Snowden showed that all of the big European governments went along with the U.S. as it rolled out its secret total surveillance of electronic communications. Of course there are the really close co-operators (Britain, Australia and some others), but they all went along with it. Of course Europe had trains blowing up etc. to push them along.

From what has been shown, not a single big government didn't run with the U.S. down that path to where their govts can know everything about the general population - just like East Germany wanted.

This was one of the goals of Bin Laden, destroying the freedoms inherent in the west...he succeeded here. The sad thing is not a single government realized having a total surveillance state is incompatible with have a true Democracy (mid to longer term) where privacy and freedom are required. Europe has the best chance of turning over this garbage.

After all the reports of Chinese based hackers penetrating every nook and cranny of Federal and Commercial Defense assets over the last couple of years this seams a case of closing the barn door long after the horse has left...

It's sad seeing this, but its also good to keep in mind - this standard was pushed by Microsoft, Google and others. As such its already "live" in Chrome (as of Release 25 if memory serves, current Chrome release is 29 I believe) as its in WebKit (so ad Safari and Opera as well). Microsoft will add it to IE if they haven't already - leaving Firefox and its slowly dwindling user base. Since 75% of the PC web and nearly all of the mobile web will be making use of this - it'd be a market share death sentence for Mozilla to take a stand and say we just won't implement these "standards" in Firefox - (JMHO, but most general users would notice that what they want using this cgap works with Chrome, IE etc. and not with Firefox and just stop using Firefox making the Firefox user base melt away faster). I don't like Mozilla doing this, but I can easily understand why they are.

The cynical side of this, is that this is AT&T and Co. are making sure that Google doesn't make any money with Fiber by making sure the market size for Fiber is drastically reduced wherever its rolled out...and discouraging Google from pursuing this as a business. JMHO...

Although the status bar is gone (which I liked having) if you mouse over a link - the address still pops up down there. Just an FYI...

After signing that first one be sure and sign this one - its alot further along:

https://petitions.whitehouse.g...

Great description - between 1 and 4, the Obama administration appointed the former head of the Cable Industry lobbying group and also former head of the Wireless Industry Lobbying group to be in charge of the FCC (Wheeler) - he's excited about all the "innovation" that's happening here.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-po...

Here's a nice map showing which states are and aren't (by a company that sells phone recording products). Odd mix of states that are two party.

http://www.vegress.com/index.p...

Blown away, best interview ever - not that I'd ever need it but filing it away just in case. Thank you John!

There is serious political downside to doing this.

Consider for example what would have happened had he walked back all these subversions to our liberties 6 months before the Boston Bombing and then what would have happened in the political sphere thereafter. In the end Obama is not a courageous leader who does what is right because its right - he's a very cautious politician and makes decisions that seem to reflect just that. His administration has made "cover all the bases" types of political decisions from the beginning...unfortunately right after what happened to our civil liberties after the previous administration that is not what we, as a country, probably needed (and he campaigned as if he was something else). Is it possible they have dirt on him, possibly, but I think the political danger angle is the more likely and is also why this will have to be forced on by congress (and Republicans in particular as they would be the one's to pounce him were anything to happen after a rollback). This is also why its going to be very hard for these things to be rolled back.

This is not accurate. Only Mavericks (v10.9.x) was vulnerable to the SSL issue - the security updates to Mavericks, Mountain Lion (10.8.x) and Lion (10.7.x) contained a ton of security updates in them - at least a good chunk of which would affect Snow Leopard.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT...

It is incredibly frustrating, however its not just the GOP. Take a step back notice that the head of the FCC, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler - was a lobbyist for the Cable and Wireless industries before he was appointed to be the head of the FCC, the governing body that regulates these industries by the Democrats leader, President Obama.

The Democrats take their lobbying money as well and while lower ranks may not like it - the outcome is the same. The FCC could protect net neutrality today if it wanted to (the most recent lawsuit the judge actually layer out what the FCC needed to do under its own authority), but under the former cable and wireless industry lobbyist just can't seem to figure it out...probably ringing his hands and loosing sleep...not...this is with the blessing of the President (which will only stop if it appears to start to blow up in his face from PR angle).

It's all totally corrupt. The Democrats downfall started in the mid 70's when they starting taking big business campaign donations.

In one sense you're totally right, however the Tesla S besides having much better performance also has much longer range (not Nissan Leaf range) so you can do most driving folks would need to do. Unless you're looking at driving really long distances (150 miles in a day or longer, where you'd be better off with a Prius) the Tesla just smokes this car.

I think the big failing is the price...its way too expensive for what you get compared to a Tesla Model S or a Volt. Destined to be a sales dud unless they bring it down in price by $20-$25k. JMHO, saying it as someone who likes the Volt and wants GM to succeed.

So satisfying that Hubble was the telescope to grab this honor as it enters its twilight years.

It's a bit of a strawman question - this was Great Britain, they were at war (for real) with a real country and the very existence of their country was at stake (their perception in the first years of the war as they expected Germany to try an invade after rolling over western europe).

The difference here is that the U.S. is not formally at war with any country, its existance isn't close to being challenged much less at stake - the U.S. has much better constitutional protections for rights to privacy and freedom of speech than the U.K. did.

As others have pointed out, the head of the NSA here is actually talking about privacy. It's important to look at where this started and it was the ends justify the means free for all that the Bush administration let loose immediately after Sept 11th - whether it was allowing & pushing torture for the first time in our country's history, or making the country a complete surveillance state this all started back then and was mostly in place within a few years. Unfortunately the weak minded president that followed the Bush administration took the safe political path and didn't roll all this back making it "the new normal". We need to tear it all down and accept the marginal risk in exchange for freedom, privacy and democracy. JMHO...