surveillance

It was John Merkenheimer’s 20th anniversary at the NSA. No one mentioned it, but everyone knew. The NSA knew everything.

Everyone knew, but there was no celebration. The NSA did not do streamers, nor party hats, nor Hallmark cards. They did not do team dinners nor happy hours. And they definitely did not go axe throwing or sip-and-painting.

What they NSA did do is defend the nation against domestic and foreign terrorists. And this immense responsibility demanded an unwavering seriousness. Any "Live, Laugh, Love"-esque attitudes were promptly identified and uprooted.

The NSA's most critical defense asset was its aura. The NSA needed aura because actually defenses were quite meager. How could a few thousand government employees possibly monitor every possible attack vector into the national infrastructure? How could a few thousand government employees possibly cover every possible attack vector into the national infrastructure? How could four million square miles of land ever be surveyed effectively? In reality, any motivated high schooler could assassinate the president. They all just think it's harder than it is.

And so it was of utmost importance to the survival of America that the NSA appeared cold and menacing at all times. The agency mandated shaved heads, rectangular sunglasses (kept on indoors), and jet-black suits (kept on in bed). Frivolous conversation was strictly forbidden; unnecessary wide smiles were grounds for termination.

The mandates were difficult, but they worked.

Some background: until 2019, the US suffered Chinese cyber-attacks at the rate of almost one per week. And these attacks always happened at the same time: around midnight EST. It took extensive analysis, espionage, and interrogation (later compiled into the Comprehensive 2019 Report on Cyclical Chinese Cyber-attacks) to find the vulnerability.

The report revealed that Chinese Intelligence Agencies had biologically integrated spy cameras into DC-native cricket species, then sent them to spy on high level US intelligence agents.

And every weekday, around midnight EST, when these intelligence agents returned home from work and got ready for bed, these cameras would broadcast these once menacing, suited, and sunglassed NSA agents taking off their suits, scratching their ass-cracks in patterned yellow boxer-briefs, then wearing purple satin sleep masks and snoring loudly and imbecile-like while being spooned by their wives in their Temper Pedic Extra-Soft Memory Foam mattresses.

The time difference was such that this scene would be broadcast to the Chinese intelligence groups around 3pm, the heart of their workday, and far from their own bedtime routines and spooning wives, which made the agents seem abnormally pathetic. They launched their cyberattacks shortly after and US servers crumbled.

But, after the NSA demanded suits and sunglasses in bed, and a strict sleep-on-back no-spooning policy, the attacks stopped. The Chinese were thoroughly intimidated by the cyborg-like discipline of the US agents who disclosed no signs of fallible humanity.

Now, could you imagine if the Chinese Ministry of State Security caught the NSA in party hats? With an anniversary cake? Sip-and-painting?

Fortunately, John Merkenheimer had no issues with the NSA mandates. He did not care that his twenty year work anniversary would not be celebrated. He had never spooned anyone, nor been spooned, and he had only been saying serious things since he was a child-- all important facts featured on his resume. Thirty-seven years without giggling.

At the NSA, John worked on a team tasked with monitoring potential terrorists in New York City, a critical region surveilled by some of the NSA's most trusted and senior members.

The NYC NSA team split up their task by dividing the city into broad population segments. Ahmed was in charge of the Russians. Sam, being the most senior, was in charge of the "Moslems" (which included Ahmed). Jack, being half-Chinese, was in charge of the "Orientals". Phillip was in charge of the "crazies", a multi-ethnic designation which included schizophrenics and radical political activists.

But John was in charge of a new population segment: the "pale young man" segment. The pale young man segment was created in response to the rise of seemingly senseless mass violence over the last few decades. The NSA wanted to see what patterns and causes of this mass violence could be identified and addressed.

The "pale young man" segment included subpopulations that matched queries such as: "single & less than 200 facebook friends & no women in facebook photos", "owns gun & visits 4chan & has checked out 'Michel Holleqbueq' from the library", "high school age range & averaging over six hours of screen time & parent has been hospitalized for mental health issues".

John tracked these subpopulations on a sweeping display with twelve wide-screen monitors, running streaming Bloomberg-Terminal-like interfaces of messages, photos, locations, webcam streams, and web-browsing activity of over ten-thousand POIs. Of course, John could not read every single notification himself. An essential component of the monitoring system was an AI anomaly detection model that drew John's attention only to activity that was especially suspicious. That way, John could focus his man-hours on carefully monitoring only those who the system flagged as 'ultra-high-risk'. The 'ultra-high-risk' POIs were the eight to ten people in NYC who were most likely to commit an act of domestic terrorism.

Most ultra high risk individuals came and went without any trouble.

Many a frustrated soul crafted elaborate plans, purchased explosive materials, and even wrote manifestos. But few took the final step.

One man, for example, had hatched a plan to plant a bomb in the women's locker room of the Flatiron Equinox. He carefully thought out every detail, and John felt he would go through with it.

But, miraculously, just a few days before the bomb was to be planted, the suspect found a girlfriend. And the next morning, embracing his new gf under a soft linen duvet, he forgot about the whole scheme.

It was a surprising-- not that John would ever let himself feel the emotion of surprise, NSA agents were forbidden to feel surprise. Could you imagine if the Chinese Ministry of State Security ever caught John with his eyebrows up, mouth hanging open like the ":O" emoji? Kentucky would be annexed the very next day-- but common pattern.

The pacifying girlfriends, John noticed, were usually Japanese. And they usually met the POIs online. And always, the mutual romantic interest would change the POIs worldview so dramatically that they would never touch a weapon or manifesto again. These Japanese girlfriends were such an effective de-escalator that the NSA was working on creating fake Japanese e-wives to pre-empt domestic terrorism.

Other high risk POIs found peace in music. They started bands, usually in the "Neo-Pagan Black Metal" genre, and quickly let go of their violent ideation.

Others found religion, often in the Eastern Orthodox church. They joined seminaries or did ascetic spiritual penance in monastic communities.

And so, most of the time, these high risk POIs came and went. But there was one pale young man, one POI, who had been in the 'ultra-high-risk' group for nearly twenty years.

That pale young man? Albert Melvinson.