There certainly is a popular feeling of distrust towards everything the government does here in the US; hell, that's American as apple pie.
The problem is, is that much of the information that gets disseminated to us by private entities like the ones you mentioned originates from US government sources. Especially so if that information is related to foreign affairs. These private entities, be it Fox News or MSNBC, are wholly dependant on the government for information on these topics. They can certainly add their own spin and view on the matter, but there's only so far you can take a piece of information. In the end, a lot of it comes out the same across networks.
Remember, most US news agencies no longer maintain foreign bureaus. They have no real foreign correspondents. The owners of these agencies decided, quite rightly so, that dedicating those kinds of resources towards reporting on foreign matters was not at all cost-effective. There was simply too little genuine interest in the public for things happening on the other side of the world. I believe the only US news agency that still has foreign bureaus and correspondents is CNN.
So, don't dismiss the possibility that the media is an excellent avenue for the government to use in order to shape public opinion.
There are multiple VPN providers that advertise their services as a way to use BitTorrent anonymously. While that may seem like a meaningless marketing gimmick, it lets you know about how the service owners intend their product to be used. There are many VPN providers that will actually block BitTorrent traffic, namely because of the subpoenas they may have received in the past in response to filesharing. Plenty of people use VPN in order to circumvent harsh government censorship and control, as opposed to downloading crappy music or movies. So, don't expect all VPN providers to tolerate your use of their services for filesharing purposes.
Depending on the service and various time-variant factors, you can expect speeds to be fairly satisfactory. I wouldn't expect speeds in the 1.0+ MB/s range or anything. Perhaps someone can offer experience contrary to that.
In regards to industry lawyers getting your info from VPN providers: sure, that's still a possibility. That's why it is important to see what country the VPN is based in, as laws regarding the matter differ from place to place. Also, these providers prominently advertise their policy in regards to logging user information. Some will say they keep no logs; a more believable pitch is that they keep logs only for one or more days. Whether you believe any of that or not is up to you, but without logs, there wouldn't be anything connecting you to what you were doing.
Besides, the NYT is the lapdog of the liberal left..
Informative? Hardly.
... what more do u want?
The definitive text on the topic, I'd say. Google is great for introductions on things.
If I want the price to be free for my über game, and Amazon decides it is worth $5? They get $4 per sale and i get $1 (that I didn't ask for).
Are you complaining about making money?
I like to reward folks for being funny.
While that's very considerate of you, a funny post marked as 'Informative' is more than likely to get subsequently modded down; messages with comedic substance tend to come across as wholly incorrect assertions when read from sources being represented as useful information.
China has a permanent seat on the UN security council.
That being said, they have the ability to veto any substantive resolution designed to address their intrusion into Google's computer systems.
While the assistance with the bail is neat, the real story here is that Michael Moore has said he will be lending support in regards to the online availability of the WikiLeaks content.
If he follows through on that promise, then I believe that will be very beneficial for WikiLeaks, as they're starting to need help in this area (given that their service is getting cut by all these different institutions).
It only took two days since the attack occurred for the perpetrator to be tracked down and arrested? I can't say I've ever heard of such a fast response time to a computer crime. I'm quite surprised.
Is this typical these days?
Life is a healthy respect for mother nature laced with greed.