'The agency, from top to bottom, leadership to rank and file, feels that it is had no support from the White House even though it's been carrying out publicly approved intelligence missions,' says Joel Brenner, NSA inspector general from 2002 to 2006.

Which "public" was that? Spying on foreign leaders, collecting unlimited data on US citizens, tracking cell phones...I think I'm seeing the problem. They know they're doing wrong and still feel justified. Now they want the president to make them feel better.

It's like the phone companies wanting retroactive immunity for cooperating with spying. They want Congress to pass new laws making everything they've done legal.

Nevermind all the spying didn't stop the Boston Marathon bombers or the Sandy Hook shooter or any of the more common threats.

Maybe they deserve to feel bad.

I thought those GOP freedom fighters were the ones who don't like government interference? They want the government out of their lives...except for abortion, religion in public schools, and secret compartments in your car.

Good thing we have a party that wants to keep the government out of our lives or things would really be messed up.

The driver has only been arrested and charged, not convicted.

Too bad the driver still has to pay a lawyer and fight the charge. His arrest record has now been sent out to a 100 background check databases and that he'll have to go through, one at a time, to get it cleared off if he wins. He probably had to post a bond to get out of jail.

Whew, lucky him they haven't proven intent.

Get a Google Voice number and just disconnect the landline for a while. You can program how incoming calls are handled, screen calls, block numbers, and set up individual voicemail boxes for people you know.

I had nearly an identical situation with a bill collector looking for the person who used to have that number and refused to take us off the list unless we identified ourselves. I switched over to Google Voice and they all went b-bye.

Except it's halfway around the world for us and in their backyard. If the world needs policeman, then the world should put up the money to pay for them.

From those who kill it in the name of defending it.

Oh get off your high horse. Society has a right to regulate things that are inherently dangerous like chemicals, drugs, vehicles, and firearms. This is no different.

What seems to be at issue here is the convenience. I can make a suppressor out of a few hand tools and basic parts but it's still illegal. With some basic machine tools I can make homemade firearms, cannons and lots of illegal things. Machine shop, 3D printer no difference.

the primary reason for a search cannot be to generate evidence for law enforcement purposes.

So, we don't have any evidence now so we'll attach this GPS tracker to their car and then we'll have evidence that justifies tracking their car!

Law enforcement logic.

It's great they have these contests and architects stroke each other with awards, but they never seem turn up in any actual neighborhoods.

Sometimes it's because concept houses can't get FHA or mortgage approval. The government could help drive innovation in housing by backing the mortgages of energy efficient and solar powered homes.

Maybe one of these days we'll see an award for a design that's innovative and practical and the FHA will agree to finance borrowers.

...then we can pout and claim that Americans don't want electric cars.

Americans don't want your crappy electric cars, they want a Tesla.

When GM does something like this it just advertises that they're a dinosaur stuck in the tar pits of history.

Windows Mobile is the Zune of wireless technology. Who would want to junk up perfectly good storage space on a mobile device with windows?

Quit trying to make Windows Mobile happen, it's not happening.

The bill would reduce the time the logs could be kept, require public reports on how often it is used, and require FISA court review of the numbers searched.

Riiiight. The organization that lied to Congress, lied to the FISA Kangaroo Court, and then lied to the public when they got caught is going to suddenly be cowed by tweaking the law.

They should call this the Whitewash Amendment.

*If* such a mechanism was coded in, the nature of open source would mean it would be found by others

If it were built right it could be very hard to detect, even looking right at it.

And whenever quality competes with convenience, convenience wins every time.

That's true in photography as well and, perhaps to a lesser extent, video. There is a certain quality that is "good enough" for human perception.

I can listen to MP3s from nearly ten years ago and they sound just fine to me. I can still use the same loops I was using in 2004 and they still work in songs today in the same mixing software.

The very reason amateurs can catch up to a big studio technologically is that there isn't as much obsolescence in audio. And why variations of the iPhone occupy the top three slots of the most popular cameras on Flickr.

It will be interesting to see if the video industry can push 4K. 2K and HD look just great projected on the big screen and 4K seems like the first upgrade for the sake of upgrading.