Pardon me for not leading with a negative comment on Slashdot Beta (if I did comment it would be highly negative) but, let's stay on topic. It will make zero difference if the NSA has a "legal" basis or not. The govt will simply assert the president's "right" or power to "defend the country" and which court is going to say no to that?

Actually the countries that have the fastest internet don't have it as a result of competition, but rather as a result of major government intervention. S. Korea, for example. The other model, where the govt stands aside, is what you get in the US. Does anyone think that the Interstate Highway System (an analogy, maybe not the best, for the Internet) would have been built through "competition"? What you got through competition was the chaos of 19th century railroads.

Like this can't happen in, say, the UK, which doesn't even have a written constitution? Or anywhere else?

I have a similar problem on Twitter. For some reason my account (a Spanish word) gets a lot of apparently personal tweets, always in Spanish. I always reply in broken Spanish that I don't speak Spanish--the functional equivalent of what nuckfuts suggests.

The NSA's "defense" is not "working well." Except maybe with Democrats and Republicans who wish Snowden never existed. For a lot of the rest of the population NSA excuses are making things worse for them, not better.

I'm not a climate change-er or a denier, but--to base your opinions on the weather in *one hemisphere* is bad logic. Of course it's cold in the northern hemisphere--it's winter. What's happening south of the equator?

Communist Manifesto--might seem dated but it's going to be big in the not too distant future. What other solution is out there?

Www.themilitant.com

Or a judge/judges will find some reason to throw the suit out. NSA's invulnerable legally.

Sadly, not amazing to me at all. Some years ago I bought a book of prepaid airline tickets the day before the company not only stopped accepting new customers but stopped completely (declared bankruptcy).

Funny then how many Jews were killed. And how about, not just go to work but don't go near there? And how come I didn't get the message nor did any other Jewish person I know?

Al Qaeda as threat to national security is a pretty low standard. In any case, Congress and the NSA, and the White House, and the rest of the political-legal systems, are all on the same side. And it's not yours.

I meant no one who works in IT (and not only, but of course lots of people are from Dallas)

No one is actually from Dallas, so no family there, and there's nothing to do there but eat and shop anyway.

Which Jew? Maybe it's one of my cousins.