Dark matter is not THEORETICAL. There is direct evidence for it. Quoting from the relevant wiki:

The most direct observational evidence to date for dark matter is in a system known as the Bullet Cluster. In most regions of the universe, dark matter and visible material are found together,[33] as expected because of their mutual gravitational attraction. In the Bullet Cluster, a collision between two galaxy clusters appears to have caused a separation of dark matter and baryonic matter. X-ray observations show that much of the baryonic matter (in the form of 107–108 Kelvin[34] gas, or plasma) in the system is concentrated in the center of the system. Electromagnetic interactions between passing gas particles caused them to slow down and settle near the point of impact. However, weak gravitational lensing observations of the same system show that much of the mass resides outside of the central region of baryonic gas.

In other words, gravitational lensing of light waves - which is 100% direct evidence of matter - shows a region where there is matter that is clearly non-baryonic (i.e. does not interact with the electromagnetic field, a.k.a. "dark"). This is not subject to dispute. The question of what, exactly, is dark matter - is indeed still a subject of scientific research. There are, however, a number of super-symmetric theories which posit super-partners for well known particles, the most stable of which turn out to have the exact characteristics we're noting observationally. It is important to note that these theories were not tailored to account for the dark matter, but seem to fit the observational evidence quite well so far. As with all science however, theories are subject to falsification at any times as soon as new evidence comes on the scene.

This entire thread is actually making me want to not come back to Slashdot.

Go slapfight somewhere else

Pen-register lists (a.k.a "metadata", a.k.a. "who you called, not what you said") have not been covered since the Supreme Court ruled they didn't require a warrant in 1967. Maybe that ruling was in error, but they're the Supreme Court. They get to decide such things.

It's in the Constitution.

Five years is about as long as some of that stuff has been in place.

Seriously you think this started in 2009 ?!?

For your information, stuff MUCH WORSE THAN THE PRESENT DAY NSA started immediately after 9/11, thirteen years ago. It was Speaker Pelosi who cleaned up and reformed the laws to remove the most egregious elements of it

President Bush’s Warrantless Surveillance Program started after 9/11(known as the “PSP” or “TSP”)

• Exclusive Means: Absolute Presidential discretion pursuant to the inherent authorities of Article II of the Constitution
• FISA Court Approval: No provision (i.e. none required)
• Reverse Targeting: No requirement to protect against reverse targeting.
• Individual Warrants for Persons Inside the US: No requirement.

PRESIDENT BUSH’S PROTECT AMERICA ACT OF 2007P.L. 110-55, August 5, 2007

• Exclusive Means: No provision.
• FISA Court Approval: No requirement for review or pre-approval by FISA court required before surveillance begins
• Reverse Targeting: No requirement to protect against reverse targeting.
• Individual Warrants for Persons Inside the US: No requirement.

FISA AMENDMENTS ACT OF 2008PASSED BY DEMOCRATIC CONGRESS P.L. 110-261, July 10, 2008

• Exclusive Means:
• 1. 1. States that FISA and Title III of the criminal code are the “exclusive means” for conducting electronic surveillance and the interception of domestic wire, oral, or electronic communications. (i.e. no trying to justify spying through other "national security" arguments)
  2. 2. States that only express statutory authorization can provide authority for electronic surveillance and/or interceptions.
  3. 3. Ensures that no President can use executive power or Authorization of Use of Military Force (AUMF) like authority to conduct warrantless domestic surveillance.
• FISA Court Approval:
• 1. 1. Requires FISA court review and approval of the AG and DNI’s certification for targeting non-U.S. persons located outside of the U.S.
  2. 2. Requires review and pre-approval by the FISA court of targeting procedures.
  3. 3. Requires review and approval of minimization procedures by the FISA court.
  4. 4. In case of emergency, allows the government immediately to start surveillance. The government must,however, submit its application to the court within 7 days in order to continue surveillance.
• Reverse Targeting
• 1. 1. Expressly prohibits reverse targeting (i.e., targeting anon-U.S. person outside the U.S. in order to target a U.S. person [located anywhere] or a known person located inside the U.S.)
• Individual Warrants for Persons Inside the US
• 1. 1. Clarifies that individual warrants based on probablecause are required to conduct surveillance on any U.S. person (citizen or permanent resident) or any personlocated inside the U.S.

(It goes on.. and on) ....

Please note that THIS WAS ALL DONE BEFORE SNOWDEN. They got rid of a large amount of excesses that happened during the Bush Administration. But now, because President Obama is not attackable on other fronts, the GOP and GOP-voting-"libertarians" are trying to pretend that they weren't far more invasive, when they were in power.

Actually, if Slashdot users could Exclude Stories by Tag, so that I, for instance, could simply exclude all the Snowden whining from my feed, now that would be an incredibly useful feature for Slashdot Beta.

I don't begrudge people their obsessions. So if you've really got a hard-on for every single conspiracy theory involving the man ("Greenwald's new Wordpress-based toy website crashing under millions of hits - they must have been hacked by the NSA!"), have fun. But please Slashdot, give the grownups a bit more control. Usually I just scan the headlines. I don't have time for anything more.

Someone being questioned closely by a border patrol agent is something that happens every single day, and the questions being asked seem perfectly in line with the sorts of things such agents ask.

So why is this news for nerds? Are you going to front page everything even remotely associated with every associate of Snowden? Regaling us with "Snowden's hairdresser given an unfair ticket for running a red light" stories?

If ever anyone wonders how anyone can take the likes of Glenn Beck seriously, or the studies about how how introducing people who are wrong on evolution to actual facts makes them hate evolution even more, think back on your own behavior regarding the NSA. Many claims about what the NSA is doing are clearly computationally impossible, but don't you dare point this out lest you be down-voted to oblivion, especially on sites like Reddit.

Basically a large number of people simply believe what they want to believe. And far from intelligence inoculating against this tendency, it seems to exacerbate it. People who are aware that they're not all that bright seem to be a bit more humble in actually learning facts. It's geniuses who seem most likely to go completely off the rails into magical-thinking, especially in fields in which they are not actually familiar.

So what exactly is the incentive that the government "builds in" to "encourage shitty performance" that the private sector does not?

Because there are security breaches in private organizations happening every day. Some of them absolutely massive.

Or is this just more partisan outrage in search of a straw to grasp?

Do you have evidence that slashdot was paid for this?

If not, this is a product review of a tech toy, which seems perfectly fine for this site.

Believe it or not, it isn't a requirement for all reviews (be they for movies or products) to be entirely negative. When something has much better technical specs at a lower price point, that's something I want to know.

Umm, I am talking about both Oregon and the national site, since both are built for the same purpose

Yes, this is kind of like saying that Amazon and Sears.com are both built to the same purpose: to help customers buy things.

However, that doesn't mean that they're at all the same code base, scale (the federal government has a much bigger task in that regard), technologies, contractors, requirements (Oregon has its own medical system allowed by waivers), budgets, and development schedules.

Do you know how I know you are not at all a nerd, have no practical experience in web-development (front end or back end), and are basically just talking out of your ass?

• The names of informants in foreign governments - especially dictatorships like North Korea.
• Specific individuals that we know are terrorists, and who the U.S. is tracking right now (hoping to catch bigger fish).
• Technologies now considered "safe" for foreign spies, terrorists, and criminals to use - but have actually been hacked.
• Profound vulnerabilities in our embassy/military-base defenses that penetration testing found but are too expensive to fix.
• Anything that would otherwise cause people to die.

There are a lot of things, actually. None of them have to do with anyone's personal porn stash, or the fever-dreams of people who hate the U.S.

I think doing the equivalent of a "grep" of the Internet for terrorist keywords is just a tad less severe than dictators each guilty of murdering millions of their own citizens.

He's my lemma to Godwin's law: when you explicitly don't invoke it because you know your argument is so derpy that it fits, you still lose.

I'm sorry, but this is just argument by assertion. Both you and who you were responding to.

President Obama did not break any laws. Period. If he had, especially in this environment where the GOP will even damage the entire country just trying to hurt him, they'd have been all over it like flies on shit.

Screaming "Obama broke the law (of I wanted someone else elected)" doesn't even make it to the courts, much less through it.

George Washington spent approximately 13% of his federal budget on intelligence services, whereas today we spend less than 6% to the same ends.
So before you go all teabagger on us, imagining that your political position are the "true ideals on which the USA was founded", I suggest you do a little research.