FORT MEADE, Md. – A spokesperson for the National Security Agency (NSA) today admitted that U.S. intelligence services have conducted surveillance on American citizens and foreign heads of state using so-called toilet-cams, or cameras placed inside toilet bowls. The NSA said the cameras—which have been installed in roughly ten thousand public and private toilets worldwide—are meant to collect “extremely sensitive” information, and argues that they save lives because “terrorists can hide there, too.”

NSA officials say that Operation Porcelain—as the program is known—began shortly after September 11^th, 2001, when intelligence agents were “scouring the globe in search of al-Qaeda members.”

“In those days, we couldn’t leave any stone unturned,” said Vanee Vines, NSA spokesperson. “Terrorists could have been anywhere, including at the bottom of Silvio Berlusconi’s shitter.”

Although the program failed to capture any fugitive terrorists, the NSA found that the toilet-cams nevertheless gathered useful information. “You wouldn’t believe what you can learn about a person by watching them on the pot,” Vines said. “On an unrelated note, [former British Prime Minister] Gordon Brown should really see a gastroenterologist, and soon.”

Operation Porcelain is one of several controversial NSA programs to be unveiled recently. Last week, reports surfaced indicating that the United States spied on at least 35 foreign leaders—including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose personal cell phone was allegedly tapped—and listened in on as many as 60 million phone calls made by private Spanish citizens. Those revelations have already damaged the United States’ relationship with many of its allies, but experts warn that when foreign leaders learn that the NSA has been watching them defecate, America’s foreign policy apparatus may be permanently crippled.

“How is any foreign leader going to look John Kerry in the eye, knowing it’s possible he’s seen them on the toilet?” asked Senate intelligence committee chair Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.). “It’s hard enough to look at his face as it is.”

Feinstein recently “broke rank” with her party to condemn the NSA’s practice of tapping foreign leaders’ phones, and says that Operation Porcelain represents an “abhorrent disregard of a person’s right to poop in private.” NSA officials, however, argue that everything they have done has been in the interests of national security.

“Our position is, this doesn’t hurt anyone unless they have something to hide,” Vines said. “If you’re so ashamed about what happens in your bathroom, then maybe it’s time for a change of diet.”