Uncle Peeper

I wish I worried more about
The feds‘ observing whom I’ve called
And who’s called me in case they doubt
My loyalty and thus forestalled
Dark hopes of zapping Washington
To aid Iran or just for fun.

This metadata they collect
Does not contain what they have heard,
At least that’s what their words reflect:
Just to-and-froms, what I’ve inferred.
Though less than blithe about this drill,
If thwarting havoc, bear I will.

It’s algorithms I can’t stand,
The kind that when I buy online
Will flash ads of the very brand
For weeks with no way to decline
While in the meantime worries grow
What else about me do they know?

And if I seek a long-lost love
On Facebook and the next day find,
Much to my muddlement thereof,
Yet now, web-based, we’re intertwined.
Though just a friend of friend of friend,
Degrees of separation blend.

We’ve yielded so much privacy
To social media's domain,
Hypocrisy, it seems to me,
Harasses us when we complain
Of Uncle’s peeps at networks, too.
Would that he’d done so in full view.