A Father, Daughter, and the NSA

One early Sunday afternoon, as the sun beamed down on the screened-in porch, a father and her daughter sat enjoying the beautiful spring day.  The daughter, Ariel, was searching for a new website to play educational games.  Somehow, she mistyped the title of her game and ended up at a website which looked like a warning.  She sat back from her laptop screen, puzzled, and called for her father.

“Uh, daddy?” Ariel asked.

Her father got up from his lounge chair and placed his tea on the end table that was right next to it.  He walked over to where his daughter lay on the floor and sat down next to her, eyeing the red screen.

“What is it sweetheart?” he answered back.

“I just got blocked while I was searching for a new website to play games on and I got this screen after I clicked on one of the links I found.”

“Well let me take a look” Ariel’s father responded as he turned the computer screen to face him.  He read the notice quietly and audibly sighed.

“Ah yes, this is just a message from the NSA sweetie.  Just try another website” he said, with a look of defeat on his face.

“What’s the NSA daddy?” Ariel asked, puzzled.

“Well…” he sat back up and stretched. “This is quite a long story, so I’ll have to grab my tea to tell you.” He stood up and walked back to where he was previously sitting and grabbed his tea cup, then returned to his daughter’s position.

“You see Ariel,” he started, “A few years ago, there was a massive terrorist attack on the American people, you and I.  They took down a national landmark and huge area where people work.  They hurt a lot of people, really bad guys.  So the country decided to get the guys that hurt us.  We went to get them to try and stop them and we’re still fighting them.”

“So the bad guys are still out there?” she asked, still puzzled.

“Yes honey, but they can’t hurt either of us because we’ve stopped most of them.  Because of the NSA, the people that stopped you.”

“Who are the NSA?”

“Well… the NSA are a bunch of men and women that watch what we do on computers and on phones to catch bad guys like the ones that hurt us.  They read our e-mails and text messages to try and catch more bad guys so you and I can sit on the porch and enjoy a beautiful day like today.”

Ariel jumped up in shock, “So you mean they can listen to our phones?  They listen to when I talk to you and mommy?”

He scratched his head and sighed. “Well… yes.  They can.  They don’t often because you and I aren’t bad guys but they do it to try and protect us.  They’re watching us because they don’t want us to get hurt.”

“But daddy, that’s what I say to you and mommy. I say I love you and everyone knows but why can someone I’ve never met know?” Ariel asked, extremely inquisitively.

“Yeah sweetie I understand what you mean… But there’s really nothing we can do.  That’s the world we live in now. Everyone uses a computer or a cell phone so everyone can be watched, but they do it to protect us.  Not to hurt us,” he smiled sweetly, reaching out his hand to pat her head. “And I love you too, and I don’t care who knows it.”

Ariel hugged him and smiled. “I think I understand daddy. A bunch of people want to protect us by reading what we say on the computer because a lot of bad guys talk on their phones and computers so they want to catch them by watching us… right?”

He smiled softly and hugged her back, “Yeah, something like that kiddo.” He grabbed the computer and found a website that had all her games on there, with no block message, and handed her the computer.

“Here you go Ariel, all fixed. I’ll stay here and watch you play, you teach me.”

“Okay!” Ariel smiled and opened her favorite game and they both proceeded to enjoy the rest of their afternoon.