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‘Hello, NSA? I accidentally deleted an email’

Bahram Sadeghi accidentally deleted an email message and couldn't get it back, so he decided to call up the NSA.

 

Jay Hathaway

Internet Culture

Posted on Aug 31, 2013   Updated on Jun 1, 2021, 7:42 am CDT

Iranian-Dutch filmmaker Bahram Sadeghi accidentally deleted an email message and couldn’t get it back, so he decided to call up an organization with a reputation for email storage: the U.S. National Security Agency.

When he couldn’t get an NSA employee to admit to collecting email and Internet data, he let her know that he was born in Iran, so maybe he’s a person of interest to the NSA. Could she check for his email now?

What happened next was a 5-minute cat-and-mouse game with two NSA employees, where Sadeghi tried to draw out various admissions about surveillance programs, and the NSA tried to get his name and contact information.

Hey, at least they had some helpful advice for him. That’s better than most actual tech support lines.

Screengrab via dumpert.nl

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*First Published: Aug 31, 2013, 10:38 am CDT