That spoof of a pilot program, as the prankster provocateurs describe and document in videos on their website, involves planting micro-cassette recorders under tables and benches around New York city, retrieving the tapes and embedding the resulting audio on their website: Wearealwayslistening.com. This week, they launched a website where they've posted some of their recordings. They range from the mundane, like a woman at a gym talking about her plans for the evening, to the intimate, like a man at a restaurant talking about his lover's fetishes. Well, actually no, not the NSA, but an anonymous group of anti-NSA protestors claiming to be contractors of the intelligence agency and launching a new "pilot program" in New York City on its behalf. "Eavesdropping on the population has revealed many saying 'I’m not doing anything wrong so who cares if the NSA tracks what I say and do?' "The NSA employs many 3rd party contractors, [and] we consider ourselves to be contractors of this nature, albeit in a unpaid and unsanctioned capacity," reads the email. Inside the envelope was also one of the group's tape recorders (without a tape) and a USB stick containing the video below, which shows one of the recorders being surreptitiously planted under a restaurant table, marked with the words "PROPERTY OF NSA."
– Spending time in New York City these days? You might peek under the table or bench you're using to see if there's a tape recorder marked "PROPERTY OF NSA"—which was placed there by anti-NSA activists trying to make a point, the Guardian reports. The activists won't identify themselves, but have posted recordings (which they claim are authentic) on WeAreAlwaysListening.com. Some are kinda embarrassing, too, like the students who brag about tricking a roommate into leaving, the Asian men who mock other Asians for speaking in an Asian manner, or the guy whose gay lover liked acting out fight scenes as part of sex. It was "like Batman Returns," he says. "Bam! Boom! Kazam. Ah you got me!” The point, of course, is political: Anyone upset by the tapes can send "their feelings towards their government representatives to respond to the NSA's tactics," one of the activists tells the CBC. Some NSA supporters have said they approve of domestic surveillance because they're not doing anything wrong, he notes, and suggests these recordings will put that to the test. Their website links the word "Angry?" to an ACLU page where people can oppose the renewal of the Patriot Act, which is due to end June 1, Wired reports. For the record: What the activists are doing violates state law, and the ACLU says it isn't affiliated with them, but did allow the link. Meanwhile, "careful what you say in public, New Yorkers—unless, of course, you have nothing to hide," says Wired.