NSA Memo

Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Memo

To:  National Security Agency (NSA)

From: Daphne Muse

Re: Verification, Fact Checking and NSA Feeling Neglected & Standing for Democracy in a Digital Age

With your operatives tracking billions of calls, emails and other electronic communications platforms deep into the corridors of global power, up in Pookie’s Place and across the Universe on a nano-second by nano-second basis, the complexities of gathering and verifying data is bound to produce errors. While your scale of efficiency on harvesting data is far reaching, accuracy may well be another matter.   The unredacted part of my FBI file is filled with misinformation documented by agent Jim South.  Stuff just got made up by folk who fabricated and fictionalized my life including having me in two different places simultaneously.  In accordance with the Freedom of Information Act, I’m requesting a random sampling of documentation gathered on the date noted above, to begin making some determination about the level of erroneous details that may well be under construction about me, my life and communications with others. 

According to my records, I:

Arose at 5:35 AM and turned on my 24/7 jazz station KCSM

Drank two glasses of water

Processed the meal from the evening before

Brushed my teeth/splashed face

Drove to the Aquatic Cathedral

Dashed into a 75 degree pool/with an air temperature of 46 degrees for a brisk mile long swim and realignment of my molecules

Showered after swim and mixed it up with my aqua-homies in the locker room

Returned home and called my momma; we discussed her progress with a series of dental treatments and her latest art project

Spent an hour talking with my brother Vincent and yes we discussed this electronic harvest of shame

Wrote for four hours

Ate carrots, coconut and lox for lunch

Watched DW-Journal (They have penchant for intelligent coverage of news around the world and interesting programming with a global focus.)

Finished editing a piece for my blog

Read an article on Common Dreams about the country’s Electronic Harvest of Shame: “Nation's Libraries Warn of NSA's 'Ravenous Hunger' for Data”

 

Had lamb bacon sandwich (Yes, my butcher does lamb bacon) and collard greens for dinner; no wine

Stepped outside on the deck to talk a few minutes of smack to my rescued orchids and watch the bright beacons from the satellites now obliterating the stars in the sky and thanked the Universe for forming me

Read some Lucille Clifton poems.  She should be canonized as the Goddess of Poetry

Invoked my gratitude mantra before going off to sleep at 10:11 PM

Had reams of dreams about liberation, freedom and the daily formation of socially just living, and a fellow kinda sorta on my mind

Oh, and don’t feel neglected, ‘cause there are folk around the world paying as much attention to you, as you are to us.  As you now know, a call for International Bill of Digital Rights was put out by five-hundred writers worldwide (http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/12/10/249935326/book-news-500-authors-demand-international-bill-of-digital-rights).  You probably received and coded this memo before I finished writing it. 

Daphne Muse is a writer, social commentator and poet.  Her articles and commentaries have appeared in The Atlantic, San Jose Mercury and aired on NPR.