One can't win at a game unless they know the rules.

I can think of 2.5m reasons O’Hagan would not paint a positive image of Assange after spending months of his life with only this article to show for it.

James Clapper and Congress to a lesser extent are behaving exactly as predicted by the Iron Law of Bureaucracy which states:

"In any bureaucracy, the people devoted to the benefit of the bureaucracy itself always get in control and those dedicated to the goals the bureaucracy is supposed to accomplish have less and less influence, and sometimes are eliminated entirely."

If there is any merit to the adage "Knowledge is Power" then the usurpation by the NSA in totalitarian total access certainly empowers the federal bureaucracy that both Clapper and Congress work for. As it has always been since the beginning of our country it is the responsibility of the citizens to correct the government. Unfortunately due to the corruption of our election process accelerated by unfettered campaign finance most people do not vote for third party candidates and we end up with corporate sponsors instead of representatives. The next time you visit the ballot box remember to vote your conscious and not for who the corporate controlled media want you to believe will win. You have control over the former but not the later.

In Texas all new highways will be privatized toll roads thanks to crony capitalism. Never mind that roads are natural monopolies the Republican lead Texas state legislature thinks it is a wonderful idea to confiscate private land and lease it corporations for 50-100 years who will then charge commuters per mile royalties with guaranteed profits backed by the government. In metropolitan areas the toll rolls will fluctuate based on traffic conditions. Near free energy for transportation would be wonderful but at least in Texas toll trolls will be there to extort their margins.

Our rights have been frozen for fifty years. Most every communication is electronic these days and the courts have always ruled in favor of warrantless access to this private data by authorities. The premise being that the Constitutional amendments only pertain to physical property of a person which is ridiculous. I would love to see some "Judicial Activism" on the ninth amendment:

"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

I believe the Supreme Court often neglects this important part of the Constitution.

"The Federalists were also concerned that any constitutional enumeration of liberties might imply that other rights, not enumerated by the Constitution, would be surrendered to the government. A Bill of Rights, they feared, would quickly become the exclusive means by which the American people could secure their freedom and stave off tyranny. Federalist James Madison argued that any attempt to enumerate fundamental liberties would be incomplete and might imperil other freedoms not listed. A "positive declaration of some essential rights could not be obtained in the requisite latitude," Madison said. "If an enumeration be made of all our rights," he queried, "will it not be implied that everything omitted is given to the general government?" source

If the courts are obsessed with full disclosure how about we start posting online full receipts for services? I have thought about doing this many times when I thought I was being ripped off by a service provider and wanted to warn other potential customers of my negative experience. If one is unable to legally provide anonymous public feedback about a service provider then why should one be limited in publicly disclosing all their interactions with the service provider?

Isn't this the way the free market is suppose to work? In an open market workers (suppliers) can see what positions and skills are being paid the most (demand). I would think open salaries would make for a more competitive environment and assist in reducing the extreme income equality in America.

I love Neil Young's music. His albumn Trans, part of the lawsuit mentioned above, was way ahead of its time. I think in many ways this synth album is similar to Daft Punk's recent release which have been very successful this year. The lyrics for some of the songs on Trans are also particularly prescient.

"I know you won't believe me, but the highest form of Human Excellence is to question oneself and others." - Socrates

It is good to see someone researching ways to combat group think with technology.

It was great to see PrimeSense offer an open API to interact with 3D sensing hardware when the kinect first hit the market. Now with their acquisition will their support of this standard be abandoned?

Figures don’t lie, but liars figure. Maybe for corporations who are riding stock market prices at their highest level ever inflation is nominal but the average American knows differently

If it kills, imprisons, or surveils it gets unfettered funding. We have priorities in America, land of the free, home of the brave!!!

The Federal Funds Rate is at 0.08% Of course the target rate is zero to .25 but since corporate stocks and profits are at all time highs it is hard to turn off the spigot so I imagine that is why the rate is near the lower bounds. The federal reserve corporation has conjured up Four trillion dollars in the last five years with no end in sight. Please forgive me, to the novice like myself they would appear to be producing quite a bit of money out of thin air. I am sure if I were a Wall Street investment banker the subtleties of monetary policy would be much clearer to me.

Interests rates have been zero percent for years and will remain so indefinitely. Counterfeiting is passe when the federal reserve corporation prints unlimited money for it's member banks who then loan even more money out through fractional reserve banking. Anyone who is still counterfeiting is late to the game when unfathomable unencumbered money creation is legal.