So please, explain to me how exactly your privacy is being violated. Because if you think it is, then you really need to actually read the government's explanation of the programs instead of getting it secondhand (you know, like sheep) from people who are grossly hyperbolizing the scope of what is being collected and used. They are not reading your email. They are not poring over your phone records. All they are doing is collecting the information so that, if a warrant is issued and they have probable cause to think that you might be involved in terrorism activities, they can come back later and evaluate the information to try to track down other possible terrorism suspects.

You call me a "sheep", yet it is you who is making baseless assumptions, not me. You're assuming that the people who are in charge of these programs are outright lying about the scope of them and the scrutiny and oversight they're subjected to. If Snowden had come out and said, "...and as proof that this program is being abused, the Slashdot poster Wookact is actually Joe Schmo in Walla Walla, Washington, and here are the contents of some of the private emails he's sent to people and some of the phone numbers he's called, even though I have no reason to suspect that he's involved in anything illegal," then your argument might hold water.

As it is, though, you're just throwing out baseless allegations that some hypothetical evil has been committed based on premises that I do not hold to be true, things like government is always evil, the people in charge of these programs are saying stuff that conflicts with your foregone conclusion therefore they must be lying, that there is no oversight of these programs and/or any oversight of them must be corrupt, etc. And by the way, last time I checked, people have in fact died from terrorist attacks. Also, last time I checked, several plots have been thwarted thanks to the hard work of the intelligence community, and there hasn't been an attack of the scale of 9/11 since, well, 9/11, so I have to think that something must be working pretty well and what you dismiss offhandedly as people being afraid is actually people taking some common sense precautions to not die by the thousands. It is in fact your fears of some hypothetical abuse for which there is no evidence that is warrantless. When you have some actual evidence that the programs are being abused and that their leadership is lying to us, try again and you'll make some more headway.

Is it hypothetically possible that such a program, under certain contrived circumstances, could be abused? Well, yeah, but in the sense that the fact that we have a nuclear arsenal could hypothetically be abused. Yet I don't sit around worrying all day about the possibility that a nuclear bomb might explode in my neighborhood, I have more important things to worry about and better things to do with my time.

So please, again, exactly what rights of yours have been violated? Some imaginary right to not have information about what you're doing collected by the government? If so, then do you drive a car? Then please stop reading these posts and immediately go to your local DMV and express your outrage over having to have a tag number that--gasp!--is actually retained on file that, if you commit a crime, can be used after the fact to track back to you. Have you ever worked? If so, then make sure to express outrage over the government keeping your Social Security Number and W2s on file so that if you commit tax evasion, they can find out about it and prosecute you instead of just sitting around saying, "Gosh, I sure wish we knew who this 714-89-3110 person was." Do you own a home? Make sure they don't have your address on file, because god knows that if someone calls 911 and reports gunshots at 123 Main Street, you don't want those bastards to be able to figure out that that's your house, that would be a gross violation of privacy!

Now here's the thing--I don't even believe that the government collecting all of this information is a good thing. I do not believe that it's being abused, but I do believe that there is the potential of it being abused at some point by less scrupulous people. But to be blunt, I'm not even a fraction as worried about the government abusing such power as I am private corporations with strong financial incentives to screw people over doing so, yet the vast majority of Americans don't give a shit about that happening, even being flaunted right in their faces. Also to be blunt, it's frustrating to me that we're just now all mad and upset about these programs when they were in place years ago under a different administration and the Libertarians and right-wing seemed to be perfectly fine with it then. And last but not least, to be blunt, it pisses me off that everyone's all upset about agencies and administrations exercising power that, I remind you again, was legally granted to them by the Patriot Act, acting as if, gosh, we didn't think they'd take it seriously!

Well, the reason that immediately comes to mind is because you and I might not be going to the same place.

I know this isn't going to be a popular opinion with the Slashdot crowd, but here goes anyway...

So honest question: What makes you believe that the government is doing "the wrong thing" now? I'm being serious here, because as far as I can tell, nothing that Snowden has said has proving that the NSA is abusing what it's been doing. If he had some documented evidence, for example, that the NSA had used its surveillance capabilities to spy on someone for non-terrorism political purposes, things might be different.

From what I can tell, the programs at the NSA are designed only to collect the data. It's specifically to avoid this situation:

Steve: Ha ha, you capitalist pigs, I've blown up buildings and killed hundreds of your citizens!
NSA: Hello, Verizon? We have a warrant, could you please pull Steve's phone records for the past five years so that we can see who he's been hanging out with, to see if maybe there's a mastermind here that we can take down?
Verizon: Gee, we wish we could help, but our data retention policy is that we purge those records after a year. Sorry, but here's what we've got, hope it helps.
NSA: Well, shit, we think that Steve was radicalized back in 2009, we could really use those records. Hey Google, any chance you've kept his emails?
Google: Sorry, nope. We can tell you that he sure does like My Little Pony and prefers Angel Soft brand toilet tissue, though.
Dan: Remember Steve? Well, I'm his buddy and now I have blown up buildings and killed hundreds more people, ha ha!
NSA: Fuck.

In other words, I don't think this is an inherently evil program, as long as it has proper oversight, assurances that it can't be abused, and that the oversight and legal framework under which it operates is transparent. That is, none of these secret laws that we have currently. There are some Congresscritters that are currently working to make those laws public, which is a Good Thing(tm). Assurances that it can't be abused would come in the form of auditing. This isn't unheard of, it's the same kind of auditing that, for example, holds credit card companies accountable for ensuring that the customer service person you talk to when you call their 800 number doesn't write your card number down and carry it out with them to go shopping with that night.

Of course, oversight is always the sticking point. When George W. Bush was in office, Democrats didn't trust him to carry out proper oversight of these programs, but Republicans simply brushed off criticism saying, "Just trust him, he's a nice guy, he wouldn't do that kind of evil stuff." Now that Barack Obama is in office, Republicans are crying foul. Oversight needs to be in the form of non-partisan courts and subject to multiple levels of scrutiny, and we the public need to be aware of what kind of system is in place to oversee this stuff.

Otherwise, you and everyone else decrying these programs are going to have to accept that without them, people WILL needlessly die, that we could have prevented it and deliberately chose not to. And when they do and there's an outcry over how awful it is that our intelligence organizations failed us so miserably, you're going to have to be on the front lines defending it, explaining to an angry and grieving public that those lives were simply the price we have to pay for freedom and privacy. And if you think that it's a small price to pay for freedom and privacy, then more power to you. But instead of getting all butt-sore about the NSA, PRISM, or the Bush and/or Obama administrations, the actual EFFECTIVE recourse is to lobby your Congresscritters to repeal or amend the USA PATRIOT act. Because for all of the wailing and gnashing of teeth, the organizations and administrations involved in these programs are merely exercising the legal authority that Congress granted them. And I'm not being facetious--go for it. Hell, you might be able to start a movement and convince enough people that it will happen.

But you'll also need to realize when you do that not everyone agrees with you. For all of the trite repetition of telling people that they deserve neither freedom nor liberty, most of us live out here in the practical world where we don't view the world as black and white as you do, so you might (probably, in my estimation) not get your way. And when that happens, instead of whining about how awful it is that we live in such oppressive times under such a tyrannical regime, consider that forcing your notion of "freedom" on a public that expresses through elections that they disagree with you is about as tyrannical as it gets, so what does that make you?

Anyway, I strongly suspect that I'll be modded down because of the knee-jerk "Oh noes, government surveillance is teh ebil!" leaning that Slashdot in general has, and I don't entirely disagree with the general ideal. But until more information comes out that this specific program has been abused in some non-hypothetical instance and exactly how, I'm willing to not jump to conclusions, to let it ride for a while and see where it ends up. And while I find the notion of persistent surveillance distasteful, I'm also practical enough to understand the shades of gray involved in these issues.

Wasn't there some scheme a few years ago someone came up with that used the concept of charging cars by putting magnets under the roads so that as the cars passed over them it would induce an electric current in coils contained in the undercarriage? Seems like that would be a lot safer and cost-effective than rolling out electric rails, and wouldn't require physical contact.

Ever been to a Romano's Macaroni Grill? They sing almost the same thing, but they do it a bit better. I witnessed this in person once while I was eating, this waitress started singing, and it was like a friggin' opera in there, she had some pipes on her. Made me wonder if each restaurant has a singer ringer.

So are we, the public, supposed to now cheer him and and support him not getting arrested? Oh, hell no, I want all of those goodies released. I hope they arrest his ass, and the sooner, the better.

The point of a class action lawsuit isn't, unfortunately, to compensate the members of the class. The point of a class action lawsuit is that there are too many people who suffered minor damages to really be able to logistically handle that.

The primary point of a class action lawsuit isn't to "fight for the little guy," it is to punish companies that do wrong. If lawyers end up making $2 billion off a lawsuit, well, that's $2 billion out of the company's coffers. And before you go spouting off about how ultimately they pass that cost on to customers, maybe they do, but if so, that puts them at a disadvantage compared to other companies. Or put another way, if Domino's is giving their customers good quality pizza while Papa John's is skimping because they are trying to pass a $2 billion lawsuit judgment on to their customers, they'll lose market share. But I digress...

Anyway, I don't necessarily agree that the lawyers should make so much off of a class action lawsuit, although they really should make a lot, since they're handling the details of compensation which costs a lot more than most people think. What I'd like to see is some kind of public fund set up for money like this to go into, such as to build parks or something, so that the end effect of punishing the companies is maintained but the incredible amount of time, effort, and money that goes towards mailing a few people checks for a buck or two isn't wasted. At least that way, you also avoid the problem that class action payouts usually aren't that high since most eligible claimants won't bother to jump through the hoops to get their judgment.

So let's say that some numbers are "missing." Why would someone manipulate the exact same numbers to be missing across all of the exams? I mean, I could see bumping a 32, 33, or 34 (non-passing) up to a 35 to have pity on some poor schmuck who came really close to passing, but why would, say, someone change a 93? I mean, not just for one student, but all the way across the board? What possible motivation could someone have to say "That's got to be either a 92 or a 94, we can't have any 93s"?

I'm inclined to believe what the poster above said. They're simply rounding numbers based on the number of questions on the test to some nearby value in a way such that not necessarily every integer between 1 and 100 is represented. In other words, if there are 40 questions on the test, you'll have scores of 3 (rounded from 2.5), 5, 8 (rounded from 7.5), 10, etc. You will never have a score of 76 or 94 or 61. I strongly suspect that if he knew exactly how the test was scored, the "missing numbers" explanation would be pretty obvious.

What a load of bullshit. The government isn't supposed to fear us, you twit, and to be brutally honest, it's that attitude that has gotten us into such the mess we're in today. After all, how far a leap is it from "government is supposed to fear us" to "if only someone would bomb a federal building in Oklahoma City or an Olympic venue in Atlanta, that would show 'em"?

The government is supposed to provide for the common defense and general welfare of the country. When some dictator stages a military coup d'état against his government, how well is that government able to provide for the common defense and general welfare? It's impossible for a government that fears its citizenry to fulfill that mandate. It's also utterly moronic to espouse rule by physical intimidation, which is exactly what you're supporting when you propagate this idiotic notion that people should have guns to keep government in check.

A little anecdote I like to relate to "government is supposed to fear us" twits:

On April 12, 2009, three Navy SEALs shot and killed three Somali pirates holding Captain Richard Phillips of the Maersk Alabama hostage. They had parachuted in two days before, and were set up on the fantail of the U.S.S. Bainbridge, a destroyer dispatched to handle the situation. The pirates were on a lifeboat being towed over 75 feet behind the Bainbridge. The SEALs had been manning their sniper rifles for over 24 hours straight, and both boats were bobbing up and down. Three simultaneous shots were taken, and there were three direct hits in the heads of each of the pirates. Captain Phillips was successfully rescued without injury.

I bring this up for a couple of reasons. First, because Navy SEALs are badass, and you do not want to mess with them. But mostly because you need to understand that if the government wants you dead, you are going to be dead. You will be a red splatter on the wall before you even have the chance to get your military-grade weaponry.

Several times since the Revolutionary War, nutcases have tried to rise up in armed resistance to the U.S. government. The largest such rebellion took place between 1861 and 1865. You would have thought that that would have settled the matter once and for all, but no, even almost 150 years later, we still have people romanticizing revolutions trying to convince others that overthrowing the U.S. government via armed conflict is a good idea, or that the U.S. government is even remotely concerned about the possibility; thus we end up with incidents like Ruby Ridge and Waco. So let me break it down to you really simple-like: 1) Armed revolt against the U.S. government by U.S. citizens will never work, and 2) if you try, you will be quickly dispatched with no matter how many guns you own.

And personally, I'm glad. Unlike apparently you, I realize that we need government to maintain our society. If someone burns down my house or murders someone in my family, I don't want the government to be afraid to arrest and prosecute the guy who did it because he has a lot of guns, that's the height of idiocy. If you want a haven where there is little to no government interference, you should move to Somalia. There's practically no government there past the "might makes right" rules imposed by local warlords. If you have a lot of guns, you have a lot of power. If someone commits some perceived injustice against you, there's nothing stopping you from using your resources to carry out justice in whatever way you want. As an added bonus, you wouldn't have to pay taxes. Of course, you do have to worry about your warlord neighbors getting jealous of your stuff and, if they have more guns and mercenaries than you do, coming over and taking it. But hey, at least you can go down in a blaze of glory knowing that you and your family are dying without the benefit of government helping you with your personal protection or interfering with your ability to acquire lots of guns and that the only limit you have on what kind you can buy is how much money you have.

Plus, all of this "government is supposed to fear us" talk has me wondering, who exactly do you consider to be "us"? You sure as hell aren't speaking for me. You are presumably aware that over 90% of people support universal background checks? A good majority of them support stricter gun laws? Hell, even the headline of this submission is "Majority of Americans Would Ban 3D-Printing Guns at Home". So by "us", I can only assume that you don't mean a majority of the American people. Instead, you're referring to the minority; depending on exactly which issue you're referring to, a minority that varies from tiny to at best somewhat small. Funny how people like you think that government should only protect your interests, not the common defense or the general welfare of the country.

I hate to burst your little bubble, but it doesn't work that way. Mr. Random Anonymous Coward doesn't get to dictate to the rest of us through a campaign of fear and intimidation what the agenda of our government is. If you don't like it, then try to elect different people to set a different agenda. But the second you take action to instill fear in other people for their physical safety to advance your political agenda or to coerce the government into doing your bidding, that doesn't make you a patriot, it makes you a terrorist. Furthermore, you have exactly zero room to try to frame our government as a tyranny, because what you're espousing is a tyranny--just one that caters to your whims instead of someone else's.

People like you boggle my mind. I wish that for one year, you would live in a place where there is a real totalitarian government, somewhere like North Korea. Then for a year, live in a place where there is no government, like Somalia. Only then, I'm convinced, will you ever realize the tripe that you're spewing is completely impractical and immoral. Only then will you realize that the best government is a happy medium, one in which neither the government fears us nor we fear the government, but we work together as a team to ensure our common defense and promote our general welfare, one in which the citizens realize that they're not always going to get what they want, one in which people realize that no freedoms come completely without limit and that is not a slippery slope into communism/socialism/whatever evil buzzword you pretend it is.

But in the meantime, I highly suggest you grow the hell up and stop being such an insufferable tool, and to stop getting your political thoughts off of bumper stickers and from right-wing talk radio hosts.

Hopefully it was obvious that I was referring to the common lay definition of the word, things like ghosts, ESP, clairvoyance, divination, etc.

If you watched the video, he specifically addressed this. He says that he's not claiming that supernatural events don't occur. His prize is up for grabs to someone who can prove that they do.

"I don't know" is, in fact a perfectly good answer, but it's not a valid explanation. It's certainly not proof of the contrary. More often than not, it is a cop-out to use "I don't know" as an excuse to not believe what evidence there is or do further research into the matter. This is where religion gets into trouble a lot. I've seen it a lot in the form of statements like, "Scientists don't know such-and-such, therefore God did it."

If you have what seemed to be supernatural occurrences happening in a house you lived in, the scientifically "correct" course of action isn't to simply chalk it up to ghosts and be done with it, it is to try to come up with plausible explanations for what was happening and testing them. Even if you settle on the ghosts answer, you need some way to prove that that's what it is. Who knows? Maybe you could have won Randi's prize.

And I'm not being facetious when I say that. A lot of advancements in science have happened when people didn't just accept seemingly supernatural phenomena at face value, but investigated it. Sometimes you even get really lucky and the actual explanation is more fantastical than any supernatural explanation.

It shouldn't be, but statistically speaking, you're wrong. Don't confuse stereotyping individuals (which may or may not be a factually correct assessment of someone, depending on the individual) with aggregate data collection (which can be proven to be statistically valid). Most people who actively associate themselves with gay rights are gay. That is in no way saying that no straight person does so, or that most straight people aren't for gay rights (which has become the case in only the last decade). It's only saying that those people marching in gay rights parades? They are predominantly gay. If you pull someone out of the parade, they might or might not be gay. But if you want to advertise, for example, a heterosexual dating service, you'd probably be better off targeting a different event demographically.