One does not exclude the other. In fact this is a tragicomedy the whole world is enjoying very much and we're all eagerly anticipating the next seasons plot twists...
In the tradition of Greek plays and Shakespearian literature the great puppeteers behind the stage decided they needed a larger stage for the collective entertainment of themselves and the people. And thusly they chose the "New World" to be the grand setting of a tragicomedy play with tyrant rulers, their sons who later rise to the throne only to be followed by a ruler born of another 'evil' empire, and with jesters wrapped in flags who ridicule their ruler. These rulers govern an empire of deluded people who love the word freedom but forget about it's true meaning, who are eventually tricked into killing and enslaving themselves in the name of something they believe is their freedom.

Fuck, this might just really be the basis for an epic tragicomedy play!

1. A thief is a person who removes something of value for his own personal gain (either to use or sell for money).
2. A whistleblower is a person who highlights inethical practices of otherwise unchecked entities without personal gain.
3. A snitch on the other hand sells out his peers for a small reward, which is exactly what is happening here...

Like you said everyone has something to hide and you should respect their privacy by letting them. This should only be violated for highly unethical practices that greatly affect people's lives, like whistleblowers do... These people are heroes who think of the greater good before thinking of themselves, they may be in low esteem from corporations but they are heroes to the common man. Snitches on the other hand are the scum of the earth who violate peoples privacy for mundane things like software piracy and get paid for it too... everyone rightfully hates a snitch because their actions are more unethical than the supposedly unethical things they snitch on. A whistleblower understands this equation of ethics and is on the right side of ethical behavior, a snitch only thinks of personal needs and grievances and does not take ethics into account until after the fact when it might be a good argument to hide their motives...

FTFY. They were probably discussing 'what if the ancient gene was real', and the rest followed naturally by means of said good stuff and some randomness... Indeed a fairly common conversation type for stoner-geeks. :)

The 'internet kill switch' used in Egypt was very low tech and consisted of phoning ISPs and sending some guys to others... The ISPs all participated because it was legal by Egypt law so no company dared go against the governments law just because of ethics.

In the US it is no different *today*, when shit hits the fan the government will claim it's a matter of national security and companies will be required to participate in shutting down the infrastructure. If they refuse key equipment will probably just be confiscated under anti-terrorism laws instead of letting the case appear before a judge (the terrorism card always trumps justice). An internet kill switch will only allow them to respond in seconds instead of hours... Make no mistake, the laws for the 'Egypt-style slow kill switch' without the need for a judge are already there...

No it's like saying "when thieves robbed your house and stole the security systems they will be able to brute force your security PIN at their evil lair... *MUHAHAHAHA*".
I guess the evil geniuses failed to think of anything to do with these passwords since they already have the stuff it's supposed to protect.

I can second this recommendation, Duck Duck Go saves me a lot of trouble when searching and is exactly what once made Google great... basic.

Brainwashed by 'it'? That 'it' is not religion but religious leaders... When there are no religious leaders telling people what to do there won't be religious followers telling others what to do. And for your information even *if* I wanted to do something crazy like vote for creationism (how is that even possible? But I guess you mean for people who try to push creationism in schools) there is not even a single political party in my country that would promote that. Believe me, there are countries in the world that are not an extremely religious two-of-the-same party corporatocracy.

The people who want to force other people what to teach and what to believe are enemies of free speech and free will, not just science.

Why is there a need to insert the word 'enemy' into definitions? This surely is not the scientific way! It's the way of religious nuts who claim evil atheists invented evolution because they are an enemy of god who want to destroy religion, and they planted evidence like dinosaur bones that are all fake (true story, I've heard them preach this once). As a scientific person I know science is no enemy of religion, but I understand it might be perceived as an enemy to power hungry religious leaders who can lose power because scientific advances may lead to a decline in blind devotees to exploit. The people who stand to lose power because of science are in fact enemies of science, because they will try anything to maintain their power including stopping (or even taking leaps back) scientific advancements.

Asimov's essay "The relativity of wrong" should be required reading... It puts some perspective on 'truth' and 'wrong'. Religious people love to point out small errors in the theory of evolution and claim that all must be wrong, that's an inherent property of blind faith (you either believe the whole thing no matter how ridiculous or you have to abandon your whole faith, it's an all-or-nothing game). The scientific way that Asimov illustrates has degrees of 'wrongness', but a steadily improving model that gets closer and closer to the truth.

Fixed again, the words religion and faith are not interchangeable... Blind faith is required by organized religion, but there are plenty other ways to be religious and remain curious and question things.

FTFY. Religion isn't always an enemy of science, only when it's used as a powerful means to control the masses... An ignorant uneducated public is how religious leaders stay in power and keep spreading their propaganda without being questioned. You take away the organization part and there is absolutely no reason why religion should collide with science.

... and no place else! :)
This always reminds me of "Gott mit uns".

Yeah ok, I think we're on the same page then... :)

A and B may be true, but C is quite the opposite. You can be 99,999% sure your mobile Internet traffic also gets routed goes trough one of the NarusInsight boxes. These things are produced for mass-surveillance with a reported capacity of 10Gbit of traffic per unit... Since mobile networks can potentially be a goldmine for 'anti-terrorist' monitoring you can be sure they hooked a fiber from each large network node to a room filled with these babies. The problem is that the chance of C is much higher than most people think, the chances of B and A happening are fairly large once you communicate anything remotely interesting to one of the agencies.