They have Daniel and his white sneakers. They have footage of evil clowns, adorable dogs, and beat boxing babies. Stars like Nash Grier, Destorm and even KingBach are homeless and penniless, their primary source of fame stolen from them. The National Security Agency (NSA) has taken over Vine, and Twitter is keeping this a secret.
We stick post-its on our webcams, in fear of being watched. We set our Facebook posts to “Friends Only,” so that government agencies cannot spy on our daily lives. We file lawsuits against Snapchat when our mildly scandalous photos are leaked. But we cannot stop the NSA from inspecting every aspect of our lives. This recent acquisition is just one in a long line.

The NSA has run out of options. After the many lawsuits against Snapchats for leaks of information, the NSA has realized its operations cannot run covertly. So it turned to another social media site, Vine. Vine is a better source for information on our meaningless, mundane lives, because it has substantial content: pictures, words, AND sound. This is a small step from “gifs,” and a huge leap from Instagram photos and Tumblr text posts.

With a budget of $10 billion annually, and expenditures far below that, the NSA has some extra spending money. The selling price for Vine was $10 million. Is it a coincidence that the NSA is well within the means to purchase what other social media sites turned down? Maybe, but maybe not. But what are they looking for? Hillary Clinton’s emails have been already found. What are they doing with our vines?

Anything you put on the internet stays on the internet, but it is advised you delete all your content from Vine–whether it is a video of your cat playing fetch, or you screaming at your bathtub. Because they are watching. They are always watching.