NSA Announces the Launch of New Personal Transcription Program (PTP)

Responding to Congressional pressures to develop new revenue streams for an increasingly debt-ridden Federal Government, the NSA (National Security Administration) yesterday launched its Personal Transcription Program (PTP). The program is designed to provide US consumers, for a fee, with on-demand transcriptions of any and all of their personal phone conversations within 48 hours of their occurrence. According to the NSA spokesman Don Weber, “Our target demographic for the program is the 45-65 age group, people with active lives and nothing to hide who find that their ability to recall important interactions just isn’t what it used to be”.

He went on to explain that the Agency believed it was time to make better use of the vast stores of data they currently have on the personal lives of ordinary Americans. “In the wake of the recently released Inspector General’s report on President Bush’s (and now President Obama’s) Surveillance program http://www.fas.org/irp/eprint/psp.pdf, showing that this massive data gathering effort could not be linked to the interruption any terrorist plots against the Homeland, we thought it was time to begin re-branding the program. In the long-run, we know the American people will not stand for seeing billions of dollars of their own money spent to provide Washington insiders with the ability gather dirt on their opponents or to have the TSA (Transportation Safety Administration) and ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) put millions of completely innocent people on ‘no fly’ and terrorist ‘watch’ lists”. Weber would not speculate on just how much revenue the agency hoped to recoup from the program. “That is strictly classified information”. he said.

When asked her opinion of the new program, Senate Intelligence Chairwoman Diane Feinstein called it a “Neat idea.”. She continued, “We came to realize that in budgetary times like these, we need to look into every possible source of revenue. This is information about the personal lives of American citizens. They should have every right to buy it back from the government at the right price. We view it as a win-win situation” She would not, however, comment on whether she favored selling the same transcripts to third party marketing firms.