but doing this yourself seems to be a lot cheaper.

Oh? Have you factored in the cost of ensuring that you always have an offsite and fully up to date copy, not to mention secondary and tertiary copies for transit time in case your primary datacenter/server happens to kick the bucket/get stolen/evaporate?

It's easy to compare the cost of an offered service to what you can pick up seeming similar equipment for from Amazon or Newegg... the realities though are far more complex.

and cannot put anything confidential there (unless you are not bothered by various TLAs searching through it).

There are ways to manage even that, see this brief bit of Wikipedia for a start.

I don't know if there are any other commercial or enterprise products out there that do it, but I know this one stores all of it's data in the cloud (with a local cache) but does all of the encryption on site. Only if you choose does the encryption key leave your site and then only in a way you choose making it rather problematic for a TLA or Microsoft to get to your data.

It is an interesting world when you are dealing with data you cannot legally delete for a period of time and simply want to rid yourself of the burden of having to store it locally. Suing Google or Amazon because their cold storage failed is a far better option than having your IT guy tell you that the HD they stored the crucial data to doesn't spin up anymore... and that the backup disk ended up in the secretary desktop.

A Snowden trial could... however as I recall, under evidence rules in the US his ability to showcase potentially illegal acts that only came to light due to his own classified leaks is not permitted.

On the other side, no group that I am aware of has sued and won over the various Snowden revelations so as to establish a precedent which a Snowden defense could be based.

So... Snowden 'allegedly' violated the law because he's not yet been convicted... but the "illegal acts that were being covered up" are in fact... illegal acts? Have said acts also been adjudicated as illegal?

I could be mistaken... but at last check more courts have non-overturned rulings finding that the administration was engaged in an illegal amnesty program than have found that the information revealed by Snowden to be of illegal actions.

You really should look into the history of why that facility was established where it was, I'd start with an understanding of the Eisentrager case first: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J...

I think the fact that the USAG won't guarantee his constitutional right to a fair trial

How exactly is the AG doing that?

How exactly are you (the AC) going to determine if it is a fair trial or not?

They are a private company that has a published set of terms and conditions.

Can a baker, florist or photographer put forth a set of terms and conditions with regards to what kind of events they will provide services for?

The courts have been saying no for a while now in the case of some events they may disagree with: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/....
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

It is an interesting world where some people/companies are compelled to provide services equally (if they want to remain in business), while others are given a pass.

I'm still waiting for a case like this to happen in the US as it would be rather entertaining viewing: http://www.nationalreview.com/...

Is that you Gecko45?

and give them grounds to point the finger at the west and say "See, they are a bunch of infidels that deserve what they get!".

Eating pork, drinking alcohol, not praying to Allah five times a day and allowing my wife to drive and not cover her face head while I draw a cartoon about Jesus, Moses and Mohammed walking into a bar is plenty enough reason for them already.

When you are dealing with hyper-sensitive people you have two choices:
1) Change your entire lifestyle so as to walk around on egg shells and hope and pray they don't get offended, or
2) Live your life normally and require them to develop a thicker skin.

There was a time in this country where #2 was actually the norm, alas people like you however keep trying to push us harder and harder towards #1.

But then, it's easy for me to say that... I am an adult, I simply do not get offended regardless of what someone says about me or something that I care about. It's part of being an adult.

Know what we call people who freak out at every little thing?

Children... and Democrats... but mostly children.

Also missing are Yemen, Somalia, and Pakistan: http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/23/...

Clearly his Peace Prize protects him from condemnation.

Wouldn't it be useful to see if and how the murder rate in the US is distributed... and see if perhaps in a country of more than 300 million there might be pockets which are the source of a disproportionate murder rate to?

Or do you want to ignore the fact of the low murder rate in easy to legally get a gun Plano, Texas (.4 per 100,000) and the high murder rate in the hard to legally get a gun city of Detroit (54.6 per 100,000)? The numbers are striking: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...

In fact, oddly enough those places with the highest per-capita murder rates in the US tend to have rather strict gun laws full.

Maybe, it's more than just laws about how easy or hard it is to get a firearm?

Why are you limiting it to just terrorist attacks?

At last check, with the exception of the Gabrielle Giffords's shooting... every single mass shooting in this country since the 1950's where there have been more than 3 deaths have taken place at a location where people were not able to carry a firearm.

This applies not only to every single school K-12 shooting you can think of, but the Aurora theater prohibited firearms on their premises, Ft Hood only allowed MPs to consistently be armed, Virginia Tech prohibited students (even with CPLs) from carrying... the list goes on and on.

Let me turn that Q around for you... when in the history of a world has a person hell-bent on doing evil, walked up to a door that said "Gun Free Zone" and said "Damn, I guess I'll have to find another place to create carnage?"

Yes, deflection.

A point is raised and you poo poo it by attempting to divert attention rather than argue something substantive.

An additive point is raised and you poo poo it again by again attempting to divert attention rather than argue something substantive.

A valid premise which you still reject is expanded upon... and all you can do is poo poo it without citing A SINGLE THING while still trying to divert attention to something else.

You had 3 chances, you struck out.

Your continued attempts at deflection continue to amaze. First you attack the source I cited (I could have picked one of many, NRO seemed the least controversial. Clearly though you didn't click on it as it has a YouTube video from CNN where the quote I was mocking was uttered), now you speak about 'surveys' and call comments like the above just 'speculation or thumbnail estimates'... why don't you try doing what ScentCone did above... offer some specifics?

Allow me, lets consider the terrorists who hijacked the two aircraft that ran into the World Trade Center with some quotes from their Wikipedia pages about their education or work history:

American Airlines Flight 11 – One World Trade Center

• Mohamed Atta - ibid
• Abdulaziz al-Omari - "attained a degree from the Imam Muhammad Ibn Saud Islamic University"
• Wail al-Shehri - "After graduating from Abha teachers college in 1999, Wail al-Shehri took a job as an elementary school physical education teacher at the Khamis Mushait airbase."
• Waleed al-Shehri - "Studying to become a teacher like his brother", left to go see a faith healer. Later, "Waleed later served in the security forces at Kandahar International Airport with Saeed al-Ghamdi."
• Satam al-Suqami - "Suqami was a law student at the King Saud University"

United Airlines Flight 175 – Two World Trade Center

• Marwan al-Shehhi - "was admitted into a military scholarship program that allowed him to continue his education in Germany", later "Marwan returned to Hamburg to study shipbuilding"
• Fayez Banihammad - "Banihammad left his family to pursue relief work"
• Mohand al-Shehri - "Shehri was a former college student who dropped out after failing his courses"
• Hamza al-Ghamdi - no mention
• Ahmed al-Ghamdi - "Ghamdi quit school to fight in Chechnya against the Russians in 2000"

As we see, most of these men had some level of education beyond grade/high school. Many pursued college, some graduated and worked, some dropped out, either to go fight, or more often because they struggled academically.

I'd bring up the other two planes... but I think you get my point.

I shall now wait for your next attempt to move the goal posts.