NSA, can you hear me now?

I'm not sure where to address mail to the National Security Agency, but I have a message for them. I don't mind that AT&T gave you all my phone records. After all, we are at war, and I'm sure we can reinstate the Constitution once it's over.

You don't happen to have a timetable on that, do you?

But I do want to warn you that the Pakistani woman who called my house at 3:31 a.m. on March 22 was not a terrorist, at least as far as I know. She had the wrong number, honest. Yes, as you already know, I talked to her for 53 seconds, which is kind of long for a wrong number. But it's hard for me to communicate with someone speaking Urdu in the middle of the night. Surely with all the eavesdropping on calls you guys do, you know what I mean.

I also sometimes get calls from people speaking Spanish. I don't think they are terrorists, but I promise from now on I'll just hang up on anyone who doesn't speak American. I will make it my civic duty to hate all foreigners, even those smug English peace lovers. If Tony Blair wants to cut and run out of Iraq just because his people want to quit the Coalition of the Willing, then good riddance. I'll never go to an English restaurant again. It's strictly American fast food from now on. Supersize me!

And I hope you don't hold it against me that I get a lot of calls at work from terrorist-sympathizing journalists. You know the type. They go on and on about privacy and laws and civil rights. Just know that I'm not handing over any classified info to them. I'd turn over their names to you like a good citizen should, but you already have them.

There are also some other calls I want to talk to you about. That one to Victoria's Secret yesterday, there was nothing wrong with that. I was just ordering a little surprise for my wife. I hope I got the right size. You wouldn't happen to have that information handy, would you?

And yes, I do have a cousin in Iraq. But he's one of our guys, making that country safe for people to have their phone calls monitored by the government.

And you don't share this data with anyone else, do you? Just in case, let me clearly state that I report all my income to the IRS, my shotgun is the legal length, and when I say "Get off of me, Tickles," I am talking to our cat.

If you really want to know where the terrorists are, I'd check out those guys at Qwest. They refused to hand over these phone records, saying there were legal and ethical issues at stake. Seems they think obeying federal telecommunication laws are more important than finding terrorists. Can't believe they actually asked you for a court order. Don't they know that courts are SO pre-9/11?

As for AT&T, they have some brave people over there, true patriots. Doesn't matter that by handing over customer records they have possibly subjected the company to billions of dollars in penalties. They didn't even ask for a warrant or court order. They just passed them over like a good neighbor. Thanks for standing up for freedom, AT&T.

If the government sees the need to snoop on our phone calls, then by golly we better get used to it. And if the NSA occasionally makes a mistake and you end up getting tortured in a Turkish prison after ordering a Persian rug, that's just the price you pay for living in a free country. If we don't sacrifice for that freedom, we could end up like the old Soviet Union, where they actually listened to all the calls. Wouldn't want that, unless, of course, the president thought it was absolutely necessary.

So thanks, NSA, for helping to bring back those conservative values we loved so much. It's like 1984 all over again.

• Kirk Caraway is Internet editor of the Nevada Appeal. Write to him at Kcaraway@nevadaappeal.com, or comment online at nevadaappeal.com.