of privacy? Who in the world would want a bunch of utter strangers all up in our business? Doesn’t the CIA understan—”

Had to continue on another tweet due to the 140 character limit.

“—Understand that we value our privacy? That without that privacy there can be no real freedom?”

“Too true, that,” @CIA wrote. “Sad!”

Want to stay Plugged In?

Our weekly newsletter will keep you in the loop on the biggest things happening in entertainment and technology. Sign up today, and we’ll send you a chapter from the new Plugged In book, Becoming a Screen-Savvy Family, that focuses on how to implement a “screentime reset” in your family!