The concept of mandatory bars and disbarring seems, ironically, to be unamerican. I can see having bar membership as an optional accreditation. We have ASE certified mechanic, or CCNA IT guys. Actually disallowing someone from doing a job, though, merely because someone else says they're unqualified seems incongruent with basic capitalism and free market principles.

It was a comparison of judgment. I'll allow it.

I would be kind of surprised if it was generally noticable

Amazon reviews are quite positive.

Good posting.

What most ppl miss is that the 5-eyes and others actually do not spy on many at all.
I suspect that they have unique capabilities to listen in, but not with humans, but with computers. As it is, there was far too many connections just in the cell world, let alone land lines, voip, etc. And that does not include all of the e-mail, IM, etc.
Most likely NSA and others check things with computers, but only items which have a high probability of terrorism, criminal connections to ppl outside of America, etc. will be flagged.

Now, with that said, I am shocked that we actually spied on Germany's gov. I certainly never expected that. And it sounds like we were up to other actions that I am NOT happy about, but it was legal for the NSA to do.

who do you want spying on you? If you buy a commercial product that was produced in China, I guarantee that it has a backdoor. That is why the DOD insists that Cisco manufacture their network equipment here in America (and they do).

Our best bet for staying off radars is to not trust ANY commercial product, and go with OSS. FreeBSD is good. So is Linux. Using Commercial OSs from any nation will get you spied on, simple as that.

But in the end, for those of us in the west, it is better to have European govs, or the 5-eyes (now bigger, though I am not certain how big), spy on us, rather than Chinese and Russian.

So, what exactly was 9/11 if not a terrorist act?
And I did not say that NSA had to ask for backdoors. They are everywhere. BUT, when data is encrypted, it makes it harder for ANY government to get around.

Oh, yes, ALL of the european govs are involved in spying on their citizens as well.

No, NSA passes information up the ladder and then ppl inside of DOJ, along with president and others decide what filters down to the FBI.
You will find that no information about citizens is making it to FBI, unless it involves acts of terrorism, or criminal issues from outside of America.

In 2005-2006, the GOP pretty much removed the oversight of NSA. I know. I was working on PAT act then and was very aware of what was going on.

Snowden is a traitor and does not care about ANYBODY except himself.
He has proven that he will go to great lengths to get what HE wants, regardless of whom it damages.

Go look at the Powerball PRIOR to the new group bring awarded managing it.
You will see that over and over, the winners were on the east coast. Keep in mind that CA was one of the largest states to be part of Powerball, and had one of the most buyers of tickets, and yet, states on the east coast overwhelmingly won more than CA, esp. on the big ones.
Technically, it is possible. Statistically, it was theft that was going on.

Precise but inaccurate. Different.

Over 100 comments now, and not one person has mentioned how lifelike and delicious those downscaled chestnuts look. Honestly, it's like nobody bothers to click on TFA anymore.

I'm always amused by cultural differences like this though... you would never see chestnuts used as screen porn in the US. Actual porn, maybe, but not chestnuts.

I might, if I lived there, or if it affected me. I can't be angry about everything.

Assange is just a SWATing early adopter.

Disinfo is the oldest game in the book. Assange is stuck in a hole in London due to the oldest. :sigh:

It could be a good opportunity to repair relations with an ally.

Yep - let's hope he's a smart enough opportunist to leverage the situation. Remember, the USG thought the Bolivia scenario was plausible enough to take extreme illegal action. So that confirms a willingness.

By the way, has Bolivia asked for (and gotten) an apology from any of those countries?

According to reports, yes.

Assurances they'll never do such a thing again? Hardly. Violate the treaty and send the Ambassador to apologize.