The FISC, acting as a Star Chamber as it does, is part of the problem here, so quoting its ruling is begging the question. Secret law is not law.

Regardless of your imaginings about Greenwald, this latest release is nothing to with him or the Guardian, but comes from another newspaper the Independent. Snowden and the Guardian strongly dispute that Snowden's materials are the source of the Independent's story, and claim that the UK government itself must be the source of this particular material.

The important story here is not that there's more secret surveillance, it's that the Independent claims that the story is based on materials from Snowden, and he and the Guardian flat-out deny that. The obvious implication is that the UK government itself "leaked" the material to the Independent, to create an appearance of potential danger to people arising from "the Snowden disclosures", a type of release that Snowden and the Guardian have strenuously avoided.

EU nations have managed to put up a full service light rail system connecting all your major cities, in an area about as large as the five boroughs of NYC.

The area of NYC is somewhere between 650 sq.km and 950 sq.km, depending on how you measure. There are 44 European countries larger than 1000 sq.km - NYC is only larger than Andorra, Malta, Liechtenstein, San Marino, Monaco and Vatican City. Even the 44th largest on the list, Luxembourg, is more than two and a half times bigger than NYC.

I think the nearest equivalent would be a D-Notice

Everybody knows what the outcome will be before the vote is taken

That may be ordinarily true, but the fact that the White House vocalised opposition In an emergency statement on Tuesday, and the NSA director spent four hours lobbying Congress behind closed doors, shows how worried the authorities were about this amendment.

NSA agents are not allowed to eat cookies. However, they may take items from the cookie jar and place them in their mouths to determine whether they are cookies. Any cookies which are inadvertently swallowed may be retained.

What excuse is there really for not putting a torrent up somewhere?

That he is a patriot whose loyalty is first and foremost is to his country, and not to his "superiors" who have shredded its constitution?

Both sides are lying, but the truth isn't in the middle - it's off on a tangent that no one talks about. There have recently been a flurry of scandals from DC, all showing up at a time when Benghazi was starting to be looked at very closely

You're really trying to claim that the Benghazi "scandal" - where USG allegedly didn't quickly enough label an incident as terrorism - is way more serious an issue than a massive program of covert surveillance? So serious that revealing the NSA's secrets is a useful distraction? There has been plenty of partisan smoke blown over the revelations, but yours is the most ridiculuous I've seen.

I had a point to all this that I think I've lost

I think it is the plot, rather than the point, that you have lost. Well, that and your constitutional rights. At least your sig got it right.

I'm pretty sure I'd notice a keylogger on my network sending every keystroke out to elsewhere

Do you believe that, for example, google search prediction-as-you-type is using a keylogger? It is keylogging, it's just that it's server-side.

Observed Atmospheric CO2 Hits 400 Parts Per Million

That's not true, the observations are wrong. And anyway it's not important. And even if was, we're not responsible. Peddling these myths is exactly what I'd expect from leftist, reality-based terrorists

That sound you hear? Jon Postel has been spinning so much he broke a bearing. Again.

Who would have thought we can break many laws every day and no one dies

On average, around a hundred people die in automobile collisions every day in the US. Since the energy involved is proportional to the square of the velocity, the consquences of a collision increase dramatically as the speed goes up. It's hard to say what fraction of those hundred deaths are directly attributable to speeding, but it is inconceivable that it would be zero.

It puts a new spin on the ancient meme "wake me when it gets to three eleven" - not three dot eleven but version three hundred and eleven. Which by my reckoning is due to be released next Thursday.