The recent revelations that the NSA has been collecting the detailed phone records of Americans since 2001 has a lot of citizens saying that claims of the NSA operating a vast domestic dragnet have been vindicated.
Others think the news has led the "tin foil hat" types to come out in spades.
Saying someone is "wearing a tin foil hat" or "is a tin foil hat" means that they have paranoia or a belief in conspiracy theories, especially involving government surveillance or paranormal beings.
Originally, the term referred to the practice of wearing headgear consisting of metal foil to block mind-reading.
Julian Huxley, brother of "Brave New World" author Aldous Huxley, coined the concept in his 1927 work "The Tissue-Culture King":
Well, we had discovered that metal was relatively impervious to the telepathic effect, and had prepared for ourselves a sort of tin pulpit, behind which we could stand while conducting experiments. This, combined with caps of metal foil, enormously reduced the effects on ourselves.
Unfortunately for contemporary tin foil hat wearers, a 2005 study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that the metal hats actually amplify certain radio frequencies instead of blocking them.
From the study (emphasis ours):
It has long been suspected that the government has been using satellites to read and control the minds of certain citizens. The use of aluminum helmets has been a common guerrilla tactic against the government's invasive tactics.
Surprisingly, these helmets can in fact help the government spy on citizens by amplifying certain key frequency ranges reserved for government use.
The findings led the authors to "speculate that the government may in fact have started the helmet craze for this reason."
Now that's a tin foil hat conspiracy theory!
Editor's note: We recommend the recent New York Times article "Why Rational People Buy Into Conspiracy Theories"
SEE ALSO: Only One Big Telecom CEO Refused To Cave To The NSA ... And He's Been In Jail For 4 Years