You're missing the point. Snowden's goal is not to hurt US interests; it is to incite public debate everywhere about the NSA's actions. This has definitely happened in the US, people are starting to talk about it, where before there was zero mainstream public interest about the NSA spying.

National Intelligence James Clapper has been forced to publically admit he lied to congress when he said the NSA was not collecting any kind of data about "millions of Americans". Do you think he would have done so had it not been for Snowden's whistleblowing? By the way, lying to congress is a felony, why is Clapper not being prosecuted? Law enforcement in the US appears to be highly selective: Are you a government insider lying or a Wall Street firm committing fraud? All you will need to do is apologize or pay a token fine and all will be forgiven. Are you a regular citizen who is embarrassing the government, denouncing crimes or corporate abuses? You will be put in jail for life, just look at Aaron Schwartz or Bradley Manning, do you think any current or former US government official will ever face that kind of “justice”?

Snowden made a difference in the US, but in the rest of the world, governments’ reactions so far have been "It's a US problem, nothing to see here, move along". This is because all western governments and intelligence services either knew what was going on or they were actively collaborating with the NSA. They aren't going to do anything besides empty posturing to protect themselves from their citizen's outrage.

The point is that the NSA's spying in not only unconstitutional in the US but that they are also breaking the law abroad. Germany has strong privacy laws, if German citizens and businesses have to abide by them, yet the NSA gets a free pass even when they are spying on German citizen en masse or spying while on German soil, it essentially means that those laws are meaningless. The respective European judiciaries have a responsibility to open formal investigation against the NSA. And that's what Snowden is trying to by revealing the NSA illegal action abroad. He’s trying to get the public attention so that the people and independent courts do what governments failed to do: protect people’s fundamental right to privacy and put an end to dragnet surveillance.

Just to recap, the main Linux based Android alternatives currently under development are:

- Ubuntu Touch
- Firefox OS
- Sailfish OS (based on MeeGo/Mer)
- Tizen (Samsung)

Software merit aside, Ubuntu seems like the least likely option to succeed. As far as I know (please correct me), they don't have much in terms of phone maker or carrier support. Firefox OS has Telephonica and GeeksPhone (still just a startup). Sailfish is developed by Jolla (a bunch of former Nokia employees), they seemed to be backed by a Finnish carrier. All these projects are relatively small scale compared to Samsung's Tizen. NTT Docomo is also backing Tizen which means the project both has the world's largest smartphone manufacturer and one of the world's largest phone carrier behind it.

I want at least one or two of these projects to actually succeed. Why? Because we badly need open source/linux alternatives to Android, which has severe problems (not all caused by Google - the carriers/manufacturers bear a large part of the blame):
- The security/updates situation is a mess, there's no way to deny it. Can you imagine a world where both PC manufacturers and/or ISPs must approve and deploy Windows updates before they reach the end user? This is Android right now.
And before the inevitable "Buy Nexus if you want updates" answer: Do you know how insane that sounds? "Buy Toshiba if you want to access Windows update", that's how.
- For Google, Android is just another platform to deliver adds, which means they built the system in a way that won't let the average user block them: The consequence is no effective root access for the user (in order to prevent - amongst other things - host file based and system wide ad blocking). This means Google or the manufacturer owns your phone, not you.
And no, being able to unlock the bootloader and install an after-market rom because you have a Nexus phone is *not* enough. Regular users don't need to install a special version of Windows/OS X/Ubuntu to have root access to their computers. Why should it be different with phones?

Linux is Free. Windows and OS X have to be purchased, Android on the other way is paid for by looking at Google's ads... hardly a sane and secure model for an OS. We need to get away from ad-based computing.

Great idea, that way anybody that has ever been put on a watch list can be harassed for ever! Not because a court of law determined they did anything wrong, no, but because they're on a list (or have been on one). You see, they probably did something wrong or else they wouldn't have been on that list in the first place...

Never mind the fact that this is all done in secret, with no judicial oversight, no accountability and no way to appeal those decisions and that people basically end up on those lists for exercising their political rights.

Try working as a journalist/filmmaker and reporting on the global war on terror, try actively opposing the US drone war or try supporting wikileaks (or any organization that the US has secretly decided they do not like) and see how quickly you end up on those watch lists.

Of course, you'll never know you're on one of those lists until the next time you try flying to the US, then you'll be detained and questioned (not to mention laptop seizure etc.). It happened many times to Jacob Appelbaum, a Tor developer, it happened to Imran Khan, one of the most popular politician in Pakistan and it happened repeatedly to Laura Poitras, an Oscar-and Emmy-nominated filmmaker. These people are spied on and harassed because of their political opinions, thanks to the global surveillance state we now live in.

How submissive have we become that as people living in democracies we even accept the existence of "watchlists"?

Best missile defense shield : peace treaty.

AUMF only authorized force “against those nations, organizations, or persons [the President] determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided” the 9/11 attack and those nations which harbored them.

Problem is The US is now going after groups didn’t even exist at the time of the attack. The intent of AUMF was to go after the people involved in 9/11 (a legitimate goal no ones disputes). But AUMF is now interpreted to mean: "The US government reserve the right to strike anyone it determines an enemy, with no limitation of time or place". In other words AUMF interpreted this way is essentially a carte blanche for global and endless war. Is that really what you're arguing for?

Citation needed? Also, in the Yemen case, the individuals were nowhere near a battlefield. There was no "military action" other than drones flying by. I'd be really curious if you can find any prior example of US citizens killed outside of military action on direct order from the executive branch.

But anyway, according to you all the US government needs to do to legally kill a US citizen (without any trial or any form of judicial process) is to declare them "an enemy". Better hope you won't be declared one... hard to argue Habeas corpus, Fifth Amendment and fundamental rights with a done missile.

Remind me: when did the US declared war to Yemen? Did Congress vote on any of this? Calling it "war on terror" does not actually make it a war in the eyes of international law. Also: if you accept the concept of "global war against terrorism", how do determine when that was is over? Will the war continue until the US sign a peace treaty with the Concept of Terrorism?

Two US citizens (that weren't anywhere near a combat zone) have been killed by drone strikes - with no judicial oversight, simply because the president said so:
"The strike marked the first known time that the US had deliberately targeted US citizens in a drone attack.".

Doesn't that bother you in any way? Who does Obama need to kill in order for you to realize this is a dramatic power grab?

The problem is that killing civilian turns people that had no animosity towards Amercia into "terrorist supporters". How hard an idea is this to grasp?

Got to love how Obama went from "Blackberry Candidate" to "Cyber Sabotage & Drone 'Secret Kill List' President". He's clearly in love with the unaccountable power that technology offers.

It's sickening to see how everyone in the US political establishment (Democrats, Republicans ie. all "respectable" people) cheer when the executive branch orders drone assassinations abroad. And boy do they love how "clean" and "efficient" those are. Hey, no Americans were hurt, the public loves to hear about the military killing bad guys and since these are conducted in remote areas, the US government doesn't even have to deal with the bad PR of "weeping widows" videos. It's all good! Who needs to seek Congress approval for declaring war, when technology allows you to wage a permanent and global secret war?

It is believed that having more democracies around will ultimately increase world stability because democracies loath going to war and the voting public sees it as a last resort solution. Well, so far the biggest democracy in the west seems to have a giant boner for secret drone wars. Well, its executive branch at least, the public doesn't need to hear know about it in details, those informations are classified you see, national security and all.

Don't these people realize the real damage caused by drones strikes? They are breeding generations of new enemies. The next time terrorists successfully blow up Americans or Americans allies, ask yourself: how would you react if people from your home town/area/country were droned in the night by a foreign power?

And if you were Iranian and you heard that the US is actively trying to sabotage your country's nuclear program, wouldn't that increase your support for the Iranian government and its policy to get nuclear technology, even when you actually loath Ahmadinejad and his authoritarian regime?

I too, like the Yahoo Mail UI (and use it), however:

- pop3 access is for paying customers only ("free" pop3 servers are only accessible through ip assigned to mobile networks)
- if you use their "forward" option to forward your mail to another address, then you can't use pop3 anymore (true story)
- No Imap option *even for paying customers*
- Unlike Gmail, Yahoo doesn't warn you if somebody logs in to your webmail from an unusual ip, they also don't offer anything like a list of recent login ip.
- And worst of it all: Yahoo still doesn't offer https. They only offer https login, which is a joke security wise, as sessions can be hijack with something as trivial as a browser plug in.

I could swallow a few things, like no imap which is only a sign of how technically obsolete Yahoo mail is, but the inadequate level of security is really Yahoo taking a giant shit on the head of their users.