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They actually do quite a lot of other things as well there, like research into improving cryptography for example.

Seriously? Improving it as in finding holes that they can exploit and tell no one else about? Or spending millions on research into how to create holes they can hope to get included as encryption standards?

From the link above:

The N.S.A.'s Sigint Enabling Project is a $250 million-a-year program that works with Internet companies to weaken privacy by inserting back doors into encryption products. This excerpt from a 2013 budget proposal outlines some methods the agency uses to undermine encryption used by the public.

They actually do quite a lot of other things as well there, like research into improving cryptography for example.

Seriously? Improving it as in finding holes that they can exploit and tell no one else about? Or spending millions on research into how to create holes they can hope to get included as encryption standards?

From the link above:

The N.S.A.'s Sigint Enabling Project is a $250 million-a-year program that works with Internet companies to weaken privacy by inserting back doors into encryption products. This excerpt from a 2013 budget proposal outlines some methods the agency uses to undermine encryption used by the public.

http://www.propublica.org/article/heres-why-healthcaregov-broke-down

http://www.propublica.org/article/heres-why-healthcaregov-broke-down

Looks like Oracle might be part of the blame for the websites troubles...

No one is saying that the NSA can create SHA-1 collisions at will, or decrypt AES at will.

You're being so specific, I bet you're an NSA plant.

Those Journalists In The Public Interest at ProPublica sure seem to think that the NSA has their fingers in every pie.

You do know that most of the bailout money to Wall St and Detroit has been returned don't you?

No, I don't know that because it's false. You need to check your facts better.

I would call 375 of $465 B TARP money most or maybe you just believe the voices on the radio.

It's the money to back the mortgages that is gone (FNMA and FHLMC). So you should be pointing the finger at Congress who created the mortgage crisis, not the executive branch who cleaned up the mess.

I point the finger first and foremost at the home owners who bought homes they couldn't afford. But the administration certainly pushed for bailouts; instead of fixing the mess, it made it worse by creating a moral hazard.

LOL

NPR and ProPublica have done a few pieces regarding this topic that I think you should check out before writing off the phenomena completely.

The point is not that they won't, but that they could, thats the key of being in control of the information. If that information could be gathered also in another way it would be checked out, Will them be willing to do it? I doubt it.

In the other hand, when the NSA is ordered to give key parts of its information, they lie, no matter what prosecutors and judges say, in fact when they lied to the congress (that should be worse), didn't ended in jail, in fact, got even more control over possible threats on them. So there is not even the "would be unfair to them" moral concern on releasing faithful information to them that only you control and can tell if is the right one or not. Regarding the terrorism part, the NSA admitted that none of this surveillance ever prevented a terrorist attack, while they clearly targetted Google, Petrobras and others, this is by far more about protecting and empowering corporations (by stealing trade secrets, or even sabotaging, competition) than caring about people.

I wonder if their list includes SSH

In the linked BULLRUN document, in section 6 ('BULLRUN sensitivity and coverage') it clearly mentions SSH as one of the covered protocols so the answer is yes. As to whether this coverage is due to some publicly-unknown (but NSA-available) weakness in the SSH protocol, in common implementations, in the used cyphers or enacted case-by-case through man-in-the-middle attacks is of course unknown.

They went after other groups as well, including liberal and progressive groups

Thanks for the liberal spin Mr Curiously AC.

In reality those documents released by your fellow liberals don't mean what you think they mean - they do not refer to the targeting that conservative groups undergo (not even past tense, the targeting continues to this day)

Sorry, but almost all the targeted groups did engage in political campaigning, quite a bite more than allowed by law. The real scandal is that they got away with it.

The NSA does introspection?

If the recent reports that they can search a substantial percentage of the planet's internet activity; but not their own mailserver are accurate, I'd be inclined to go with "Apparently not".

I didn't promise nor did I describe an Utopian system. WIth the current system they could be blackmailing anyone, using it for insider trading, Etc. Etc., The NSA has said they can't SEARCH their own email system. They can search YOURS.. but not THEIR OWN.. http://www.propublica.org/article/nsa-says-it-cant-search-own-emails

Thus, even with a legitimate suing of them there just isn't any discovery! No opportunity to learn what they did, and when they did it.

My point again, if you can't stop them, and I just don't see how that is possible, the best case left is to pour in the sunlight..

At least it appears DDG is trying to help with privacy.

You're kidding, right? They're a Union Square Ventures startup, which is a Fred Wilson VC funded fund.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Wilson_(financier)

Chase Capital Partners as the sole active LP. This is JPMorgan/Chase Bank:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chase_Manhattan

This is one of the "Big Four" ... these guys got $25B in TARP funds in the Wall Street bailout because they were "too big to fail":
http://projects.propublica.org/bailout/list

These guys collect more information on people than God. When the Pope wants to know something, instead of praying, he calls up these guys.

A good example of cooperation between intelligence communities:

http://www.propublica.org/article/how-the-nsas-high-tech-surveillance-helped-europeans-catch-terrorists

Does this mean everything they do is great? Of course not. Does it mean it doesn't require higher scrutiny. Of course not, but it has proven to be effective. There is no reason they can't find a happy middle ground.

The type of information Snowden is leaking just makes this type of cooperation more difficult to achieve. Political realities will make this type of communication much more difficult to even approach for a politician.

program helped the NSA stop a 2009 al-Qaida plot to blow up New York City subways

No, what happened was (from Buzzfed)

Public — though not widely publicized — details of the Zazi plot cast into doubt the notion that a data mining program had much to do with the investigation. Zazi traveled to Pakistan in 2008 to train with al Qaeda. He was charged in 2009 with leading two other men in a plot to detonate suicide bombs in the New York subways.

The path to his capture, according to the public records, began in April 2009, when British authorities arrested several suspected terrorists. According to a 2010 ruling from Britain’s Special Immigration Appeals Commission, one of the suspects’ computers included email correspondence with an address in Pakistan....

Later that year, according to a transcript of Zazi’s July, 2011 trial, Zazi emailed his al Qaeda handler in Pakistan for help with the recipe for his bombs. He sent his inquiry to the same email address: sana_pakhtana@yahoo.com.

An FBI agent, Eric Jurgenson, testified, “I was notified, I should say. My office was in receipt of several e-mail messages, e-mail communications.” Those emails — from Zazi to the same sana_pakhtana@yahoo.com — “led to the investigation,” he testified.

Another case cited by that wonderduo Feinstein and Rodgers is of Headley. who cased the Mumbai hotel. Rather that quote why the NSA program had little if anything to do with his arrest (note he was previously a prized drug enforment for the DEA), just read this.

no way to protect yourself on the Internets except to be a law-abiding person.

Ain't gonna help you... Phone- and video-sex are still legal, for just one example. But, if you've ever any of that, a dedicated law-enforcer may use that as a leverage to blackmail you later in life. Or pass the embarrassing records to some non-government organization. IRS have already done that.All for the Greater Good, of course.

It does not even have to be ordered from the top: recall the Joe the Plumber incident. The man asked Obama — then merely a presidential candidate — an inconvenient question and a government official (those guys always favor the party of bigger government) leaked his personal information so as to make it easier to spin things Obama's way. The three officials involved merely lost their jobs for it — but none even paid a fine, much less served jail time.

Who do you fear more, elected people who come to take your home away or unelected people who come to take your home away?

A corporation can do anything a government can do, and so can your neighbor or any other person or organization, because all of those things are just people doing stuff. At the end of the day democracy is the best tool, though imperfect, for fighting power abuse. No other tool is as good as democracy.

Microsoft and Yahoo when contacted admitted to having this service that matched internet accounts to voting lists so that political parties could target you online.

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/technologylive/post/2012/06/microsoft-yahoo-sell-tracking-data-to-political-campaigns/1#.UZUsm8XA9yV
http://www.propublica.org/article/how-microsoft-and-yahoo-are-selling-politicians-access-to-you

Here's a list of states in the US with castle doctrine laws. Philadelphia is in Pennsylvania. Is Pennsylvania on that list?

THIS John Hopkins?:
http://www.propublica.org/article/scientists-cast-doubt-on-tsa-tests-of-full-body-scanners
"...the professors note that the Johns Hopkins lab didn't test an actual airport machine. Instead, the tests were done on a model built by the manufacturer, Rapiscan, and configured to resemble a system previously tested by the TSA."

http://www.ibtimes.com/johns-hopkins-unhappy-tsa-shout-out-248340
"The Transportation Security Administration is referencing a Johns Hopkins study on its web site, saying that the full-body x-ray scanners are safe to use. But Johns Hopkins is unhappy with the way that study is being used." ...
"Johns Hopkins says that its study only demonstrates that the radiation dosage is under the limit set by ANSI. A spokeswoman for Johns Hopkins said the people who did the testing were unhappy with the way the TSA characterized the study. The safety of the machines is a somewhat different question, she said.""

http://www.consumertraveler.com/columns/tsa-statements-strain-credibility/
"EPIC also obtained a document written by Johns Hopkins University, which TSA said pronounced their full body scanners safe, but didn’t. According to the Executive Summary of the report from Johns Hopkins, their tests, in fact, revealed safety concerns about the AIT units.

        “An area exists above each of the units, due to primary beam overshoot, where the 100 mrem per year general public dose limit could potentially be exceeded

        It is recommended that a survey of each installation site be conducted or a beam stop be considered to ensure that the dose to any member of the general public is maintained below the 100 mrem (0.1 rem) per year general public limit ”

To date there is no information I can find that either of Johns Hopkins’ recommendations were followed by TSA."

and

"Dr. Michael Love, who runs an x-ray laboratory at the Department of Biophysics and Biophysical Chemistry at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine states, “They say the risk is minimal, but statistically someone is going to get skin cancer from these [backscatter] x-rays.”" ...THAT John Hopkins???

"We got a stinking big profit out of it."

That's great news! Can I see your numbers? And could you also correct these guys?

According to this article the TSA spent 80 million dollars on scanners. According to This article they're spending 245 million dollars more to test them. According to this article a human life is worth 7.4 million dollars. We've spend an extra 40 billion dollars since 9/11 on airport security. That means we need to have saved 34 lives by body scanner alone or 5405 lives by all airport security.

It doesn't add up.

funny how you cut that bit off. that was my personal extrapolation.

regardless, here's the real information:

Altogether, accounting for both the TARP and the Fannie and Freddie bailout, $605 billion has gone out the door—invested, loaned, or paid out—while $345 billion has been returned. The Treasury has been earning a return on most of the money invested or loaned. So far, it has earned $87.8B. When those revenues are taken into account, $172.0B is the net still outstanding as of Oct. 26, 2012.

and will probably end up costing much more than $140B.

According to your own source it's projected to lose $32B-$70B, so I'm not sure where you come up with "much more than $140B".

While the big banks have paid back their loans, the overall program is now projected to lose somewhere between $32 billion to $70 billion, with $109.1 billion owed as of June 30, according to SIGTARP.

The article doesn't take profits (dividends, interest) into account. The tarp amount disbursed was $417B, $345B was repaid and $42B in profits were made leaving a net of $30B. In the end, most of the tarp losses will come from bailing out the automakers - not wall street. http://projects.propublica.org/bailout/

Also, I would take the article you posted with a grain of salt because the author may be biased by his desire to sell his book.

Wow, you really eat this shit up.

Every single point I made (with the possible exception of the Russian government actually having control of their own intelligence agencies - I'd call that one open to debate) amounts to pure documented fact. Not speculation, not even stretching the data to fit an information vacuum.

Though, I suppose you might not remember the Iran Contra affair. You might not have flown in the past 10 years. You might not read Slashd... Oh... No, I guess you do. Huh, funny that.


You can list as many of the negatives as you wish but your argument has no merit if you only include those.

Remind me which branch of the US government controls the GCSB (in case you need a cite for that one, click on the FP link for this very thread) or the KGB? Or hey, we can throw the Mossad in there if you like. I could go on, they pretty much all have a list of publicly known sins a mile long. The US only dominates the list out of sheer volume, not as anything special.


We do have the right to [sue] AT&T et al, actually.

No, we don't, actuallydon't . I am not really sure where the whole travel point is going as it is patently incorrect.

Funny, the US Department of State seems to know what I meant. Perhaps you should re-read it if you didn't get it the first time?

Please mod parent up and grandparent down. While the Obama related Super PAC did raise a higher percentage of its total funds from large donation, not only was that total less than Romney's (7% for O and 15% for R) but while the AVERAGE was lower for R the top 3 single donators were all on the R side all almost 3 times the largest on the O side. Furthermore, the plots the article the grandparent linked to only tell part of the story: they do not cover the newest, largest arena of political spending PACs unassociated with a candidate (e.g. Carl Rove's Crossroads). These plays are the ones who spent large sums of money and do not need to disclose where the money came from nor even how much they spent. While these types of PACs are supposed to be unassociated with candidates, Propublica has done a number of in depth articles showing that it is just in name only.

His State Department blocked the import of M1 Carbines from South Korea and the Civilian Marksmanship Program is pretty much out of them, so he's been more successful at blocking U.S. citizens from acquiring weapons which he has chosen to disallow than many of the things which he promised in his initial campaign.

For those keeping score, while he's batting better than .500, here's a list of 96 promises which he hasn't made any real headway on:

http://promises.nationaljournal.com/completeness/0/

Some specific ones of interest here:

  - most transparent government --- http://www.propublica.org/article/many-govt-agencies-still-missing-required-transparency-sites0224
  - post bills online before signing them --- http://promises.nationaljournal.com/ethics-reform/post-bills-online-before-signing-them/
  - promised copyright reform, signed CISPA --- http://www.infowars.com/obama-opposes-cispa-but-will-sign-it-anyway/

This is also why there is all the controversy over voter ID laws. Voters without government ID cards are seen as more likely to vote Democratic, so Democrats are trying to prevent these laws from going into effect while Republicans support them.

Since many (most?) of the people affected by these laws are legal voters, and since there is virtually no in-person voter fraud, I'd think that many of the people trying to prevent these laws are doing so because they are patriots who hate to see laws which subvert the entire basis of democracy on which the US is founded. I cannot think of many cases where preventing legal voters from voting could possibly be considered a righteous thing to do.

When I beg my coworkers, friends and family to vote, I'm not telling them who to vote for nor do I want to know afterwards. I only ask them to inform themselves and hit the booths on November 6th. How is Google's tool any different than that?

It's the same, but on a larger scale. Though your coworkers, friends, and family may not vote the same way as you, because you share some part of your life with them, they are more likely to vote as you do than not to. So by encouraging them to vote when they might not have done so otherwise, you effectively increase your political power just a little.

The same applies on a larger scale for Google. By providing this information to potential voters, they hope to encourage more voting, and voting by more informed voters. Whether this actually helps Google is not clear to me, but can it influence the election? Certainly.

This is also why there is all the controversy over voter ID laws. Voters without government ID cards are seen as more likely to vote Democratic, so Democrats are trying to prevent these laws from going into effect while Republicans support them.

Yes, Bush possessed satanic powers that let him in on things nobody else knew. But if you want to be an idiot, go right ahead.

Speaking of idiots... did you know only Congress can declare war on another nation? You might want to brush up on your recent history, since it's a well known fact (among those of us who don't suffer from selective memory) that Bush invaded Iraq prior to getting a Congressional declaration of war. So, you know, pot, kettle, all that jazz.

Which is well within the powers granted by the "War Powers Act".

Interesting article on that very topic.

Funny thing about Bush invoking the War Powers Act - even though he used it to his advantage, according to the Congressional Research Service, he still maintained it was unconstitutional to do so.

That had to be a real head-scratcher for the hard-line Constitutionalists who supported Bush... true origin of the Tea Party, perhaps?

FYI, "fracking" has been verifiably linked to flammable tap water. It's no surprise that this had to be pushed quietly through system, because there's a lot of very good reasons fracking shouldn't be done at all, especially near populated areas.

And just for fun: here's a fun video showing what can happen when you live too close to it.

I posted this link on a related story some time back. This is a must see if you think you know how bad forensic science (or lack of science) really is:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/real-csi/

Here's the ProPublica article written in conjunction with the PBS Frontline episode linked above, for those who like to read rather than watch.

Say, somewhat neutral stats of the hassle/convictions you go trough if you cooperate vs if you don't?

Hey, buddy, you're more than welcome to try and find some yourself. I've tried before myself, so be forewarned - that Blue Wall of Silence is damn hard to penetrate.

Restore Our Future (supports Mitt Romney) $89,654,176
American Crossroads $40,063,638
Priorities USA Action (supports Barack Obama) $24,739,392
Winning Our Future (supports Newt Gingrich) $23,908,055
Club for Growth Action $13,168,041
Majority PAC $11,648,736
House Majority PAC $9,268,191
Red White and Blue Fund (supports Rick Santorum) $8,388,547
American Bridge 21st Century PAC $7,890,414
Congressional Leadership Fund $6,511,401

So 6/10 are Republican supporting, but the funding breakdown is $181,693,858 for Republicans, $53,546,733 for Democrats.

8 out of the top 10 largest PAC's fund Obama

Not sure where you got that from, but it's almost literally the opposite of what's true. From ProPublica:

Restore Our Future (supports Mitt Romney) $82,224,493
Priorities USA Action (supports Barack Obama) $21,933,068
Winning Our Future (supports Newt Gingrich) $17,003,035
American Crossroads $12,078,463
Club for Growth Action $11,959,430
Majority PAC $10,459,928
Red White and Blue Fund (supports Rick Santorum) $7,529,620
Make Us Great Again (supports Rick Perry) $3,959,824
House Majority PAC $3,668,363
Endorse Liberty (supports Ron Paul) $3,579,627

Those are the top 10 PACs by spending. The Republican/conservative organizations are in bold. Note that the spending of all the Democrat supporting PACs comes to less than half what Restore Our Future alone has spent. Sorting PACs by contributions is similar. Obama has a lot of money behind him, but it's nothing like what Romney's got.

I think incentives work best when localized, targeted to a specific location, possibly with the business being penalized if they fail to do what was agreed upon. In some areas they might get a break on property taxes, or maybe assistance with costly related upgrades to roads needed for access to a large facility

I don't know about the U.K., but in some other places places there are some insane (legal?) tax loopholes that don't drive positive changes.

http://www.propublica.org/article/romneys-tax-mysteries-a-reading-guide

Unfortunately broadly applied trickle-down economics usually means watching the one percent guzzle all of the beer and wine then waiting for them to piss on the rest of us.

In the U.S. I think legislators would serve the public better if they didn't need to solicit campaign funds for broadcast ads. The current "legal" money trail fueling corruptive influence must be cut. The simplest way to do that in the U.S. would be to ban paid political radio and television ads. Stations would decided how much of their required community affairs (public service) time to devote, and allocate that fairly. If any money were to be accepted to make more time available, I propose that it be into a pool giving ALL candidates more time. With less political time, people might actually want to listen, and stations might even sell ordinary commercial ads in or adjacent to informative programs. Since all would be treated equally, there would no inherent "free speech" discrimination issue.

Changes involving broadcast regulations would be far simpler to impement than attempting to change campaign finance laws. As we've seen, finance reform has failed miserably.

Before you go and throw a hissy fit about Romney data mining, don't forget that Obama also data mines. But he goes farther in that it will lets you download a mobile app to identify all the Democrats in your area.

Said one Democrat: "I do think it's something useful for them, but it's also creepy," said Lori Carena, 58, a long-time Brooklyn resident, when she was shown the app. "My neighbors across the street can know that I'm a Democrat. I'm not sure I like that." http://www.propublica.org/article/is-your-neighbor-a-democrat-obama-has-an-app-for-that

Apart from the normal everyday fractional-reserve loans from the Federal Reserve Bank, JPMorgan probably owes close to $0. I'm assuming you were referring to the $25 billion in bailout money, which was apparently paid in full.

The talking point is true, your statement is point blank false.

They can't retain enough air marshals to do the job. Most people won't keep a job where they have irregular hours, are cramped up in a coach airline seat every other day and can not reliably get home to be with their families, can't maintain a reasonable sleep or workout schedule, and have to eat crappy airline food all the time. Reportedly, the agency is also horribly run, as is attested to by former air marshals.
http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-500202_162-6162291.html
http://www.propublica.org/article/air-marshals-dogged-by-discrimination-complaints-in-field-offices-201

It would be cheaper, easier, and provide more consistent coverage to allow passengers to carry concealed weapons.

This is a PR move by the FBI. It makes them APPEAR to be an actor for justice - it matters of little consequence, except those personally involved.

Another oxymoron for America? How about "Justice Department"?

4 Years - and not ONE criminal indictment perused against the "investment" and reserve Banksters. Surely, the FBI could better spend their time and resources to ensure that the entire country is safe from another criminal fraud, costing tens of Billions, no?

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/05/06/why-can-t-obama-bring-wall-street-to-justice.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/may/20/wall-street-role-financial-crisis

http://www.propublica.org/article/why-no-financial-crisis-prosecutions-official-says-its-just-too-hard

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/nov/10/should-some-bankers-be-prosecuted/?pagination=false

http://www.globalresearch.ca/PrintArticle.php?articleId=30979

BTW: The Fed knew about LIBOR fixing specific to Barclays and beyond... in 2008.
http://news.firedoglake.com/2012/07/14/barclays-employee-to-ny-fed-2008-we-know-that-were-not-posting-um-an-honest-libor/

So what's our precious FBI doing about examining THAT evidence?

Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, Citi are at the top of the list of banks making use of Federal Reserve loan facilities. If they are and were so healthy why are they at the top of the list of heavy users?

http://projects.propublica.org/tables/treasury-facilities-loans

The simple truth is they did need the money and would have failed as spectacularly as Bear Stearns and Lehman without it. I'll just point out that the Federal Reserve was created for exactly the purpose of transferring risk to taxpayers by exactly the banks who made most use of it.

Oh and JP Morgan did everyone a favour for taking Bear Stearns over a $2 a share, financed again by the Federal Reserve? Oh please.

Franken co-sponsored PIPA.

http://projects.propublica.org/sopa/F000457

A friend of mine works in radiology research. He holds the same opinion.

I stayed at a Holiday Inn last night, and I wholeheartedly agree.

Okay, if you prefer:

http://radiology.rsna.org/content/259/1/6.extract
http://rpd.oxfordjournals.org/content/145/1/75
http://archinte.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/171/12/1129
http://www.propublica.org/article/scientists-cast-doubt-on-tsa-tests-of-full-body-scanners
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0267364908000708

Find me similar articles from professionals in the relevant fields and not associated with the TSA that say the opposite.

You must be a republican, because you're attacking democrats with some weird out-of-left-field comparison to Stalin, claiming that the left-leaning among us want to silence expression, when it's the republicans who:

* want to suppress political expression in the form of one bogus voter ID law after another, running on a fraudulent specter of non-existent voter fraud (one source of many), or because "kids vote liberal" (source)
* want to suppress emotional expression by way of banning gay marriage for no discernable reason other than "gays make us uncomfortable" (and remember, these are the same guys who also don't like interracial marriage!) (source)
* want to suppress academic and scientific speech using bogus lawsuits AT THE GOVERNMENT LEVEL (source) just because they don't like the facts the science reveals
* fight repeatedly to curtail regulations on what chemicals big industries pump into the ground (source) or what they put in our food (three republicans eating pink slime to stick it to obama)


Oh, wait, it's because someone made a joke about punching an anti-science, anti-vaxxer in the face, that dems are teh eeevil! That same anti-science, anti-vaccine nonsense, by the way, which has led to many deaths.

Republicans...what will they think of next? Nothing! That's the joke..they don't really think.

I work in the publishing industry for a small publisher.

I was at a convention several weeks ago and spoke with some people who worked for a subsidiary of Elsevier. As an aside, just like in other industries, the publishing industry conglomerates are GIANT. Beyond the science and medical journals that were involved in starting the boycott, Elsevier owns LexisNexis (synonymous with law databases and also a book publisher), Harcourt (fiction), Butterworth, and many more. They have gobbled up literally dozens of formerly independent publishers, and in general data and knowledge companies in all fields.

Anyway, the employees of this particular subsidiary said Elsevier was SEVERELY hurting because of the boycott. I was shocked... I had assumed the boycott would have minimal impact. These particular employees (again, not of Elsevier directly) were glad as they were fully aware of how expensive Elsevier journals are and how ridiculous Elsevier's links in to government are. One of them said basically that Elsevier had spent millions of dollars over the past 15 years to get exclusive rights to public domain research (link). Once they got it, the situation blew up and Elsevier backed off--waiting no doubt for people to forget.

This also goes to show how many of the individuals in a corporation can believe the "right" thing but that horrible leadership at the top is all that matters.

It's corporations like Elsevier that give ALL companies a bad name. I support the boycott.

Seriously---check out Pro Publica and follow a couple of links to see how much money the supporters got from the movie and recording industries.

I'd like to think that if I were to sell out the Constitution, it would take at least $5M. :-/

Al Franken supports. I would've never thought.
http://projects.propublica.org/sopa/

Here's some actual sarcasm (the story about the kitten is an actual claim I've heard made): Nice source. The document you point to is entitled "Horizontal Fracking - Unacceptable Risks" and its thesis is "Do we really want this in Michigan???" Yes, with three question marks. This is not a scientific journal. But, let's continue our research and find out whether the claim is valid.

Taking the one item from the list you pointed to, I find propublica.org, which is a website whose first-listed "major project" is "Fracking - Gas Drilling's Environmental Threat." Their perspective on the world is clearly prejudiced against fracking, but even a broken clock is right twice a day, so we continue.

A little searching finds this article as the one most likely intended to be cited by your source. The reference there to the event in question is, in full, "In another case, benzene, a chemical sometimes found in drilling additives, was discovered throughout a 28-mile long aquifer in Wyoming."

There is no citation to when or where this event occurred, other than somewhere in Wyoming. No information about who reported the event or investigated it. No information on whether benzene, which the article says is "sometimes found in drilling additives," is ever found in substances other than drilling additives. No information about how deep the aquifer is, what gas wells and depths had been drilled and fracked nearby, how far away those wells were from the aquifer, or even the slightest tidbit that would allow a person to do independent research to verify or dispute the claim. It is correlation equating to causation at its finest, and that's being generous.

You may want to read this ProPublica article on the subject. They are not simply lowering prices. They are exerting their market share to prohibit others from competing with them.