Were the full breadth and scope of just how MUCH information big Corp has on everyone come to light, that may change.

Right now the majority of that information is kept in the dark from the consumer. Most don't realize just how much data can be acquired and what kind of profile can be built against anyone utilizing it. Even if the data is released for public scrutiny, the explanation and implications of it would have to be toned down a bit to fit the typical users understanding of it. ( No law or engineering speak )

It's interesting how far the corporations will go to keep their secrets from us, yet how tenacious they are in trying to learn all there is to know about everyone else.

Consider how many of those cell-phone users are technology savvy enough to understand the privacy concerns in the first place.

In contrast to sites such as this one, the majority of folks wielding a smart-phone, tablet or computer of some flavor aren't well versed in security, code vulnerabilities, and means and methods of keeping tabs on everything they do. It's why they're called " users " and not " engineers ".

It is at this point where any remaining heavy hitting documents within the Snowden cache should start surfacing. ( assuming any with any weight still remain undisclosed )

Our leadership loves to promise one thing and always deliver another if left to their own decisions. The only way things will get fixed is via major pressure from all angles. Sadly, one of the few ways left to us is through the disclosure of incredibly damning evidence until they start doing the jobs they are supposed to be doing.

The other method involves the Second Amendment, but no reason to go there yet if we still have other options open to us :)

So ! That said, to the folks who control the box of secrets, it's time to let another Genie out of the bottle so the folks in charge get it through their head we want this fixed.

In my opinion of course.

Having attended one ( Cisco ) I think the term boot-camp should be renamed to something like " Re-Certification Prep " or something similar.

The sheer amount of material they present ( notice I said present and not teach ) in these things is nigh impossible for anyone to absorb in such a short period of time. I would think they are great ( albeit expensive ) for refresher courses for those who need to get back up to speed to pass a re-certification test, ( Assuming you haven't let it lapse for several years ) but as an introduction to the material, eh . . . not so great.

The folks I took the boot-camp with were less interested in actually learning the concepts than they were with memorizing the material that would be on the test so they could pass it. Need to stress the importance of actually learning the material vs memorizing it if you actually plan to put the information to any use later on down the road.

Only the young and / or inexperienced will buy a game on launch day. ( Or even worse, pre-order it )

Us old farts know it's best to wait a few months so they can get launch day Beta III out of the way, all the bugs fixed up in their super-sized patch and the login servers up to speed. Not to mention the reviews to see if the game is even worth all the pre-launch hype. ( Hint: Usually not )

If you wait a few months more, you'll not only get all the above, but you'll also get all the DLC thrown in for free and at half the price. You may also be playing it on a system that is a generation more advanced than what was intended, making the experience even more enjoyable.

Yes, I know you can't play MMORPG games this way as all your friends will have long since given up on it before you even start. My question to you all would be "When was the last time a decent MMORPG came out that was worth playing six months later ? "

I'm pretty sure the only reason AAA titles even still exist is because there is a never ending supply of young and inexperienced gamers out there who aren't yet jaded by the whole process that is launch day insanity.

1) Wait until the other party takes control of both houses
2) Introduce legislation he KNOWS will go nowhere
3) When legislation fails, start the finger pointing game

And folks wonder why fewer and fewer people vote anymore. Same bullshit, slightly different flavor of it is all.

One can hope, the Repub party will pull their head out of their ass and actually get some meaningful legislation done.
They need to impress the hell out of those who still vote if they want any shot at the White House in 2016.

NSL letters trump everything, including any laws that are passed.

Welcome to the US of A :|

assuming they want a shot at the Presidency in 2016.

One of the variables* that will determine the outcome of that election will be how much meaningful legislation Congress can get done in the next two years. If they continue the status quo that has been the norm for the past several years, they will hand Hillary the Presidential Election on a silver platter.

*The other big variable will be determined by who the Republicans decide to run against Hillary. If they want any shot at the office, they had best field a damned impressive candidate. Again, go with the past and they may as well stay home on election night.

That said, some of the things Congress should tackle will go against their core beliefs, but they need to take it head on and show the people who will be voting come 2016, that they can do what's best for the country ( for once ) instead of what's best for the corporations and 1% types who are presumably running the show.

Those issues could include:

Net Neutrality- The idea put forth by Obama is the right one, it requires regulation. Get it done.

Break up the monopolies - The giant companies who own both the pipes and provide content need to be broken up otherwise you end up with the shit we have now where Company X is degrading competitor Y because it threatens their own content offerings. They will not police themselves because too much money is at stake here.

Immigration - Personally, I say let them in. The only caveat is that non-citizens will be taxed at much higher rates. ( Say 1.5x - 2x ) This way, they can legally work here in the US while, at the same time, help pay for the infrastructure and services they're utilizing. They get to work here making more than they would at home and the Government gets more tax revenue. Win - Win.

Tax Code for US Citizens- Simplify it. Close the loopholes the corporations are using to hide their assets offshore. Hell, go for a flat tax if you have to. Say, 10-15% across the board. No loopholes, deductions or exemptions unless you make less than poverty level wages. Make less than poverty level, you don't pay tax. Everyone else ( including the big business known as The Church ) pays the tax.

Income Inequality- The economies lifeblood is dependent on folks spending money. When you allow the majority of wealth to be controlled by a minority of people, they end up with a lot of power to influence the economy. I'm not saying to tax them any harder ( as that is in conflict with the Tax Code in the previous paragraph ) just make sure they're taxed equally.

Healthcare- This can also be fixed. Obamacare ( or the Affordable Healthcare Act ) was the wrong way to go about it. We don't need more insurance bureaucracy to wade through. What needs to happen is healthcare needs to be declared critical infrastructure and regulated accordingly. You fix the outrageous pricing the healthcare industry has enjoyed for so long and we won't NEED insurance to pay for it. If you disagree with this, pretend you don't have insurance for a while and take a look at what a two week stay in a hospital would do to you financially if you had to pay it in full. Then tell me again how the service isn't overpriced.

Police / Law Enforcement- Trust in them is at an all time low. You simply need to turn on the news to see how out of control they are. Get it fixed before folks tire of it to the point where they fix it themselves. Since they seem to be failing to police themselves, put together a Federal equivalent of an Internal Affairs division that does nothing but investigate the bullshit that currently infects local Law Enforcement.

Education- Is a joke. Student debt is off the damn charts. Public school X offers a far superior education to public school Y due to the way funding is distributed. Germany recently figured out you don't remain a World Super Power if your education system churns out folks who can barely read or, for those with an advanced education, come out so far in debt that you're basically a wage slave for a significant number of years.

Given the choice of an American College or a German one, I would learn German and move there just for what the educational system there could do for me. What possible reason would I have to stay here unless my family is of the Silver Spoon variety who can afford to send me to an Ivy League school ?

Banks / WallStreet- Break em up. Too big to fail / jail means any one entity holds too much sway over the economy. Lose one of the big ones ( or let them do something stupid like the subprime debacle ) and it creates pure havoc in the financial sectors worldwide. If you want financial stability, you need to increase the number of players and level the playing field. Axe flash-trading while you're at it. Inject a mandatory waiting period of time to allow everyone to trade at the same pace. This erases the advantage company X has over company Y simply due to a faster pipe to the servers. We've already seen what a hiccup can do when trading at these speeds, slow em down. Maybe we'll see a stock graph that doesn't look like a damned roller coaster in the process :|

There are some very intelligent people in this country. Many of them sit in forums coming up with creative ways to call each other stupid because they have nothing else to do with idle brain cycles. ( I'll pick on Mensa here because I have access to those forums :D )

Use them, pick their brains to identify and come up with fixes or solutions to the problems that currently plague this country. The new Congress needs to step outside the corporate sponsor box and understand they can be replaced just as quickly as their predecessors. The Republican Party in general needs to understand the only way they get a shot at the title in 2016 is to get damned aggressive and start impressing a whole lot of folks.

The clock is already running. I suggest you get hot.

You want to solve the obesity issue ? The fix is rather simple, remove the added sugar. It's easy to avoid the obvious stuff, not so easy when damn near anything purchased in a store has some sort of added sugar in it.

Challenge: While avoiding the organic isle, walk through any store and look at various items and note how much of it contains sugar. It's in quite a few things you wouldn't even think of.

Eating a block of it once per day, or eating smaller amounts of it several times a day equates to the same intake. Reduce the sugar, and you fix the problem.

They went about it the wrong way I think. We don't need another insurance plan. What we need is for the HealthCare system to undergo some regulation to reign in their astronomical pricing schemes.

We wouldn't NEED health insurance if they weren't allowed to charge what they currently get away with for tests, medication and procedures.

Bring the prices down to realistic levels and a National Health Care system becomes much easier to afford and implement for everyone.

Show of hands. Who here thinks any of the following make sense:

The daily Hep C pill with a price tag of $1000 per pill
Cancer treatments that run $100,000 per year
Any hospital bill for a 30 day stay will all but bankrupt you

Seriously, take a look at a hospital bill and tell me you agree with the pricing. Go ahead.

The whole thing is so out of control that I would rather die from any injuries than go bankrupt and be a wage-slave the rest of my life to pay the bill off. ( Remember, in American hospitals you sign an agreement which states you will pay any costs the insurance does not pick up. Don't do so and they will harrass you for years. )

The only way this gets fixed is to regulate the industry. They're not going to do it on their own.

So the fix sounds easy, but gets complicated quickly. :|

Break them up. Don't think about it, threaten or consider it. To borrow a phrase from Nike: JUST DO IT

Force the companies who provide the bandwidth to split from the part of the company who sells content so there isn't any grey area issues. In order for the bandwidth side of the house to remain competitive, they'll need to upgrade their network to ensure they're delivering what their customers want. This also prevents the content folks from tweaking the network to ensure their own services get priority over competing ones. Taken to an extreme, and without some sort of oversight, the big players can absolutely destroy the competition in this manner.

They've already proven they can't be trusted to do the right thing themselves. Time to step in with a big stick and start swinging.

Of course, true competition needs to be in place to help fuel that fire otherwise we'll still end up with crappy throughput with no realistic choices of switching to another provider. We really need to end this whole regional mono / duopoly thing.

On top of this, we'll need to purge the Congressional votes-for-contributions types to make sure the legislation has a fair chance of happening.

I suppose the thing is, folks are kind of tired of the whole " Celebrity X comes out of the closet " stories. Yeah, we get it. It's the 21st century. Outside of the ultra-religious and maybe a hate-group or two, this information is right up there with " The sky is blue, water is wet and fast food is unhealthy for you. "

Personally, many folks don't care if the guy is Gay, Purple, or part of the Man-Bear-Pig gene-splice. The only thing anyone wants out of him ( professionally ) is to create a rock solid product. User friendly, reliable, secure and stable. That's pretty much it.

His non-professional agenda is really no ones business and his public disclosure of it is, imo, nothing more than bragging or boasting. In fact, it may come back to haunt him. Take Russia, for example, they're not real friendly with the Gay crowd so they may do something entertaining and ban all Apple products in the country. Can't set a bad example for the Russian kiddos now can we ? lol

So, in publicly coming out, he may very well have torpedoed any potential profits that could have been made there. ( Strawman of course, but folks seriously need to keep the information about their private life separate from their professional one. )

Does anyone other than Tim Cook give two sh*ts about what his sexual orientation is ? Do you see hetero-sexual folks stand up and proudly proclaim their preferences to the world ?<br><br>Why does anyone's sexual preferences even make the news at all ?<br><br>Tim: We don't care. It's lovely you're gay, waves some pom-poms around, but really, we don't care. If you want to impress the world, focus on creating Apple products that outperform the ones they are replacing or are so amazing that we buy Apple over the other options out there.<br><br>Read that: Less rainbows, more functional products.<br><br>Apologies for the bluntness, but folks coming out doth not the news make.

Bah, preview 4tw :|

Your not You're

You're line of thinking here is pretty solid.

I had another thought on the entire matter as well in that even if the municipalities manage to pull this off, at some point they still have to hand the traffic over to one of the big boys on the block ( eg, the telecoms ) for it to be useful since they own all the long haul lines. Unless Google steps in and offers their " services ". :D

Why does Google remind me of the Mafia . . . . lol

I would suspect they'll use that as leverage in the upcoming discussions about it.