Privacy SOS

NSA calls the iPhone using public ‘zombies’ who pay for their own surveillance

Following up its exposé about the NSA's ability to hack into individual smartphones and decrypt their contents, Der Spiegel today published a new story about NSA spying on smartphones, which includes the following PowerPoint slides. They are illustrative if only because they demonstrate the degree to which the super-secretive agency has profound disrespect for the public. A particularly classy slide calls iPhone users 'zombies' and makes fun of us for paying for the services that enable the NSA to track our physical locations.

Another slide calls deceased Apple founder and former CEO Steve Jobs "Big Brother".

The first slide in the series alludes to George Orwell's 1984. Apparently, the joke about the book not being intended as an instruction manual wasn't lost on the NSA.

Der Spiegel also reports that NSA can hack into the Blackberry encryption system, which has led to headlines like this. The following slide shows a communication sent by a member of the Mexican government from his or her Blackberry, decrypted and obtained by the NSA.

© 2024 ACLU of Massachusetts.