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"There are many terrestrial challenges to internet connectivity – jungles, archipelagos, mountains. There are also major cost challenges. Right now, for example, in most of the countries in the southern hemisphere, the cost of an internet connection is more than a month's income."

- Guardian

Will Eric Schmidt allow one of those to float over his house? He doesn't like drones. http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/apr/21/drones-google-eric-schmidt

Don't forget that Britain has tried to convince airlines not to allow Snowden to fly to the UK cause his presence would be considered to be "detrimental to the public good." So is he dangerous or not? If he's not telling the truth, then the global intelligence community is up in arms over nothing.

... are confirming what Snowden says. I'm certain someone is lying, though.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/14/nsa-partisanship-propaganda-prism

Did anybody actually read some of the wikileaks? The US state dept is always doing things like this and the people making the "crazy" claims for decades were vindicated, those people should be listened to even more today (track record, duh. Meanwhile, people who are always wrong stay employed in US media outlets.)

NZ has an economy they do just fine on their own. But when huge movie projects come to promote their nation beyond what the tourism dept's could dream of doing, they'll CHANGE LAWS. This happens constantly in the USA state by state for movies where they'll heavily subsidize movie productions (both parties!) using demand-side economic arguments (which are usually despised.)

Will it be fully conclusive proof that can hold up in court? No. Little is; especially in politics where everybody playing the game is skilled at self preservation. People with an eye for corruption will do well spotting the signs; however, it takes leaks on parties involved in their own words to prove it and even then an expert is often important/necessary to understanding it.

As far as conspiracies about shows like '24' ( the show is supposed to be realistic but portrays greater conspiracies than the ones about the show,) it doesn't take any master plan for such things to happen. A like minded individual with connections can benefit from making decisions aligned with the powerful; being rewarded later or simply encouraged for their help for the cause. It could happen outside FOX and it's GOP TV wing, but since it was FOX it wasn't likely it was entirely organic.

Despotism is on the rise in the USA. everybody living there should be seeing it by now... who isn't sticking their head in the sand...or more appropriately, in their "reality" TV. We have so much BS in all aspects of life, people crave reality so "realism" is popular... and what happens? We get pseudo realism to partially fill the need, creating another unhealthy addiction cycle that promotes consumption.

If I give you a bag of marbles every day and you do not discard them, then you are still collecting them. It doesn't matter whether you took them from me or whether I give them to you willingly.

The intelligence official is an outright liar and should be punished to the fullest extent possible for perjury (assuming he was under oath). And whenever the politician says that these programs have government oversight, one simply needs to point out how bald-facedly he lied to Senator Wyden during the hearing.

But of course, just like in the case of Bradley Manning, the US government is going to shoot the messenger and act like it's not even a problem. That's a great nation for you there.

Fearmongering is one word for it.

Reality is another.

The UK is currently experiencing the wettest season on record, and certainly one of the coldest. Winter basically hasn't gone away.

"Normally we export around 2.5m tonnes of wheat but this year we expect to have to import 2.5m tonnes," said Charlotte Garbutt, a senior analyst at the industry-financed Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board. "The crop that came through the winter has struggled and is patchy and variable. The area of wheat grown this year has been much smaller."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/jun/12/farmers-fail-weather-wheat-crop

It's not going to get better. Food prices are already significantly higher than they were a couple of years ago. With starvation, always, disease. And people are already very poor in terms of health and resistance to illness, what with subsisting on grains for most of their caloric intake.

I seriously doubt we'll reach 10 billion. I suspect we're going to drop to just a few million before all is said and done. Brace yourself. It's happening, right now in real time.

And it's not AGW, either. Look to the skies. Comets and comet dust are part of the picture. Ice age time!

If by 'long settled', you mean since 2001, then fine.

Sorry, but the Supreme Court ruled on that question long before 2001.

And if you mean legal, you mean that Congress waived it's constitutional war-making authority, then sure.

No, it exercised that power and authorized the use of military force to purse the conflict with al Qaida.

As the lone protestor in Congress stated:

Did the declarations of war against Germany, Japan, and Italy limit combat operations to only the interior of those countries? Or did American forces fight them wherever in the world they were found?

As for Bin Laden. Uh, no. Al Qaida just wants the US out of the middle east. Like most Americans do.

Your information appears to be incomplete.

The Future of Terrorism: What al-Qaida Really Wants
Full text: bin Laden's 'letter to America'

(Q2) As for the second question that we want to answer: What are we calling you to, and what do we want from you?

(1) The first thing that we are calling you to is Islam.

That is convert to Islam.

(i) You are the nation who, rather than ruling by the Shariah of Allah in its Constitution and Laws, choose to invent your own laws as you will and desire. You separate religion from your policies, contradicting the pure nature which affirms Absolute Authority to the Lord and your Creator. You flee from the embarrassing question posed to you: How is it possible for Allah the Almighty to create His creation, grant them power over all the creatures and land, grant them all the amenities of life, and then deny them that which they are most in need of: knowledge of the laws which govern their lives?

Implement Sharia.

Bin Laden's demands would also necessitate merging church and state in a manner like the Caliphate.

Slightly off-topic, but there are some studies that appear to suggest that watching excessive amounts of television can detrimentally effect the development of children’s brains.

From the article :-

As reported by Reuters this month, researchers from the University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW), found that background noise emitted from television is so distracting and mesmerizing to children that it is impacting their ability to interact with other human beings and potentially slowing down cognitive thinking and language development.

The study, published in the journal Pediatrics, found that children in the US are now exposed to more than five hours a day of television. Matthew Lapierre, who led the study, explained that children who are subjected to the most TV spend less time interacting with other children and parents.

In a separate study , doctors at the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health in London found that children born today will have watched a full year of television by the time they are seven years old. The study also found that on average children now spend more time watching television than they do in school.

Dr Aric Sigman published the study in the Archives Of Disease In Childhood, a medical journey jointly own by the British Medical Journal group.

Sigman noted that such extensive exposure to television can lead to a void when it comes to social relationships, can lead to attention deficit problems, and can promote significant psychological difficulties.

Granted, none of these are determinative but it is still food for thought.

You mean, covering shortages by printing money can possibly have a positive effect? That's news to me.

John Maynard Keynes? Heard of him?

The EU works hard to help Greece here, and to stop the politicos' attempts to give handouts right during a collapse (like your average CEO, all they think about is short-term gains).

In the long run we're all dead.

If you're facing an incoming bankruptcy, the solution is not to go on another spending spree.

This is why the reductions spending have produced such a massive improvement in the Greek economy.

Even the fucking IMF have admitted they were wrong!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/jun/05/imf-underestimated-damage-austerity-would-do-to-greece

We find that, in advanced economies, stronger planned fiscal consolidation has been associated with lower growth than expected, with the relation being particularly strong, both statistically and economically, early in the crisis. A natural interpretation is that fiscal multipliers were substantially higher than implicitly assumed by forecasters.

It turns out that cutting 1 euro of government spending shrinks the economy by 1.7 euros, not the 0,5 euros they thought.

In TFA, Varoufakis talks about the value of the Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation, or ERT to Greece.

In light of the well publicised financial problems faced by the government in Greece today, can Greece affored to keep it open?

The government's excuse is thus :-

Government spokesman Simos Kedikoglou – a former state TV journalist – described ERT as a "haven of waste". He said its employees would be compensated.

Kedikoglou said in a televised statement aired on the state broadcaster: "At a time when the Greek people are enduring sacrifices, there is no room for delay, hesitation or tolerance for sacred cows.

"ERT is a typical example of unique lack of transparency and incredible waste. And that ends today," Kedikoglou said. "It costs three to seven times as much as other TV stations and four to six times the personnel – for a very small viewership, about half that of an average private station."

ERT has long been seen as a bastion of quality programming in a media landscape dominated by commercial stations. But it was also used by successive governments to provide safe jobs for political favourites, and, while nominally independent, devoted considerable time and effort to showcasing administration policies.

Source here

Granted the government's self-interest is to spin this story in their favour, but unless they are lying, given the fact that there are more urgent public sector needs that need to be met (eg. hospitals, food kitchens etc) the reasons they gave seem fairly reasonable in the circumstances.

Consider this ColdFjord analysis about why the FISA court constitutes oversight in the face of 11 denials over 34 years and 20000 requests ( http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/03/fisa-court-rubber-stamp-drones ):

The reason it is rare is not because it is a rubber stamp, but because the government attorneys are cautious about making the requests, and gather the proper proof that it is needed.

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3848163&cid=43969431

Compare with the Verizon order. OBVIOUSLY, every single Verizon customer in America is reasonably suspected to be a terrorist. A "cautious" government would only ask for such things after it has gathered sufficient proof, so they all must be suspected. /sarcasm

ColdFjord is the kind of idiot idiots point at say: "you fucking retard."

Well, considering the Feds admitted it was true, I think we can drop this line of thought.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/07/clapper-secret-nsa-surveillance-prism

Ok, so your father (or is it the imaginary analogy patient, I can't quite tell) is an idiot

No, he simply has different objectives and preferences. Maximizing lifespan is not what life is about.

Do everything you can to reduce the extraction and burning of fossil fuel is is good advice for a plethora of reasons.

Really? What does "do everything" mean? The death penalty for using fossil fuels? 10000% taxes on a gallon of gasoline? Where do you draw the line?

Furthermore, the tricky thing about government regulations and taxes is that people usually evade them altogether if they become too onerous, so not only do they end up being ineffective, you also lose any influence and promote lawlessness.

But politicians and economists are almost universally either morons or so tied up in self-referential, narcissistic (frankly, pretty much masturbatory) systems that they're completely out of touch with the real world.

In different words, you want to subvert democracy and the rule of law because you don't like the decisions that politicians are actually making.

Rapid development can work if the results are planned to be future-proof and sustainable. If "rapid development" just means "exploit all of your local non-renewable resources until nothing is left", then it doesn't work so well.

It has worked well for the past 2000 years, if not longer. Humans have always lived with change and never lived sustainably. Running out of resources is what drives progress.

Just ask the people of Nauru. . They were the wealthiest per capita nation on the planet for a while there. not so much any longer. So called "free markets" can work well for some things, but they're completely blind to the future.

Except you fail to understand the lesson in this: the free market had nothing to do with Nauru's failures. Quite to the contrary, government attempts to plan for the future were the cause. After independence, the Nauru government created a government-owned and run corporation to extract mineral wealth and provide for the long term future of the people of Nauru. What happened? They handed out vast amounts of money to the people of Nauru in order to buy votes, and then the government employees had a party with what was left over. That is the predictable consequence when you hand over long term financial planning to politicians and government employees. If phosphate mining had been a large number of competitive small enterprises, many would have screwed up their finances anyway, but some would have used their revenues wisely to plan for the future.

A for example might be nice here

US carbon emissions fall to lowest levels since 1994

That's obviously not the case in Germany.

Europe's cap-and-trade system has not only been ineffective, it has simply resulted in increased prices to consumers and increased profits to corporations.

since they had to go to the FISA court for authorizations as part of the program

In 34 years and over 20,000 cases, the FISA court has denied 11 requests. So, would that be oversight ... or overstamp?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/03/fisa-court-rubber-stamp-drones

The Security Services were pretty much useless at preventing attacks. Despite their collusion in murder, use of inhumane and degrading treatment, internment and fitting-up numerous unfortunates innocent of everything but having an Irish accent. Or rather, because of these things, they were useless as they had no support in the community in which these attacks were planned.

Oh, but mass surveillance is going to be much more acceptable than hooding and beating the crap out of people, isn't it? No possibility of alienating an entire community just by spying on them, surely? Until people get fed up of the police knocking on their doors because they looked at the "wrong" website or have relatives in the wrong part of Pakistan and have been flagged as one of the many high number of false positives that are inevitable. Though of course the security services have mended their ways since the 1970s - no possibility of torture or political cover-ups since then - so those people have nothing to fear, right? Well, maybe there is a chance of history repeating itself,

Where there's acknowledged injustice and no interest in addressing it, you're bound to get terrorism. Much cheaper and more productive to fix the problems. Apart from that, the truly dangerous will stick out like a sore thumb when the majority are happily leading their daily lives without a sense of fear and oppression. How does mass surveillance contribute to that objective?

The principle of "pour encourager les autres" is the primary one here. The system cannot take a hit and do nothing because that would only embolden others to do the same. All governments did that, do that, and will be doing that. It's just gibbeting is out of fashion; but the idea behind it remains.

Persecution of Julian Assange is a great example of how it's done against a man, a foreigner even, "who broke no laws." There isn't a single person alive on this planet who hasn't broken a law at least once in his life. But if you manage to find such an angelic being, it's not a problem either - just arrange for a law to be broken, no matter how stupid. If the angel refuses to be be dragged into a bad situation, then just frame the bastard. That's if you want to keep the man alive, for a public beating. If you just want him gone, an icepick over the head works wonders; or a quality umbrella; or poison in your glass of soda in your favorite restaurant, served by the waiter who you know for a decade. Governments are essentially infinitely powerful, compared to a common man. They can even send people to break your door down and shoot you dead - and they won't be punished for that. It will be simply announced that you were a drug dealer and you shot back. Even if you never had a weapon. Who will dare to check?

There was some conspiracy talk about Andrew Breitbart's death. So what. The society is so much fragmented that no single group has enough mass to influence anything. One group, who is impacted, is angry, but ten other groups use the incident against the victim. Then some other group gets hurt - and another bunch is delivering a beating. In the end everyone loses. It's called "divide and conquer."

About that "additional document" ... I don't think blackmail is a good strategy for long term survival.

I did some research, and these are the facts.

In 2012, of the 1,789 requests made by the government to monitor electronic communications, one was withdrawn by the government. Of the remaining 1,788 applications which came up before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), not a single one was denied. Yes, all 1,788 applications to monitor electronic communications were approved.

In case you question the source, we know this from a 30 April 2013 letter from the Department of Justice to Senator Harry Reid. The source article is here.

With a track record of 1,788 out of 1,788, thats an amazing homerun for the DoJ. Im forced to conclude that you are right, it is a fig leaf and a mighty flimsy one at that.

Incidentally, Reggie Walton, presiding judge of the FISC has denied being a rubber stamp court. In his own words :-

"There is a rigorous review process of applications submitted by the executive branch, spearheaded initially by five judicial branch lawyers who are national security experts and then by the judges, to ensure that the court's authorizations comport with what the applicable statutes authorize."

.

Doing the sums, 1,788 applications in 365 days (assuming they work over over Christmas and weekeneds etc) means they process almost 5 applications per day. One wonders how rigorous the review process can be under such deadlines.

The limited revelations so far have focused on the technical scheme and said little about the regulatory scheme, how it was used operationally. Leaving out that sort of data is like noting that almost everybody has in their house or on their person a device which has a microphone and transmits all it hears to remote listeners, that is a telephone, but leaving out the fact that it is off until you pick it up or turn it on. The existence of this technology and program says very little about if it is legal and if it has been used appropriately.

Turning off telephone service is inconvenient. Turning off the intelligence services ability to gather timely intelligence can perilous.

Bali death toll set at 202
London 7/7 terrorist attacks
Madrid train attacks
9-11 attacks

What has MI-5 had to say?

U.K. tracking 30 terror plots, 1,600 suspects - updated 11/10/2006

British authorities are tracking almost 30 high-priority terrorist plots involving 200 networks and 1,600 suspects, the head of Britain’s domestic spy agency said, adding that many of those under surveillance are homegrown terrorists plotting suicide attacks and other mass-casualty bombings.

What did the next head of MI-5 say a year later?

New MI5 chief says terror suspects in Britain have doubled in the last year - November 6, 2007

The new chief of Britain's intelligence service MI5 painted a troubling picture of growing terrorist threat in Britain, saying the number of suspects in the country has more than doubled in the past year – and that many of the new recruits are teenagers....

and more:

At Least 4,000 Suspected of Terrorism-Related Activity in Britain, MI5 Director Says - November 6, 2007

LONDON, Nov. 5 -- British security officials suspect that at least 4,000 people are involved in terrorism-related activities in Britain and that al-Qaeda's "deliberate campaign" against Britain poses the "most immediate and acute peacetime threat" to the nation in a century, the head of Britain's domestic spy agency said Monday.

And in 2012?

MI5 warns al-Qaida regaining UK toehold after Arab spring

You cripple the security services at your peril. Unlike the IRA, al Qaida doesn't tend to phone in warnings before a blast.

Cheers

According to

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/jun/04/eu-tarriffs-dumping-china-solar-panels

Germany is opposed to this anti-dumping measures.

Aside from the ugliness people display when they immediately resort to pulling the race card...

    The whole point is that if Obama were somehow better than Bush, I would expect him to have come in and said: "This is unacceptable. This is unconstitutional. I want it gone." That is not what happened by a longshot. Instead he doubled down on all the nasty secretive stuff while he told everyone lies like how he would have the most transparent administration, ever. I am sorry if you cannot see what is right in front of your face. By now reality is pretty undeniable.

Ok, I'll bite.

What part of the constitution prohibits this particular act? Especially given that we now know that the NSA spying story was mostly and overstated hoax but even if it were as bad as it sounds (it's not)... it's both constitutional and perfectly legal.

Or are you speaking of the IRS scandal, the real scandal being that the IRS somehow investigated 11 illegal Koch brothers front groups and somehow didn't find ANYTHING wrong. (The "IRS Scandal" is a preemptive faux scandal, much like the NSA faux scandal and the Benghazi fake scandal, designed to attack Obama and to make the IRS less likely to investigate future Koch brothers front groups.)

You're obviously hopelessly USian. In most of the English-speaking world, "partner" in this context does not mean "homosexual partner" although it can. It just means that the two people are a couple but are not married. To my knowledge, Iain Banks partner was, in fact, a woman.

"Shortly after the announcement, Banks married his partner, Adele Hartley, and she survives him." (source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/jun/09/iain-banks-dies-59-cancer )

(And yes - those sort of comments reminded me of the folks who sprayed the word "paedo" on a house belonging to a paediatrician.)

Truly an American icon

Are you trying to be funny? He was Scottish and died in Scotland. A prominent advocate for the independence of his Scotland! He was not American in any way.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/jun/09/iain-banks-dies-59-cancer

It doesn't matter if you are part of a loyalty scheme, pay by card or even cash, 'Big Brother' supermarkets know your every move http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2013/jun/08/supermarkets-get-your-data

MUD, PLATO and the dawn of MMORPGs: "Richard Bartle has been answering a reader's suggestion that MUD was not, in fact, the first online RPG and that the original multi-user games actually ran on the University of Illinois' PLATO system - generally regarded as the birthplace of the 'online community' concept."

also lol at anonymously claiming you're anonymous online

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/08/nsa-surveillance-prism-obama-live

What the government tells me about the targets of their surveillance does not matter. They are lying anyway (see also http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/06/nsa-phone-records-verizon-court-order).

What matters is that they can get at my data easily enough for routine surveillance even when I'm not in their jurisdiction, and that such data might be used against me. Considering that, I'm actually less worried about spying by a government that is not allied with my own. Because the non-allies are unlikely to share the data with my government.

The following is a brief media presentation created by a company called Pitch Interactive that helps to illustrate the efficacy and efficiency of the drone strike program in creating — excuse me, killing — "terrorists:"

Out of Sight, Out of Mind: A visualization of drone strikes in Pakistan since 2004

Personally, I think the whole thing is barbaric and unnecessary and we shouldn't be doing it. At all. It's immoral. But whether or not it minimizes civilian casualties compared to carpet-bombing followed by an all-out invasion still remains to be determined.

I'm glad you said that; I don't think we should be doing it at all, either — but I don't think that the program should be compared to committing wholesale extermination of a populace based on their geographic location, but rather to less-provocative solutions that are possibly humanitarian or isolationist in nature.

As for the Obama Administration's hard-on for "double-tap" drone strikes, I think everyone who authorized this practice should be brought to The Hague for prosecution; such blatant and atrocious targeting of civilian non-combatants is, in my mind, a completely inexcusable war crime.

Of course the NSA doesn't spy on American citizens. That's against the law.

What they do is allow friendly foreign agents -- like the UK -- to spy on American citizens, and then they share the data together. It's totally different and completely legal.

Tha'ts also why the Verizon FISA order was for the FBI to collect the data, and then hand it over to the NSA;

This Court having found that the Application of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for an Order requiring the production of tangible things from Verizon Business Services, Inc. on behalf of MCI Communication Services Inc., d/b/a Verizon Business Services (individually and collectively "Verizon") satisfies the requirements of 50 U.S.C S1861,
    IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that, the Custodian of Records shall produce to the National Security Agency (NSA) upon service of this Order, and continue production on an ongoing daily basis thereafter for the duration of this order [...]
    IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that no person shall disclose to any other person that the FBI or NSA has sought or obtained tangible things under this Order [...]

So the FBI asketh, and the NSA receiveth.

Captcha: unarmed.

Of course the NSA doesn't spy on American citizens. That's against the law.

What they do is allow friendly foreign agents -- like the UK -- to spy on American citizens, and then they share the data together. It's totally different and completely legal.

Tha'ts also why the Verizon FISA order was for the FBI to collect the data, and then hand it over to the NSA;

This Court having found that the Application of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for an Order requiring the production of tangible things from Verizon Business Services, Inc. on behalf of MCI Communication Services Inc., d/b/a Verizon Business Services (individually and collectively "Verizon") satisfies the requirements of 50 U.S.C S1861,
    IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that, the Custodian of Records shall produce to the National Security Agency (NSA) upon service of this Order, and continue production on an ongoing daily basis thereafter for the duration of this order [...]
    IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that no person shall disclose to any other person that the FBI or NSA has sought or obtained tangible things under this Order [...]

So the FBI asketh, and the NSA receiveth.

Captcha: unarmed.

Of course the NSA doesn't spy on American citizens. That's against the law.

What they do is allow friendly foreign agents -- like the UK -- to spy on American citizens, and then they share the data together. It's totally different and completely legal.

they can spy on everyone.

they can't just spy on person x. but everyone is free game.

I don't know why everyone thinks they are "spying" on everyone lol.

news flash: no one cares about what you do.

Now let's posit they have these capabilities that everyone is blindly talking about. Do you really think they give a fuck about what you are doing? Even if there were complex algorithms with the ability to chop down the data and keep what is wanted there STILL wouldn't be manpower available. Additionally, if there was I would like you to think about my first question.

Now - I would suppose this agency is "spying" on people and actions that are of high value to your safety and national safety.

PROTIP: every country "spies" and if they have the capability and means they will attempt to either take information from the US or harm the US through many ways depending on their perceived end-state. This is best countered by filtering them out through very intrusive operations which won't harm or disrupt any of you normal people but will require more access than you can understand.

Of course the NSA doesn't spy on American citizens. That's against the law.

What they do is allow friendly foreign agents -- like the UK -- to spy on American citizens, and then they share the data together. It's totally different and completely legal.

they can spy on everyone.

they can't just spy on person x. but everyone is free game.

Of course the NSA doesn't spy on American citizens. That's against the law.

What they do is allow friendly foreign agents -- like the UK -- to spy on American citizens, and then they share the data together. It's totally different and completely legal.

Still no mention of the breaking PRISM scandal.

News for Nerds indeed.

You mean this story from last night? Asshat.

Still no mention of the breaking PRISM scandal.

News for Nerds indeed.

When are you going to stop being delusional that an unregulated currency is viable?

Dunno what unregulated currency you're talking bout - Bitcoin is regulated algorithmically by the transaction and block validation rules, so that can't be it. Are you referring to centralized currencies, where "regulation" apparently means you can lose access to your money at any time.

As for Bitcoin being viable, Bitcoin economy is alive and growing, so claims of non-viability are extraordinary and require extraordinary evidence. Calling people "delusional" doesn't quite cut it.

And the telecommunications companies have immunity from prosecution for such requests being fulfilled (it was even retroactive at the time to squash active lawsuits).

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/10/supreme-court-telecoms-win-immunity

As far as a "court" is concerned, realize that we are talking about the FISA court -- can you say rubber stamp?

From its inception, it was the ultimate rubber-stamp court, having rejected a total of zero government applications -- zero -- in its first 24 years of existence, while approving many thousands. In its total 34 year history -- from 1978 through 2012 -- the Fisa court has rejected a grand total of 11 government applications, while approving more than 20,000.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/03/fisa-court-rubber-stamp-drones

The article also points out that in 2012, of 1789 applications to the FISA "court", none were rejected. Zero.

2011: 1676 applications. Zero rejected.

For those who claim this is a grand conspiracy theory, you can see the difference between theory and practice, within the actual text of the agreement, summed up by this 2004 quote of Dr Michael Fernex formerly of the University of Basel who worked for the WHO;

"Six years ago we tried to have a conference. The proceedings were never published. This is because in this matter the organisations at the UN are subordinate to the IAEA. Since 1986 the WHO did nothing about studying Chernobyl. It's a pity. The interdiction to publish which fell upon the WHO conference came from the IAEA. The IAEA blocked the proceedings; the truth would have been a disaster for the nuclear industry"

This is the history of how the International Atomic Energy Agency has been able to deal with the human health implications of Nuclear disasters by muzzling the science and medicine that can be conducted. For an accident as serious as Chernobyl even the hamstrung report from the World Health Organisation said;

"The international experts have estimated that radiation could cause up to about 4000 eventual deaths among the higher-exposed Chernobyl populations, i.e., emergency workers from 1986-1987, evacuees and residents of the most contaminated areas. This number contains both the known radiation-induced cancer and leukaemia deaths"

Imagine, based on the actual evidence, what the WHO may have been able to uncover had they been allowed to actually reveal the actual truth of the disaster. The Guardian however points out that the IAEA is ignoring the evidence of the volume of deaths occurring as a result of the Chernobyl disaster.The UNICEF report "Human consequences of the Chernobyl nuclear accident" summarised it neatly;

"Life expectancy for men in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine, for example, is some ten years less that Sri Lanka, which is one of the twenty poorest countries in the world and is in the middle of a long drawn out war"

This isn't from any radioactive fallout from the accident though, it's the economic fallout from a collapsed regional economy manifest as suicide and mental illnesses. So because they didn't die from cancer or radio isotopes those numbers don't get included.

Since cancer takes years to incubate, thus premature deaths and birth defects manifest over time. After this generation, the next generation and long after this disaster has passed into lore it will still be well within the toxic half-life of radioactive isotopes such as cesium 137, strontium 90 and plutonium 239.

The genetic abnormalities and diseases caused by this accident are generations away and unlikely to be seen by anyone alive today and direct exposure will occur as long as there is a food chain to absorb these isotopes and people to eat that food. So the occurrence of recessive gene damage that occurs across generations as the likelihood of combining those genes is increased as more people in the population ingest radionuclides via whatever means.

What we will never know is how many pregnancies fail to com to term from this catastrophe, however we are able to count birth defects, now a common occurrence after the Chernobyl disaster. The New York Academy of Sciences report r

For those who claim this is a grand conspiracy theory, you can see the difference between theory and practice, within the actual text of the agreement, summed up by this 2004 quote of Dr Michael Fernex formerly of the University of Basel who worked for the WHO;

"Six years ago we tried to have a conference. The proceedings were never published. This is because in this matter the organisations at the UN are subordinate to the IAEA. Since 1986 the WHO did nothing about studying Chernobyl. It's a pity. The interdiction to publish which fell upon the WHO conference came from the IAEA. The IAEA blocked the proceedings; the truth would have been a disaster for the nuclear industry"

This is the history of how the International Atomic Energy Agency has been able to deal with the human health implications of Nuclear disasters by muzzling the science and medicine that can be conducted. For an accident as serious as Chernobyl even the hamstrung report from the World Health Organisation said;

"The international experts have estimated that radiation could cause up to about 4000 eventual deaths among the higher-exposed Chernobyl populations, i.e., emergency workers from 1986-1987, evacuees and residents of the most contaminated areas. This number contains both the known radiation-induced cancer and leukaemia deaths"

Imagine, based on the actual evidence, what the WHO may have been able to uncover had they been allowed to actually reveal the actual truth of the disaster. The Guardian however points out that the IAEA is ignoring the evidence of the volume of deaths occurring as a result of the Chernobyl disaster.The UNICEF report "Human consequences of the Chernobyl nuclear accident" summarised it neatly;

"Life expectancy for men in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine, for example, is some ten years less that Sri Lanka, which is one of the twenty poorest countries in the world and is in the middle of a long drawn out war"

This isn't from any radioactive fallout from the accident though, it's the economic fallout from a collapsed regional economy manifest as suicide and mental illnesses. So because they didn't die from cancer or radio isotopes those numbers don't get included.

Since cancer takes years to incubate, thus premature deaths and birth defects manifest over time. After this generation, the next generation and long after this disaster has passed into lore it will still be well within the toxic half-life of radioactive isotopes such as cesium 137, strontium 90 and plutonium 239.

The genetic abnormalities and diseases caused by this accident are generations away and unlikely to be seen by anyone alive today and direct exposure will occur as long as there is a food chain to absorb these isotopes and people to eat that food. So the occurrence of recessive gene damage that occurs across generations as the likelihood of combining those genes is increased as more people in the population ingest radionuclides via whatever means.

What we will never know is how many pregnancies fail to com to term from this catastrophe, however we are able to count birth defects, now a common occurrence after the Chernobyl disaster. The New York Academy of Sciences report r

When is SlashDot going to post the Verizon story?

I know a lot of us have heard or seen the "NSA box" in our closets, but now it's official:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/06/nsa-phone-records-verizon-court-order

Off-topic, I know, but this one is boring. (Everyone already knows class action suits screw consumers.)

You must have been asleep and missed it. This was the first story posted today, 27 minutes after midnight:

Verizon Ordered To Provide All Customer Data To NSA
Posted by samzenpus on 12:27 AM June 6th, 2013

Go to the front page and scroll down a bit, difficult as that apparently is. You should see the story you were hoping for.

I know a lot of us have heard or seen the "NSA box" in our closets, but now it's official:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/06/nsa-phone-records-verizon-court-order

Off-topic, I know, but this one is boring. (Everyone already knows class action suits screw consumers.)

Nah. Fill the whole damn building with them. The lower floors will be just as lethal whether this pancakes, shears, or tips over.

I am not one to wish ill on anyone, but the Chinese will have this one coming to them. Their lust for speed and the need to "wow the world with superior Chinese methodology" will ultimately fall around their ears. They may be building cities and building at break-neck speed, but a lot of their infrastructure is rotten to the core. My prediction? The failure of their bullet train was just a glimpse of the future. I see a lot more failure from their corrupt business practices. Couple this with the social unrest of the one-child per family, resulting in 30 million unmarried men, and you have the fodder stimulating a revolution.

Metadata vs personal data; I expect with enough resources personal data can be squeezed out of metadata http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/06/phone-call-metadata-information-authorities

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2013/jun/06/verizon-telephone-data-court-order

The actual order is secret, and I didn't find any links to the actual order, though a number of organizations claimed to have a copy.

The Guardian has a copy here. I believe they actually broke the story, not Wired.

And you're right, it's not limited to a subset; it is ALL calls not wholly originating outside the US:

an electronic copy of the following tangible things: all call detail
records or "telephony metadata" created by Verizon for communications (i) between
the United States and abroad; or (ii) wholly within the United States, including local
telephone calls. This Order does not require Verizon to produce telephony metadata
for communications wholly originating and terminating in foreign countries.
Telephony metadata includes comprehensive communications routing information,.
including but not limited to session identifying information (e.g., originating and
terminating telephone number, International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) number,
International Mobile station Equipment Identity (IMEI) number, etc.), trunk identifier,
telephone calling card numbers, and time and duration of call.

The most worrying part to me is not the call records, which we already knew the NSA was tapping into at the trunk level, but that they have access to all cellphone call metadata, including location vis a vis cell tower triangulation. This effectively means the NSA can roughly track the movements of all Americans, or at least those of us whose smartphone data services are constantly pinging the network.

I didn't find any links to the actual order, though a number of organizations claimed to have a copy.

There's a link to the actual order in TFA.

In 1954, when McCarthy held his hearings, Senator Feinstein was completing her BA in History. Congressman Ralph Hall was a county judge, Mr. Conyers was in the US Army, Mrs. Slaughter was a market researcher for a chemicals company and part-time environmental activist, Mr. Rangel was studying for a BS, Col. Johnson was in the Air Force, Mr. Young was in the National Guard, Mr. Coble was in the Coast Guard, Mr. Levin was completing his Masters degree in international relations and moving on to law school...

I think that, out of all the people old enough to have been grown up enough to realise that McCarthyism was happening at all, only Mr. Dingell had any associations with the Federal Government at the time, and that was as a part-time research assistant. I would expect that the people actually old enough to have learned anything from McCarthyism would most likely have retired in the 80s. The people around today were busy with other things—and were so young anyway that they might readily discount the beliefs they held in their youth. (But, more important, is the seemingly sub-sentient consensus-forming caused by weak-willed egos not wanting to stand up against their peers.)

(Here is the oft-repeated source for the Norway figures, by the way. Let me know what you think after reading it, if you haven't already.)

Apple will get into deep waters if this happens to them at the same time as being sued for price fixing ebooks. This kind of abuses should be targetted by the law, after all.

If you have a medical issue that you don't want people to know about, fight for its acceptance in society, rather than fight the myriad ways that people can find out about it.

You mean like Michael Douglas?