Five new anti-terrorism espionage targets for the NSA

Could this dog, caught with a hidden camera,
be part of a terrorist enemy plot?
Don't answer until you read the entire story, below.

To the National Security Agency analyst writing a briefing to his superiors, the situation was clear: their current surveillance efforts were lacking something. The agency's impressive arsenal of cable taps and sophisticated hacking attacks was not enough. What it really needed was a horde of undercover Orcs. 

That vision of spycraft sparked a concerted drive by the NSA and its UK sister agency GCHQ to infiltrate the massive communities playing online games, according to secret documents disclosed by whistleblower Edward Snowden.           -From a story by James Ball in The Guardian, Dec. 9, 2013

So listen guys, I know that all those gamers are harboring Al Qaeda fanatics who are actually using fantasy characters to dream up Plots To Destroy America. But why stop at spying on gamers? If you can think it up, or if I can think it up, Al Qaeda can think it up, too. So here’s what to bug next (if  you aren’t already doing it.)

Nut and potato chip factories. Thanks to fear of terrorism, before we can board an airplane we have to take off our shoes, take off our belts, take the change and phones and keys out of our pockets, get patted down, and even take our computers out of our carry-on bags. But while the TSA is patting down our private parts, who’s checking all those snack packs the airlines are selling on board – like the tasteless sandwich, sour apple, and bag of potato chips I paid $7.50 for on my last flight? Do you know how much explosive you can pack into a tiny bag with a picture of potato chips or nuts on it? Do I have to explain the rest? Kaboom!

Dentists offices, especially those in Washington, D.C. This plot is so completely obvious, I’m amazed it hasn’t been acted upon already. A Congressman goes to his dentist with a terrible toothache. The dentist says it’s a cavity and pretends to fill it. Actually, he fills it with a tiny high powered explosive that can be triggered either mechanically by pressure, or chemically with alcohol. The Congressman goes to a cocktail party and grabs a martini off a tray. Then he takes the olive out of the glass and pops it in his mouth. Kaboom! He blows off his own head and those of six lobbyists pushing to extend the embargo on Iran. And we're just looking for uranium enrichment plants there?

Offices of gynecologists, proctologists and urologists. I mean, do I have to explain this? You can probably guess how it works. The doctor uses some high tech instrument to peer up there. (Or is it down there or in there? Well, nevermind.) During the examination, the doc, a terrorist operative, inserts an IED into the willing or unwilling suicide bomber. Later, the bomber goes to the men’s room, say in Grand Central Station. Kaboom! Which means the death of 40 men standing at urinals, plus massive delays at rush hour for trains going out of, or coming into, Grand Central.

Hearing aids and eyeglasses. See, they look like ordinary specs, maybe the kind with hearing aids built into the earpieces, but actually they’re…oh wait! Google’s already on that one.

Dog Poo. No, I’m not suggesting Al Qaeda would put explosives in dog poo. Let’s not start getting silly. However with the NSA surveilling everything from cell phones to Orc Assault games, what’s a poor terrorist to do when he wants to communicate with his co-terrorists? Why not secrete tiny rolled up paper messages in dog poop? Here’s how it would work:

A terrorist buys a dog. Then he scratches a tiny message in waterproof ink on a fortune-cookie fortune-sized ribbon of paper. Then he walks his dog on a pre-arranged route, back and forth until the dog does his business. Next, the terrorist quickly inserts his rolled-up message into the poop and hurries away.

Everyone passing by will tch-tch that dog owners aren’t picking up, and how awful that is, but of course, nobody else wants to touch some strange dog’s droppings. So the stuff just sits there until the terrorist message recipient walks down the block looking for the poop. When he sees it, he pretends to be a public-spirited citizen, whips out a plastic bag, scoops the stuff up and carries it off. Back in a filthy rented room above an electronic games store, he dissects his treasure, reads the note, learns where to plant an IED, calls the right proctologist, and finally washes his hands.

Fortunately, dog poo secret messaging will be defeated when the NSA goes to America’s dog food makers and forces them to revamp their factories so that a tiny RFID tracking chip can be inserted in every last piece of kibble made in America. (Dog food imports will have to be prohibited as a national security measure.) Next, the NSA releases thousands of drones around America’s cities, disguised as Amazon package delivery vehicles. When an RFID chip in a pile of dog poo is detected, the airplane swoops down and scoops it up, for analysis at NSA headquarters.

Hey, I know all this is terribly expensive. But you can’t be too careful. Or too safe. 

Feeling good? Too bad! It’s time to start worrying again. Here are six nightmare scenarios to help ruin your sweet dreams.

All of us who count ourselves as Democrats are getting a tetch too comfortable. All of us who want to toss George Bush back into his Crawford brush…all of us who see light at the end of the gloomy economy...and peace at the end of the Iraq quagmire…all of us had better take a deep, deep breath.

Remember, Murphy’s Law roars back into operation whenever you let your pessimism take a nap. If anything can go wrong, somebody is already plotting how to make it happen. And somebody else with offices on K Street is already lobbying for it.

So here are a handful of bone-chilling scenarios (Guaranteed: all of them straight off the top of my cranky head) to keep you pacing the floor tonight.

1. The Democrats win the election. But George Bush declares martial law, announces that for some reason or other the election process was illegal, and appoints himself “Interim President for Life.” Troops occupy the streets to put down any dissent. Dissidents "disappear" to dungeons abroad and are later found in mass graves. Hey, you say that only happens in third world countries? And what world does our nation’s growth in the fields of government cronyism, torture chambers, inflation, poverty rates and shrinking the economy make us these days?

2. Ralph Nader draws just enough votes from the Democratic presidential candidate for John McCain to win. It is later determined that Nader’s campaign was funded all along by Republicans, arch-conservatives and neo-conservatives who realized that their only hope of victory was Nader denouncing them while running for office. I mean, who else is funding Ralph? Certainly not Democrats.

3. New York’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg decides to run for president, after off-and-on flirtations with the idea. (See Nader, Ralph, above.) [NOTE: In a deliberate effort to confound and confuse The New York Crank, Mayor Bloomberg announced, the very evening that this post got posted, that he will not be a candidate for president. Immediately, New York 1, the CNN local news cable station, began speculating that he's running for vice president. Go figure.]

4. The reason we haven’t seen an Al Qaeda attack recently is that Osama Bin Laden was caught several years ago and is being held incommunicado in Guantanamo. Three days before the 2008 election, George Bush in a last-minute attempt to undo a Democratic sweep, will announce Bin Laden’s capture.

5. Al Qaeda hasn’t attacked us in the United States since 2001 because its leaders have been following Napoleon’s advice never to interrupt the enemy when he is making a grave mistake. Our grave mistakes under the Bush Administration include destroying the morale of our armed forces, stretching the nation’s defenses thin, wrecking our own economy, and sabotaging our goodwill abroad. When we get a rational president who begins improving the economy, restoring civil rights, pulling us out of the hopeless quagmire in Iraq and uniting the nation, then Al Qaeda will attack. Loud gloating will be heard from under a shady tree on a mountain bike trail in Crawford, Texas.

6. On his last day in office George Bush will issue a blanket pardon for himself – and for every member of his administration – for any and all crimes discovered or yet uncovered, ranging from corruption, to cover up, to destroying government property, to contempt of Congress. And more.

Anything else disturbing your dreams? Feel free to send in your nightmares.