Ummm...that's the whole point of collecting the data. It has nothing to do with national security. That's just the cover. It's about power and control.

I challenge you to point those out. In almost ever case where I see claims like these it's from people who don't understand Ayn Rand's philosophy. The world today is exactly what Ayn Rand railed against.

Rollback, my friend. Please say 'rollback' rather than improve. If they try to improve they'll only make it worse. They'll improve in a manner befitting to the interest they're beholden to rather than in a manner that's beneficial to the people and the economy.

This, my friend, is the crux of the issue. We have some bad laws (patent laws in this case). We know we have some bad laws. How do we fix it? By passing more laws. Yeah, that should work out well.

Our government has risen to such a level of idiocy it's almost beyond comprehension. I keep having flashbacks to "Idiocracy". It's rather terrifying that that movie may become socially relevant in my lifetime.

And that's not even the scary part. Those idiots are the ones in charge of every morsel of data they're now collecting on everyone and the militarized police forces to enforce their Idiocracy should anyone actually have the temerity to tenaciously protest it.

If you're asking me that you might want to consider a sarcasm meter adjustment.

Hey, those are all based on direct quotes from our illustrious leaders.

And I forgot to add that even in cases where they do "monitor" the data by actually intentionally looking at it they only look at data for 3 degrees of separation from the target. Never mind that it almost certainly includes literally tens of thousands of people when you consider that the target called to order pizza or the cable company or something.

They are not and were not intentionally monitoring US citizens under this program. They are simple collecting all their data and searching through it. This is not monitoring until they actually look at the data. And there are strictly enforced regulations on when they can look at data that has a less than 50% chance that it might be from a foreigner.

Dude, you need to wake the fuck up. That country no longer exists.

What're you stupid? That would be playing right into their hands. "We need more surveillance to stop the subversive terrorist inciting these riots." It would give them more ammunition to further usurp the constitution.

25,692 alcohol induced deaths per year in the US. 11,078 firearm homicides in the US.

Vehicle related deaths are greater than either despite car safety features greatly improving the survivability of collisions over the last 20 years. Although finding statistics (probably gathering accurate ones also) is very difficult I would be willing to bet the number of serious injuries and monetary costs of vehicle collisions dwarfs either alcohol or firearms. I think driving is more applicable to your argument than either guns or alcohol.

In 2010 there were 32,885 vehicle fatalities. 10,228 were listed as alcohol related. And those statistics are even skewed since if anyone involved, whether they were the cause of the collision or not, had any level of alcohol it's marked as alcohol related. The problem isn't drunk drivers. The problem is irresponsible drivers drunk or sober. If you're going to look at traffic fatalities address the real issue rather than the neo-prohibitionist agenda of certain groups. If you fix the maniacal driving problem and make people responsible for their actions when driving drunk driving won't be an issue.

If you've ever studied history, including scientific history, you'll find that "facts" change over time. What we think we know now will be considered foolish superstition as new "facts" are brought forth that discredit current "facts". Science doesn't deal in "facts". It deals in theories supported by reproducible demonstrations. Often the theories are in opposition and often the consensus is shown to be wrong. That's called progress.

Let's take this as an example. Do you have even a concept of how complex the climate system of this planet is? Do you know how much of it we truly understand? So what you're saying is everyone who questions current global warming "facts" should be silenced and/or thrown in jail. Of course this precludes any further work towards understanding our planet's climate should it in any way contrast with currently understood global warming "fact".

Yeah, that will work out well. Especially with closed minded sciolist such as yourself deciding what is indisputable fact.

Lets see. So what you're claiming here is that every employee at Microsoft not only has access to every piece of code but that they've actually gone through that code detailed enough to spot any NSA Easter eggs.

First, have you ever worked on a large proprietary software project? From my experience it's lucky if three people even look at any given piece of code much less take the time to really understand what it does. Even in support mode they're typically only going to look close enough to fix the bug they're working on.

Second, an operating system (especially Windows) is a huge piece of work with 1000's of mostly unrelated modules. Very few people would know much outside of their area of work.

Third, you're typically not gonna let your GUI programmer even have access to network stack code. And lastly, this is Microsoft we're talking about. They can't even figure out how to make there own software work worth a crap. You really think they'll be able to figure out what a highly complex and secret NSA module is doing. (yes that was sarcasm)

Do you even understand how open source works? Redhat is an open source vendor. Do you realize that CentOS and Oracle (amongst others) both copy and distribute Redhat's software? So they're going to strong arm everyone? CentOS isn't really a vendor even. It's more a loose conglomeration of volunteers. How are you going to strong are them?

Bullshit. Why do you think copyright extends for 70 years after the death of the author?

Yeah, ask the former communist client states how much of a threat the US was compared to the Soviet Union. Strange all those walls and minefields were needed to keep people in those nice benevolent Soviet client states. No matter how much you twist history trying to claim the US is and/or was just as oppressive and the former Soviet Union is just plain ignorant. Mind you in no way am I claiming the US is or was perfect. Far from it. As a nation the US has taken some pretty despicable actions. Any reading on the Vietnam War shows that. But at the same time the US has been fairly benevolent in wielding it's power when looked at from a historical perspective.

So what your claiming is Europe would have been no worse off had the US not spent decades and billions defending it and the Soviet Union had taken control? Again perhaps you should read a book or 2 about what it was like being a client state of the Soviet Union.

I'll agree with you here in that the US is heading down the wrong road in this particular area.