NSA Mad Libs: Choose Your Own [Redacted]

On Wednesday, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a 2011 FISA Court ruling striking down a top-secret National Security Agency online-surveillance program. The court, whose opinions are normally classified, found that the agency had accessed as many as 56,000 electronic communications (such as emails) from American citizens and foreign nationals over a three-year period by tapping into fiber-optic cables.

The ruling is 86 pages long, but don’t expect to read all of it: It’s so heavily redacted that large portions of the text look like some sort of cubist Rorschach test. As a result, much of the declassified ruling’s contents will still be unknown to the general public.

But don’t let that stop you! Below, you can take your best guess at what the redacted opinions should say with our NSA Choose-Your-Own-[Redacted] Mad Libs:

Present-tense verb e.g., “run”

Plural noun e.g., “trees”

Preposition e.g., “into”

Plural Noun e.g., “bunnies”

Government agency e.g., “DOJ”

Past-tense verb ending in -ed e.g., “cried”

Holiday e.g., “Independence Day”

Verb e.g., “haunt”

Plural noun e.g., “sweaters”

Plural noun e.g., “kitties”

The new language proposed by the government would allow the FBI to





.
The Government has advised the Court that this change was prompted by the fact that the



on

.
Nevertheless, the current procedures require the FBI to

.

The change is intended to eliminate the requirement of

.

More madness?

Think the results of your NSA Mad Lib looked crazy? Check out some of the actual redactions on the newly released FISA rulings:

The black marker was definitely working on page 1. Behold, a nearly perfect square, redacting the entire opening paragraph.

Page 4 informs us that something is limited to the "the targeting of non-United States persons reasonably believed to be located outside the United States." And that's about it.

Hoping to find the bibliography information for citation No. 11 on page 12? Fuhgeddaboudit.

Page 27 might not tell you much about the new provision, but this redaction does kind of resemble an American flag. So at least it's patriotic.

It appears one lucky word on page 58 was not redacted for a brief, shining moment. But eventually, the black marker won. What do you think that word was? Leave your comments below.