http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/11/21/the_obscure_fbi_team_that_does_the_nsa_dirty_work

We know the FBI is intimately wrapped up in all these shenanigans, but it's almost like journalists are intentionally asking the wrong question by only talking about the NSA.

Does Apple deny helping the FBI backdoor the iPhone?

The Joint Special Operations Command has grown enormously during the Global War on Terror.
There's currently ~20,000 total, with 13,000 of them deployed overseas, and ~9,000 of those in Afghanistan/Iraq (as of 2010).
Keep in mind that most of the Special Operators are guys with guns, support is provided through the CIA & other branches of the military.
About the only non-trigger pullers they have are their specially trained pilots.

That's actually exactly what the Special Forces are regularly sent in to do.
Here's a random article that mentions the Seals shooting up a convoy from their helicopter, then landing to take DNA samples.
They do a lot more of that than they used to, since drone strikes don't always leave much in the way of faces or dental records.

Don't forget about the guy who designs the garbage truck!
It's a rather unique beast, since no other industry needs a design that's even remotely related.

That's probably not what he meant.
He's just cranky that most everyone is going to purge the NSA's malware and the USA will have to whip up a new batch of trojans to re-infect the world.
It's not going to cost us any more money, since we have all the coders and infrastructure in place.
It'll just take time.

Actually, it might cost us money because we won't already know Germany's negotiating positions when we sit down with them at the table.
But that's like complaining that the Casino switched out the deck of cards that you had marked.

Exactly!
This will be the year of the Beowulf Cluster of Linux Desktops!

Read about http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioprospecting
There have been numerous lawsuits on behalf of natives peoples to invalidate patents based on local plants and local knowledge.
The West has a long history of appropriating plants and knowledge from countries, which is why TFA talks about the permits required for foreigners to do science in Mexico.

Not all science is created equal.
There aren't that many laws surrounding the study of avian anatomy, compared to chemistry or the atomic sciences.
Most stuff a hobbyist ca not buy and, of the things a hobbyist can buy, a lot of them will put you on the FBI's radar.
Hobbyist science ain't what it used to be and neither is the scope of the law.

Because scientists were once expected to make their own glassware, someone figured "why not let kids learn too?"
So back in the heyday of science kits, you used to be able to buy a glassblowing kit for your kid.
http://www.thestrong.org/online-collections/images/Z002/Z00244/Z0024483.jpg

Is this going to require new hardware?
Or will this be purely software based?

At the expense of the companies?
The decline in the fortunes of unions is reflected in the general decline of the average working (wo)man.

Here's a nice *graph showing inflation adjusted wages vs worker productivity:
http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/real_wage_productivity_gap.jpg

The difference is certainly not going to employees.
The graph is also slightly deceptive, since it depicts average real wages and not median wages.
If you look at median wages, the gap is even bigger, since you no longer have CEOs pulling up the average.

*If you don't like that specific graph, you can find many others that will show the exact same thing in various different ways

RTFA next time.
No companies installed backdoors at the behest of the NSA.
TFA just says that the NSA has 0-day hacks for a lot of hardware, with a focus on ultimately leaving malware in the BIOS.

I guess the only other alternative is to reverse any orders that the customer doesn't willingly repay.

Not really. Though imaginary characters' rights most likely last for longer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_rights

I know Einstein & Elvis' estates are litigious, but I couldn't say for sure about Hitler's estate.
They almost exclusively go after people who don't get a license to use the image for *commercial* purposes.

What you can't use is any recent (re)translation or re-imagining or edition from [publisher].
That's the reason that "American Classics" keep getting new editions cranked out, even though the story hasn't changed in a century.

So while Disney doesn't own Snow White (or any of the other stories), they own their version.
The Disney version strays enough from the Brothers Grimm that Disney has claimed and received copyright and trademarks.
Of the two legal claims, Disney is vastly more likely to slaughter you with trademarks than copyrights.

Samsung's 800 series doesn't have power loss protection.
That's why it was excluded from a test where the main criteria was Power Loss Protection.

It's interesting that Pauley is a Clinton appointee and ruled the spying legal
while Leon was a Bush Jr appointee and ruled the spying illegal.

Makes you wonder why Republicans have been so aggressively hostile towards Obama's attempts to appoint new judges.