Yes, we do know that. In addition to the false negatives, they have a lot of false positives as well. They will also 'catch' a lot of people telling the truth.

Agreed. I would very much like to see the NSA out of the picture and law enforcement back to getting a warrant in a regular court for particular data upon show of probable cause. Actually getting back to that is a hard problem.

Or it means that the increase to $7.25 was woefully inadequate.

CPI tends to understate inflation.

So the prosecution routinely overwhelms the defense with procedural crap to make sure it HAS to request an extension. That is, it constructively denies the right to a speedy trial.

There is a difference between gathering fingerprints from crime scenes and convicted felons and gathering them from everywhere and everyone.

However, there have been suggestions that law enforcement should be forced to discard DNA samples from people who turn out to be innocent (either found not guilty or never prosecuted).

And more recently, the "three hops rule" shows that guilt by association is alive and well within our own STASI clone.

They send one message loud and clear. "I would prefer Donald Duck to any of you bozos".

There's a bit of slight of hand in that article. They go on and on about a little fish nobody's ever heard of as if that is the only reason, and they call that water a diversion even though it's really a not-diversion.

They slip in in one place that it's also for salmon. Yes, the incredibly commercially valuable salmon.

Yes. I keep seeing articles about how much cheaper and easier vegetables are to produce and how much less resource intensive. Then I look at the cost/meal w/ and w/o meat and I'm just not seeing it.

So, where are you running?

One might have thought voting for a ficus or a dead candidate would have sent a message. The fact that fictional characters routinely get 10% or the vote should be a message.

Sure, they can vote 3rd party. They probably should. Then one of the big two will win and Taco Cowboy et al will claim that they got the government they deserved because they voted the clowns in.

So you recommend voting for the greater evil? Or not voting (and getting chewed out for being 'lazy')?

There's those who choose to go a bit more extreme, but they tend to end up surrounded by FBI and SWAT, often on trumped up charges.

How many times has there been a choice with a chance in hell of winning that wasn't one of the assholes?

Many Americans aren't fooled. They vote while holding their nose. They vote for the crook to keep the racist out, etc.

What strawman? Do you deny the enterprise bridge exists at NSA? Does it not more strongly suggest 8 year old with an infinite allowance rather than a serious minded professional? Do you claim the NSA has gotten in more trouble than Target for their much larger betrayal?

If anything, that was a snark, but with a strong subtext of calling the responsibility and maturity of NSA management into question.

Meanwhile, Snowden sure has an awful lot of info for someone with no access to info. If it was really as tight as you claim, he wouldn't have any documents to publish.

He has to know where the metadata comes from and where it goes in order to do his job, that is, making sure the system grabs the data and sends it where it's going.

The bulk of that data would strongly suggest that something rotten was going on.

The fact that he could access everything would in itself suggest something wasn't right. Part of a sysadmin's duty is assuring that the system is secured. A time-honored way to do that is to try accessing data you're not supposed to have and see what happens.

Yes. At target you will never find yourself repairing the bridge of the Enterprise and betraying the trust of millions of Americans might carry an actual cost.

Otherwise, probably not as much as you imagine. There is data, you necessarily know where it comes from and where it goes. You know how much there is.