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Maybe they just want to receive their emails and know that in the past, DNC servers and systems have been hacked. It's ingenious to say that their private system is automatically less secure than the government servers unless someone is an email security specialist and has knowledge of the two systems -- I'm sure someone on Slashdot will weigh in on this. ;-)

Perhaps with the record of Karl Rove and his operatives activities on Democratic servers -- I can definitely understand the Clinton's reticence to be on these same servers they've plagued. Doing the business of the state pre-supposes that all your communications are looked at by friendlies; not that everything you do is looked at in terms to set you up.

I can imagine a scenario where someone from the political opposition can read that you have a meeting with so and so, and can use that against you in some manner. As benign as changing the time of a meeting to making a fraudulent email and leaking it to the press.

Anything can happen if someone else with ill will controls the mail server.

Better to whether the small storm of criticism later, than be naive and pretend that political operatives won't do again what they've done to you in the past.
http://www.dispatch.com/conten...
Anyone remember Mike Connell? http://www.democracynow.org/20...
Former hackers were hired to create the original Diebold voting machines; http://www.dailykos.com/story/...
>> and Anonymous claimed they stopped the voting machines from being manipulated in the last election -- sounds like a quiet political cyber war is going on.

I'm sure to people not involved in politics, they think these are paranoid ramblings like Ross Perot claiming that the Bush crowd was pulling dirty tricks, tapping his conversations, and altering photos of his daughter; http://www.nytimes.com/1992/10...

Ross Perot is a man who used his own money and put is own neck on the line to retrieve kidnapped employees. Like him or not, he seems a bastion of integrity compared to the average politician.

Oh, and let's not forget that the RNC emails went missing;
http://freepress.org/article/a...
Rove's went missing;
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04...
And Iron Mountain lost emails -- and since their whole business model is storing sensitive data is probably one of the few things they've EVER lost;
http://fcw.com/articles/2014/0...

I'm not saying this to excuse a politician from not being transparent -- but I'd think we need to address the fact that dirty tricks are going on, and we need to make sure there are no man-in-the-middle attacks and manipulations of data.

It would be legal to build a faridaycage around your hotel.
Illegal is transmitters that jam a band. They would need to be FCC approved. And the FCC isn't approving them.

The problem is that the transmitter is approved via license exempt spectrum; it's the usage of said spectrum that isn't approved. The latter is trickier to enforce against due to the license exempt nature.

Just because the FCC is now taking a hard line by fining people, doesn't mean that it's legally sound in court; similar court cases prove the same but over net neutrality, different subject but the principle is the same nonetheless http://www.democracynow.org/2010/4/7/appeals_court_rules_fcc_lacks_authority

It's not even controversial that the FBI coordinated a crackdown on Occupy. http://www.theguardian.com/com...
The FBI even knew of possible assassination plots via rooftop sniper fire, and not only would they not act on these obvious acts of terrorism--the FBI has tried only to hide public knowledge of these plans. http://www.democracynow.org/20...

The entire HBGary scandal came about due to the Chamber of Commerce (which shouldn't be a part of government to begin with) cooperating with Bank of America through a middleman to target activists and occupy figureheads.

Furthermore, the government has been paying trolls to trash both OWS and the tea party on various sites. But it's too early for you to hear about that in mainstream news (even though the Intercept broke the story of government-paid trolls earlier this year: https://firstlook.org/theinter...)

So the idea that the government hasn't tried to suppress occupy is BULLSHIT.

Less BS than pretending that the price of fossil fuels is what you pay at the pump or on your meter.

Cheaper means only one thing. How much is my electricity bill at the end of the month.

You're forgetting your bill on April 15th to support the petrodollar and Exxon making 20-40 billion per quarter. Or did you think maintaining economic dominance over the world's gas stations was free?

Democracy Now!

Yep. And then all that money that would be used to pay salaries that would be used on expenses locally, making the local economy work, will be redirected to Bill Gate's pockets.

Who in turn gave the vast bulk of his money to end disease, educate children, feed the world, etc.

Some people can live with the charity of the riches. Some other prefer to work hard to earn money, pay the taxes and then demanding proper health care and education.

I prefer to live with the second way of life.

I can live with that.

Considering Germany is a net exporter: I'm not sure "keeping the money local" is actually a need.

Perhaps not, I don't know. But would be wiser to avoid putting all their eggs on the USA's basket again.

When in a few years, when all our documents will be locked in a proprietary cloud (that anyone with the right influence will have access) or stored locally in a format that you must pay to read, remember 2004.

MS uses XML to save documents. Put them wherever you like.

Yeah. Right. You was embraced and extended. :-)

Use of cloud storage is hardly unique to MS. Want me to start citing Linux distros doing it?

Yes.

A glitch on gtalk rendered me with my cellphone out of the cell network for weeks until the support from an app (that I was thinking was the culprid) help me to locate the problem.

A friend lose this documents because his account was terminated by mistake (other company, not related to the previous case).

There's privacy concerns everywhere.

So, yes. Cloud, no matter from whom, is going to be a nighmare.

Getting political on this issue gets to the point, ALEC, the group funded by the Koch brothers is behind a lot of these laws... http://www.democracynow.org/20...

Yes, they are a bit hard on this blogger - but lets not forget what the movement he supported stood for.

Indeed, let's not do that.

He wasn't in favor of Islamic rule. He was against the oppressive regime. Toppling that led to a newly formed brand new oppressive regime, not of his making or support. The Muslim Brotherhood was subsequently elected.

So let's make damned sure we're not accusing him of something he didn't do.

In his own words:

ALAA ABD EL FATTAH: Yes. That was on the 9th of October. There was a big march planned by several movements that were born out of the Coptic Christian community, basically protesting, you know, sectarian strife, violence against churches or, you knowâ"and also laws that restrict building or renovating churches. So, and it was a peaceful march, and it was quite big. I mean, I think it was like the biggest march to focus on the Coptic issues, you know, maybe 20,000 or 30,000. They marched from a popular neighborhood called Shubra, and the plan was to get just right here, behind me, to surround the Maspero building, which is where the state broadcast, radio and TV, broadcasts from. I think the symbolism around Maspero is that state media have always been, you know, downplaying the role of Christians and any other minorities in Egypt, but also have been downplaying the reality of sectarian strife in the country.

It was a peaceful march. They were supposed to just spend one hour in front of the building and then leave. But before they reached the building, they were attacked by the military. Three armed personnel carriers drove through the crowds, killing 17 people, and then live bullets were used against the protesters. Most of the protesters fled the scene. Many were injured. Around 28 people died. Then they started resisting. They started breaking the pavement and resisting the military with rocks and clubs or, you know, anything that they could get their hands on.

During that time, the media crackdown operationâ"there was a media crackdown operation by the military. Also they actually invaded a couple of buildings where independent TV channels were trying to cover the events live. The state broadcaster was showing a completely different picture. They started from the reaction. They started from the resistance, showing Christian protesters attacking the military. And then they started making false claims that tens of officers have been killed, and so on, in what appeared toâ"in what appears to have been a plan to incite sectarian strife. They were basically practically asking Muslims to come down and protect the army and attack any Christians that they find in the streets.

And yet you seem to be insinuating he was some kind of militant Islamist ... when nothing could be further from the truth.

Protesting an unjust regime and ending up with another isn't his damned fault.

Seriously, check your damned facts and at least know WTF you're talking about. Otherwise you just sound like some random idiot spouting random things -- which in this case are completely false.

But, hey, maybe you're an American and therefore in favor of bombing civilians if they're dumb enough to be near the people they actually want to kill. At which point, why should your citizens be exempt from such crap?

They haven't killed Daniel Ellsberg.

Which reminds me of a recent debate he had on Democracy Now with former NSA counsel on the topic of Snowden. Ellsberg brings up the important point that previously, several NSA veterans had brought up complaints through channels and in return, the government, without any real reason to suspect they broke rules or laws other than the fact they believed intelligence methods were becoming unethical, raided their homes and, in the case of Thomas Drake, threatened prosecution for documents they found in his home (after fishing for evidence, not that they already suspected he had them) which they claimed were classified, but were actually marked unclassified, which they then re-classified and tried to prosecute ex post facto. Fortunately, a judge not only threw the case out, but actually apologized to Drake, but only after the ordeal ruined his savings, reputation and career. This intelligence professional, committed to older NSA principles of not violating rights of Americans, now does consumer tech support at an Apple Store. It is in this context (which Ellsberg notes is necessary to acknowledge when discussing whistleblowing) that Snowden went beyond channels to inform the public.

Frontline also recently did a two-part series on eavesdropping involving NSA, Drake, Snowden and even a complicit tech industry.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/united-states-of-secrets/#part-one---the-program

It's fairly easy to make any person into a criminal under US law.

Please, name an American blogger so prosecuted after being critical of the US government.

The worst we've seen so far is the increased IRS-scrutiny of government critics, but that, somehow, is usually Ok with the same folks, who like comparing NSA with KGB.

No, they just pass the information to the police that handles that job.

None of those arrested because of the NSA tip-off were arrested for their speech. It may or may not be in violation of the 4th Amendment, but not of the 1st.

Look at what happened to all the Occupy members.

What happened? Where do I look? For such a highly-moderated comment, you are offering surprisingly few links. Was anyone prosecuted for mere speech? Assaulting a police officer — yeah, that's more likely...

Funny how all the important people in the movement were found very accurately by police forces across the country.

Police may not be able to find every criminal, but finding any criminal they really set their minds on — that they could do for decades now. And, certainly, "the important people" of an infamous movement qualify. Hardly a surprise.

No, they just pass the information to the police that handles that job.

Look at what happened to all the Occupy members. Funny how all the important people in the movement were found very accurately by police forces across the country.

Found, and crucified:
Occupy Wall Street on Trial: Cecily McMillan Convicted of Assaulting Cop, Faces Up to Seven Years
Why Did FBI Monitor Occupy Houston, and Then Hide Sniper Plot Against Protest Leaders?

Like this dick authoritarian move by Russia, China et al. actions speak louder than words: The United States is not alone in being afraid of democracy... real democracy. Which starts with the more outspoken amongst us rallying together, writing blogs about the social problems we face, proposing solutions, attending OWS type events to agitate peacefully for positive change. Just too bad all those things that make common peoples lives better also happen to conflict with the goal of accumulating even more wealth for the richer parts of society. See graph: 12-country 1975-2007 chart of share of income growth going to The 1%.

No, they just pass the information to the police that handles that job.

Look at what happened to all the Occupy members. Funny how all the important people in the movement were found very accurately by police forces across the country.

Found, and crucified:
Occupy Wall Street on Trial: Cecily McMillan Convicted of Assaulting Cop, Faces Up to Seven Years
Why Did FBI Monitor Occupy Houston, and Then Hide Sniper Plot Against Protest Leaders?

Like this dick authoritarian move by Russia, China et al. actions speak louder than words: The United States is not alone in being afraid of democracy... real democracy. Which starts with the more outspoken amongst us rallying together, writing blogs about the social problems we face, proposing solutions, attending OWS type events to agitate peacefully for positive change. Just too bad all those things that make common peoples lives better also happen to conflict with the goal of accumulating even more wealth for the richer parts of society. See graph: 12-country 1975-2007 chart of share of income growth going to The 1%.

"You don't tend to see the left calling for banning guns either"

So when these guys call for bans on "assault weapons", they're not on the left or not calling for gun bans?

When NYC starts taking people's guns away, the city is not left-leaning or it's not banning any guns?

When Democrats tried to put confiscation of assult weapons into a bill in New York state, apparently they were not "on the left" and were not going for the guns?

When Democrat senator Dianne Feinstein said this about her desire to order every person in the US to turn in their guns (which only failed to happen because she could not get enough votes) she did not really mean it?

And while we're on the subject, what's with this article on the various Democrat efforts to grab/ban guns and various ways to lie to the public about it so the public will let them do it???

Who am I supposed to believe? You or my apparently lying eyes and ears? Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.... and as a corallary: those who failed to listen to tyrants as they announced their evil plans in the past, are probably too dumb to notice when the next wave plainly announce the evil they are planning.

How is it different from killing them without drones?

What the fuck does a drone (just tool) have to do with it other than its a new reason to be uppity?

How about you think about it for a couple seconds. Drones remove risk - remember all the shit Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton got for downed helicopters? You send in some SEALS, they might be captured or killed. With a Predator drone, the most you risk is a weaponized robot on the way to getting your bug splats.

"49% or so of us know and the other 51% are too arrogant to admit that they aren't going to improve things much without the help of the government."

Well you guys need to come out of your illusions first.

http://www.amazon.com/Empire-I...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

http://www.democracynow.org/bl...

NC on: Free markets

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

That's the cunning appeal of Colbert. Both conservatives and liberals love him but for completely different reasons. This has actually been studied:

Summary: Political Ideology and the Motivation to See What You Want to See in The Colbert Report
Full Study: The Irony of Satire

There are some confusions in what you're asking. It isn't Stallman or the FSF's job to supply anyone with a business model. It's the FSF's job to lay out the ethical argument to defend their case that nonfree software is unjust and that we all deserve software freedom. Put differently, and not to equate nonfree software with slavery (slavery is more oppressive than nonfree software), but ethical arguments against slavery don't have an obligation to provide alternative labor sources to exploit. Ethical arguments against slavery have to lay out why people should be treated with human dignity as equals and not as slaves. With that, there are some approaches you should consider:

1. You can learn to be more charismatic, if you think it necessary, but plenty of speakers with important messages (including talking about issues of life and death) are not charismatic (charisma being an eminently subjective quality). Speakers including Noam Chomsky and Jeremy Scahill get large standing-room-only audiences of engaged listeners while delivering their ideas in a perfectly reasonable way because of what they have to say and write. I find this approach to be far more respectful to the audience than that of a charismatic speaker who delivers horrible messages like US President Obama who charismatically tells the world that he'll continue George W. Bush's wars against terror, or deflects serious discussion of what he does every Tuesday when he picks whom to assassinate (sometimes referred to as "Terror Tuesdays"), or when he delivers content-free acceptance speeches like he did in Grant Park spouting vague platitudes about his forthcoming presidency (as Adolph Reed Jr. pointed out on an interview with Bill Moyers, Obama gave "evocative statements" with "no real content"), and more).
2. You can learn to write other software. You can learn to do other jobs besides writing software.
3. All software needs support, regardless of user interface. There are also features businesses will pay for that need to be added to extant free software, such as directory service-related features desired for easier mass deployment within their organization. You can learn to write software that is sold based on its support; other organizations have charged large sums of money based on software they did not initially write; Cygnus which, until it was bought by Red Hat, provided GCC consulting services.
4. Apparently other people find ways to develop and distribute software via Internet download, make money, and do loads of other jobs all while not exploiting people.

Stallman is not going to address your reference to "open source" in the way you expect because he is not a representative of the open source movement, nor has he ever been. Perhaps you would have done well to read the summary /. provided on this story and the links contained therein. One of those links pointed you to a long-published article about how Stallman is not a spokesperson for "open source" and he has pointed out significant differences between his older movement—the free software movement—and the younger open source movement which focuses on development methodology (and is therefore willing to install and recommend nonfree software). That newer essay updates an older essay which has been published in print as well as online.

Also, developing and distributing free software doesn't always mean publishing GNU GPL-covered programs. There are lots of other free software licenses from which to choose depending on the details of the program and one's goals in distributing the program.

But I deserve to have more wealth than any ten thousand other people on this planet combined!

10,000?

Try 3,500,000,000.

Thin Thread

http://www.businessinsider.com/nsa-whistleblower-william-binney-was-right-2013-6

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThinThread

http://www.whistleblower.org/program-areas/homeland-security-a-human-rights/surveillance/nsa-whistleblowers-bill-binney-a-j-kirk-wiebe

Binney.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/backissues/2013/06/takes-the-nsas-surveillance-programs.html

http://www.democracynow.org/2012/4/20/exclusive_national_security_agency_whistleblower_william

http://publicintelligence.net/binney-nsa-declaration/

Reinstate him as DNI.

The museum may be in a bit of a delicate position because residents of a state don't enjoy having their state made fun of."

Oh, because the politicians are "the state"? We shouldn't question our elites? Nice servitude attitude you got going on there.

Maybe it being banned has something to do with those same politicians having their hand in the till of the yearly multi-million dollar campaign to sell climate science denial. Forget facts. Forget science. Yay for forum shills, newspaper and television paid climate science denial.

At least we will know who to persecute with extreme prejudice if (when?) climate chaos ends up killing millions.

Come don't make the idiots at think progress do all your thinking, figure it out and compare to other businesses.

Okay, how many other industries get over a trillion a year in subsidies?

The people we are waterboarding, on the other hand, have demonstrated both the desire and the ability to do us harm

Except for the innocent.

A cursory search reveals:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/04/former-state-department-official-team-bush-knew-many-at-gitmo-were-innocent/275327/
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/08/opinion/sunday/notes-from-a-guantanamo-survivor.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/wikileaks/8471907/WikiLeaks-Guantanamo-Bay-terrorist-secrets-revealed.html
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/03/19/ex-bush-official-guantanamo-bay-innocent/
http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=1997083
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/apr/25/guantanamo-files-wrong-place-time
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/4/25/wikileaks_documents_reveal_us_knowingly_imprisoned
And many more.

You've never experienced the fanatical hatred these "people" have for those who don't share their ideology.

I lived in Israel from 1973 to 2000, 7 of those years I spent in the IDF (mandatory + standing army) and then did reserve service (as Captain) before emigrating.
I have experienced the hatred of people that would bomb a school-bus just to make headlines and I still find your attitude toward torture despicable.

William Binney was all over Democracy Now as well.

Seriously--

Whistleblower: The NSA Is Lying-- U.S. Government Has Copies of Most of Your Emails -- April 20, 2012

Exclusive: National Security Agency Whistleblower William Binney on Growing State Surveillance -- April 20, 2012

More Secrets on Growing State Surveillance: Exclusive with NSA Whistleblower, Targeted Hacker -- April 23, 2012

etc. There were also numerous warnings from Assange, Appelbaum, and others outlining exactly what was going on to anyone who was listening.

Not to mention common sense should suggest to anyone familiar with US history and human nature that this was probably happening.

William Binney was all over Democracy Now as well.

Seriously--

Whistleblower: The NSA Is Lying-- U.S. Government Has Copies of Most of Your Emails -- April 20, 2012

Exclusive: National Security Agency Whistleblower William Binney on Growing State Surveillance -- April 20, 2012

More Secrets on Growing State Surveillance: Exclusive with NSA Whistleblower, Targeted Hacker -- April 23, 2012

etc. There were also numerous warnings from Assange, Appelbaum, and others outlining exactly what was going on to anyone who was listening.

Not to mention common sense should suggest to anyone familiar with US history and human nature that this was probably happening.

William Binney was all over Democracy Now as well.

Seriously--

Whistleblower: The NSA Is Lying-- U.S. Government Has Copies of Most of Your Emails -- April 20, 2012

Exclusive: National Security Agency Whistleblower William Binney on Growing State Surveillance -- April 20, 2012

More Secrets on Growing State Surveillance: Exclusive with NSA Whistleblower, Targeted Hacker -- April 23, 2012

etc. There were also numerous warnings from Assange, Appelbaum, and others outlining exactly what was going on to anyone who was listening.

Not to mention common sense should suggest to anyone familiar with US history and human nature that this was probably happening.

William Binney was all over Democracy Now as well.

Seriously--

Whistleblower: The NSA Is Lying-- U.S. Government Has Copies of Most of Your Emails -- April 20, 2012

Exclusive: National Security Agency Whistleblower William Binney on Growing State Surveillance -- April 20, 2012

More Secrets on Growing State Surveillance: Exclusive with NSA Whistleblower, Targeted Hacker -- April 23, 2012

etc. There were also numerous warnings from Assange, Appelbaum, and others outlining exactly what was going on to anyone who was listening.

Not to mention common sense should suggest to anyone familiar with US history and human nature that this was probably happening.

If you are deliberately killing innocent people with drones, you aren't doing it right. That is why they don't deliberately target innocent people.

That's the point: they don't deliberately target innocent people. Drones seem to still kill a fuckton of civilians, though.

Former US drone pilot quits, regretting bombing innocents, including children

U.S. Accused of Using Drones to Target Rescue Workers and Funerals in Pakistan

Living Under Drones: Stanford International Human Rights & Conflict Resolution Clinic"

You, sir, are a shill. That and/or clearly mis/uninformed as to what has REALLY happened in recent years. Here's a taste for you that you are willingly or otherwise ignorant to: http://www.democracynow.org/2012/10/17/green_partys_jill_stein_cheri_honkala

Please tell me how can a third party even hope to be voted for when the incumbent governmental system (not even sure about that) has the third party candidate sequestered and handcuffed while trying LEGALLY enter and attend an election debate?

4 Points
1) Diversity is good, but... You must keep in mind that is not sufficient reason to read a source. A 'diversity' of falsehoods is worthless.
2) You can't read everything. Choose the areas that mean the most to you (international affairs, economics, national or local politics, etc) and try to find 2-3 sources that seem to do good work in those areas.
3) Be aware who is paying the bills. The consumers/adverisers in typical newspapers? Purely advertisers as in television/online reporting? Government in state funded broadcasting? I don't believe reporters will bend their views to match the person paying the bills. Instead reporters with unsympathetic views will often not get hired in the first place (probably not a lot of leftwingers in Fox or rightwingers on MSNBC). I'd strongly recommend reading Manufacturing Consent for more information.
4) Let your choices evolve. The editors today may not be the editors tomorrow. Companies get bought out, new ones arise. How much longer will the Guardian's editor remain?

My recommendations:
The guardian -- You already have your reasons. I think their dissimenating the NSA leaks and wikileaks info when no one else would is justification enough.
al jazeera -- Particularly foreign viewpoint, high quality.
Democracy Now -- Not the best quality but clearly believe what they say and is run off donations. Also provides an American (important to me as I am one) viewpoint on things.
Their are others I think are probably good and have seen other posters mention already but I'm not experienced enough with them to know.

No, even the US has a real left wing, they're just not represented by any of the two mainstream parties. They are however quite well organized, there are several very good American leftist publications ( http://jacobinmag.com/ being my favorite) and even a daily radio/TV news show that by American standards is certainly quite left-wing (and very good, http://www.democracynow.org/ )

http://www.democracynow.org/2013/5/13/climate_tipping_point_concentration_of_carbon
Unlike the most recent articles saying we already hit the carbon ppm tipping point these U.N. pros knew the first rule of scare tactics:
Put the scare date way in the future and tell us we need to drastically reduce industry and increase energy price to stop the enviro-holocaust.
Gotta give credit where credit is due, the U.N. knows how to make their dates relatively unprovable.

Decrypts it. Didn't you see the latest Snowden document posted last night?

See.

Try Democracy Now. http://www.democracynow.org/

There are enough lying right-wing sources (mostly Republicans but also Democrats) that a journalist could easily spend the rest of her life asking tough questions of people who will never talk to her again, and still not run out.

For example http://www.democracynow.org/features/bill_clinton_interview

There are many real journalists in the US. The problem is that we don't have many real voters, who want to inform themselves of the issues, and take time to understand things. The last time it mattered, they fell in love with Obama, who betrayed his old liberal friends, and became a friend of the Republicans (a lot of good it did him). It's amazing what a billion dollars in campaign contributions will do to you.

(Carole Coleman is Irish, but she deserves a mention. http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2004/06/20040625-2.html )

Try Democracy Now. http://www.democracynow.org/

There are enough lying right-wing sources (mostly Republicans but also Democrats) that a journalist could easily spend the rest of her life asking tough questions of people who will never talk to her again, and still not run out.

For example http://www.democracynow.org/features/bill_clinton_interview

There are many real journalists in the US. The problem is that we don't have many real voters, who want to inform themselves of the issues, and take time to understand things. The last time it mattered, they fell in love with Obama, who betrayed his old liberal friends, and became a friend of the Republicans (a lot of good it did him). It's amazing what a billion dollars in campaign contributions will do to you.

(Carole Coleman is Irish, but she deserves a mention. http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2004/06/20040625-2.html )

We decided that regulating how much maintenance work utility companies have to do on their lines stifled innovation, so we deregulated. Naturally, said companies cut back on maintenance to save money. This was covered pretty well in The Best Democracy Money Can Buy by Greg Palast, flawed as he may be in terms of his self-importance.

Democracy Now discussion from 10 years ago.

Yeah just don't go.Financially, it makes absolutely no sense. You're in wage competition with people who have zero debt from other nations. Guess who wins? Your ,student loans are 100% unbankruptable and the price for college is set by the amount of money lenders will lend, which is basically everything you'll earn over your lifetime, since, as I said, the debt is unbankruptable.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/ripping-off-young-america-the-college-loan-scandal-20130815

Universities take that money and hire another level of administrators, give them all raises, build golden palaces for them to work in, build 5 star shopping malls / food courts, erect modernist pieces of architecture to house privately run research facilities and of course spend lavishly on their athletic programs , including more state of the art construction , high six digit salaries for everyone etc. etc.

This is what your student loans pay for. This is what the lifetime of debt you pay for goes to fund. This is the system the US has lying in wait for people who are, as Matthew Tabbi put it, people who are barely not children. An amount of debt that will push you into a life of literal indentured servitude before you even start of f in life.

http://www.freep.com/article/20130822/BLOG25/308220135/student-loans-debt-rolling-stone

This is purely predatory and the fact that the predation is by seasoned adults who understand the system and upon naive children who have been told since birth by the people they trust the most, most recently by Obama himself , that "college is the best investment you can make." , the fact that that is the predator -prey relationship says everything you need to know about higher education in America and America itself. From the housing crisis to the student loan bubble to the credit default swap to the savings and loans bailouts, it's a series of traps into which the naive are lured and pushed for the benefit of the sophisticated, the rule writers, the rich.

Don't go. You'll have incredible freedom. There is nothing at university you'll learn that you can't learn for free online. You and your friends can make your own way in the world if you don't have crushing debt waiting to seize everything every time you get ahead even a little. If you're not forcibly chained to an slave oar of a job that takes everything you have to give and leaves you with nothing to put into your own life at the end of the day.

http://www.democracynow.org/2013/8/20/matt_taibbi_us_student_loan_bubble

There are a million ways for young people to arrange themselves in this world , a million ways waiting to be invented discovered, tried and iterated upon in order to gain knowledge, have access to resources, advance themselves and establish their market value that don't involve college and the unbankruptable crushing debt. Just do it. Everyone. Just invent it. Just try it. No opportunity is passing you by by trying until you get it right. You have nothing to lose. Nothing at all.

Laura Poitras, who also received the Snowden leaks, has had this exact experience. Her 2006 film, "My Country, My Country", about Iraqis living under American occupation earned her a spot on the terrorist watch list. Since 2006, she's been detained at the border around 40 times.

You seem to be missing quite a few planned attacks there. Also, I wouldn't look for the intelligence services to do much bragging. It isn't their way, they prefer to avoid their role being know when they can. That includes any assistance to the police doing the "bragging," and perhaps some of the happy "accidents" that have foiled some of the plots.

Mate, you are full of it. Have a read of this:

Testifying before the Senate on Wednesday, National Security Agency Deputy Director John Inglis conceded that the bulk collection of phone records of millions of Americans under Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act has been key in stopping only one terror plot — not the dozens officials had previously said.

That's right, after all the fear-mongering and hype about risk, after all the billions of dollars, after the complete and ongoing invasion of privacy, the NSA's S.215 surveillance program stopped one plot. Maybe.

This is the NSA deputy director testifying in front of congress, not some internet loudmouth.

So tell me again how all that money wouldn't be better off spent on trying to cure cancer.

Go peddle your fear somewhere else - tonight I'll lose more sleep over being struck by lightning than I will being afraid of the vanishingly few terrorists who are insane enough to suicide bomb, but competent enough to carry it out.

It already started. There is no killing like the one done with impunity.

The smoking gun:

http://www.democracynow.org/2011/8/23/covering_up_wall_street_crimes_matt

Not even the worst part of this one article, of which there are many more and worse. Here Taibbi is talking about the systematic destruction of records of evidence generated by the SEC during MUIs (matters under investigation... including Madoff etc... ) , such destruction being highly illegal.

Read it and weep..no criminal wrong doing? Nothing provable? Remeber this is the LEAST of what went on and only speaks to the criminality within the SEC. itself ..The supervisor from the SEC described by Taibbi who is now at Deutsche Bank should be arrested, diapered, blindfolded, immobilized and put in restraints, and flown down to GITMO or perhaps to Poland or Saudi so we can be sure to get the full measure of truth including names, contacts, co-conspirators etc out of him.

http://www.democracynow.org/2011/8/23/covering_up_wall_street_crimes_matt

MATT TAIBBI: Yeah, no. One of the criticisms of my article, after it came out, was, well, you know, all of these cases, these MUIs that got destroyed, they were insignificant cases, thatâ(TM)s why they didnâ(TM)t proceed to full-blown investigations in the first place. Well, we know that this isnâ(TM)t true. We know that at least a couple of these cases involved Bernie Madoff in the years before the Madoff story came out.

Also, Darcy Flynn, this whistleblower, he also came forward with revelations about his own experience as an investigator. One of the first cases that he talked about was one where he was trying to pursue a case involving Deutsche Bank, a very promising securities fraud case, but it was rejected by the chief of the enforcement division, who shortly thereafter took a job as the general counsel of Deutsche Bank. So we know that this is part of the culture at the SEC

The smoking gun:

http://www.democracynow.org/2011/8/23/covering_up_wall_street_crimes_matt

Not even the worst part of this one article, of which there are many more and worse. Here Taibbi is talking about the systematic destruction of records of evidence generated by the SEC during MUIs (matters under investigation... including Madoff etc... ) , such destruction being highly illegal.

Read it and weep..no criminal wrong doing? Nothing provable? Remeber this is the LEAST of what went on and only speaks to the criminality within the SEC. itself ..The supervisor from the SEC described by Taibbi who is now at Deutsche Bank should be arrested, diapered, blindfolded, immobilized and put in restraints, and flown down to GITMO or perhaps to Poland or Saudi so we can be sure to get the full measure of truth including names, contacts, co-conspirators etc out of him.

http://www.democracynow.org/2011/8/23/covering_up_wall_street_crimes_matt

MATT TAIBBI: Yeah, no. One of the criticisms of my article, after it came out, was, well, you know, all of these cases, these MUIs that got destroyed, they were insignificant cases, thatâ(TM)s why they didnâ(TM)t proceed to full-blown investigations in the first place. Well, we know that this isnâ(TM)t true. We know that at least a couple of these cases involved Bernie Madoff in the years before the Madoff story came out.

Also, Darcy Flynn, this whistleblower, he also came forward with revelations about his own experience as an investigator. One of the first cases that he talked about was one where he was trying to pursue a case involving Deutsche Bank, a very promising securities fraud case, but it was rejected by the chief of the enforcement division, who shortly thereafter took a job as the general counsel of Deutsche Bank. So we know that this is part of the culture at the SEC

"Why didn't our brilliant hero sysadmin publish the rest of the powerpoint slide deck independent of the newspapers?"

The fact that Snowden did not just upload a massive amount of raw data lends credibility to the fact that his primary motivation was to inform the public. He specifically asked Glenn Greenwald not to publish everything. He told the Guardian to release only what they, as journalists believed to be in the public interest.

http://www.democracynow.org/2013/6/10/on_a_slippery_slope_to_a

If you listen to the interview between Greenwald and Snowden (on http://democracynow.org/ you will see that Snowden could have released a lot of information that could have made him a lot of money and pretty much taken down the whole program by exposing specific details about programs and individuals. He did none of that. It should be up to the American people to decide if we want such surveillance. If we do then keep these programs. If not then the answer is obvious.

At least India is not the central hub that connects most of the regions of the world, nor the country that hosts most of the global sites. In US privacy legislation protects at best (anyway, diminishing) privacy of US citizens, but there is no protection of any kind for people from the rest of the world. They have free shot permission over them.

Chavez has done a lot of good for his country and for getting Latin America out from under the thumb of US domination, he was loved by many, but yes embalming seems a bit over the top, I can see no reason to do this. Keep the spirit of what he was trying to achieve alive, this will be a much better way to honor his memory than by putting his body on display.

Oh and for anyone interested in an in-depth and more balanced story about Chavez than the sound-byte propaganda put out by the mainstream media, read this excellent article. You may also be interested in watching this with Amy Goodman and Democracy Now!

I read the linked articles and I see that Freedom House, an NGO, says that Singapore has the same rating for political and civil freedom as Nigeria. The Economist compares the democracy in Singapore with that of Liberia. So that does beg the question... what genius sat down and said "this would be a great place to put a new campus for Yale!"

Consider Yale's proposal* for training US military to interrogate immigrants. As Singaporeans are already subject to degrading human rights conditions, there should be little resistance from the populace should Yale decide to improve trainees' experience with interrogating natural-born Asians.

* Additional source: http://www.democracynow.org/2013/2/21/an_interrogation_center_at_yale_proposed

http://www.democracynow.org/2012/12/21/new_report_sheds_light_on_bin

http://www.democracynow.org/live/democracy_now_livestream_of_aaron_swartz