Probably not. Any hacker with two brain cells to rub together would quietly infiltrate systems in company A, from there infiltrate Company B, C & D, rinse/repeat until sufficient layers of abstraction sit between them & their target, and then use them to attack the real target. If the response of victim X is to nuke the IPs from which the attack came, they are a) hitting the wrong entity, b) potentially destroying evidence left by the real perps, and c) probably initiating a re-retaliation from the victim of their attack.

I'm going to assume that "Bug Data" was intentional. I'm using that one.

First, throw a few large disks in a spare PC at each location, install FreeNAS on a USB stick, create a ZFS filesystem. Now you can replicate snapshots between units. Rsync is there if you want it. Owncloud has a plugin you can install.

The theory behind the Bill of Rights says that our rights exist whether or not the Bill of Rights says we do, or because it is convenient, or because it is logical to your mind. We have them because they are part of our nature as human beings, and the rights in the Bill of Rights confirm that there are certain aspects of our nature as people in which the government has no authority to intervene.

The ability to freely think, speak, associate with others, and move about, or the ability to worship as we please, or not worship at all, involve our sovereignty over our own minds and persons. The government cannot compel moon-landing doubters and conspiracy theorists to disavow their crackpot ideas. Not because the crackpots are necessarily right (sometimes paranoid bastards ARE right, after all), but because our government has no sovereign right to rule our minds. An earlier commenter related the 5th amendment protections as analogous to the 4th interms of search and seizure. I view the 5th amendment's right to not self-incriminate as more like an intersection of the 1st and 4th amendments, because it involves not just our things, but our thoughts. I see it as self-evident that our thoughts are more closely bound to our being, and more deserving of impenetrable legal protection than our effects.

At their root, "Rights" as the Constitution lays them out are an explicit restriction on governmental power. Not the other way around.

If you do well, or someone helps you do well, you end up going to a prestigious school, and then onward to great things.

If you don't do well, and no one bumps your grades, you end in a downward educational and intellectual spiral, and end up coding websites for the CISCE.

Retina != iris.

The image editor didn't even bother to use Photoshop to add the fake iris images ... looks like they used MS Paint or something.

I'm certain the US would have loved to put him on trial. If he had wanted one, all he had to do was surrender. The loonies you mention, both hypothetical and real, seem to have been willing to be taken alive. Whether he really believed in his 72 virgins or not, he obviously preferred death to arrest.

kill -9 /bin/laden

I'll second the Fallout bit. The hardcore mode in New Vegas forces you to eat, drink, and sleep every so often. Also, rest and medicine don't instantly and automagically heal you and regrow lost limbs. That said, the save/reload/undo option the author of TFA philosophizes about still exists, and the automagic recovery and regrowth still happens with ludicrous speed and ease compared to the real world, etc., but I then again, didn't get it so my kids could learn a life lesson from it.

Your facts do not in any way mitigate the tremendous WHOOOOSH.

According to that logic, wouldn't ABC, CBS, MSNBC, CNN, et al also be against it?

Speaking of FOXNews, here's something from them on net neutrality. It might surprise folks here, should they care to read it.

Do you really think that other countries are not doing the same to the US and everyone else? Of course they are. Their cables just haven't been leaked yet.

As far as Europe being all peaceful, present-day Europe has been mostly peaceful, except for some regional wars in the Balkans recently. But prior to the cold war, Europe was nothing but wars going back to the Roman empire and beyond. Even during the cold war, NATO was predicated on the assumption that Europe would again be a battleground, and would need defense. Current events make Europe look peaceful. History, not so much.

Technological superiority, be it military or otherwise, is a race held on a treadmill. Standing still isn't an option. Railguns might buy us 5, 10, 20, maybe 30 years until someone else invents their own (or steals ours), much like stealth fighters, which are now in various stages of making their way into the arsenals of potential opponents around the world.