Eavesdropping on Law Abiders

Why does that rash keep coming back to your upper thighs? Do you know where you got it? How did you edge out the other three people at work for that promotion? Why did you agree to go to that strip club with those clients, and why didn’t you tell your wife/husband? If your boss is such a troglodyte, why do you work there? Does the home office know how you spend your day?

Y’know, there’s this crazy rumor going around that you don’t agree with your boss, your friends at the gym, and your neighbors, on a lot of social or political issues, but that you nod your head in agreement to get along with them. Mind if I let them know?

Do your clients know your political beliefs? What kind of a joke did you make about the President? Whom did you tell? Why did you leave that person out of your will? How long after you were pregnant did you get married? Does your insurance company know what you ate over the weekend, and what you and your friends did the weekend before? Why was your teenager up half the night?

That stuff about “Sometimes I wonder why I even go on” – that stuff was hilarious. You don’t mind if I keep a record of it in your file, do you?

Thank goodness we heard about that campaign strategy of yours—that woulda worked if we hadn’t had a heads up!

That business you run—what did you say your strategy is? And, I didn’t quite hear, where did you say you’re most vulnerable? What does your research say?
Who is it you’re trying to get a jump on? We must have a bad connection.

For some reason, I’m just terrible at remembering numbers. How much did your relatives kick in to bail out your business?

Oh yeah, there was that time you were talking about your vacation, and how, in that country, they do something better than we do it in the U.S.—mind if I share that with your adversaries?

You know, the (armed forces/Harvard University/NBA) has no record that you did what you talk about in that story of yours. Is that just normal gilding the lily, or should we tell folks?

There.

Just taking a moment to answer the bizarre question I’ve been hearing repeatedly about secret government eavesdropping: “If you haven’t broken any laws, what do you have to worry about?”