HTTPS is completely pointless when it comes to stopping spies. Even the Iranian government was able to snoop on gmail communications thanks to compromised root certificates.. While the Iranians had to actually compromise a CA, the US could just coerce a US based CA into cooperating without anyone else ever hearing about it.

All these banks employ nothing but the highest levels of security expertise, that's how, for instance, scores of Bank of America ATM terminals got infected with Code Red or Nimda back then .....

Moderation system kicked me again. Posting to remove wrong moderation, please ignore

replying to undo bs moderation - please ignore

The worst damage to the US was not so much inflicted by Snowden but by the US government itself. Just look at recent head lines: the farce about Evo Morales' presidential aeroplane caused a lot more long term damage than all of Snowden's disclosures combined. Given that the US go out of their way (laws or international treaties be damned!) to make Snowden's life miserable, I sort of understand why he tries to poke back at them once in a while.

The report has been updated and now also shows two people killed and several in critical condition.

The thing I like about your metaphor best is that you (jokingly, I know), equate "pounding someone's head with a hammer and stealing his wallet" with "hosting copyrighted content for everyone to grab". On several occasions during the last couple of years US foreign policy (and meddling) did indicate that the US strongly thinks these two acts are indeed comparable offenses.

> Agree on smaller airports. But the TSA farce at larger airports like SEA and SFO just ....

The story with that guy who got denied his flight for wearing an anti-TSA T-shirt happened at one of these smaller airports IIRC.

Also remember that nitroglycerin would be detectable quite easily with regular explosive detectors (highly oxidized nitrogen compound), so just because of this incident where would be still no reason to continue confiscating water bottles.

Regardless of whether you love or hate wikileaks, a book store and service provider which censors content based on random telephone calls from US senators is neither trustworthy nor reputable. This lovely award Amazon just won smells very fishy and seems to be either a PR gimmick or a thank you from some political organization. You know, I could pay people to give me all kinds or first prizes and gold medals ...