FORT MEADE, MD—Taken aback by the brazen attempt to cripple the U.S. national security apparatus, high-ranking officials at the National Security Agency reportedly spent Wednesday morning scrambling to reestablish the whereabouts of a man who had covered his laptop camera with a piece of electrical tape. “Dammit, we’ve lost him,” senior intelligence analyst Edward Greenwood said moments after the man’s hands were seen moving toward the camera while holding a small, black, rectangular object presumed to be a strip of tape. “It’s like he just vanished into thin air. He could be absolutely anywhere! C’mon, people—I want status reports every 30 minutes until we track this bastard down! We can’t let him fall completely off the grid. The only thing we have to go on now is all the data from his smartphone and every email he’s ever sent or received.” At press time, sources inside the agency confirmed they had already sent a memo to the House Intelligence Committee demanding stricter controls on sales of opaque adhesives to civilians.

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