Here you go.

I've mentioned this in another comment, but despite the media's earnest efforts to bury the NSA story, it's simply too huge to go away. I mostly wanted to respond to this

It seems that the public and the media has moved on, and no longer cares. It's the "new normal" that we are all spied on all the time.

I dont think this is the case. As the revelations have continued, new polls have shown that more and more people are becoming concerned about the size and power of the NSA, and the extent of its spying program. This issue is refusing to fade into obscurity, even without media support. The disquiet is growing beyond the tech community and becoming mainstream. We could be looking at the growth of a popular issue as big as property taxes, or the environmental movement.

While I am a bit cynical myself, I'd have to disagree with the statement that no-one care about all of this. Despite the mainstream media's systemic attempts to bury this story, the NSA revelations are a sledgehammer slowly pounding at the complacent foundations of the free internet. This issue is simply too huge to go away.

The NSA is literally turning into an Orwellian Ministry of Information. It has commandeered the internet, and is strong-arming American companies into doing its bidding, regardless of the effect on their or their customers rights or freedoms, and regardless of the effect on America's reputation for free speech and free enterprise.

It might be easy to ignore each individual blow of revelation, but when a big pillar crumbles, it becomes a little difficult to look away or hide the growing sense of dread. The closure of Lavabit and Silent Circle was a body blow to the notion of free speech and free enterprise on the US internet.

A lot of people probably felt that the likes of Facebook, Google, MS, would be locked down first, with the creep moving down the chain to email providers, independent sites, and finally, in extremis, to small independent secure email service providers. Instead this has been turned on its head; the independent man, in business for himself, was the first pin to fall. The message is clear: You cannot set up a website, email service, or any other internet business in the United States without the prior and/or post-facto approval of the National Security Agency.

A dream is dying. People like yourself escape through cynicism. Others escape through denial, or fantasy. But the reality is we are living in a nightmare, surrounded by a growing sense of dread in a global spy and surveillance network that has spiralled out of all reasonable proportion and probably control.

The NSA is turning the internet into at best a panopticon, and at worst a prison for our whole society. They have slowly built a fortress of concrete, wire, and guard-towers around the free web. Edward Snowden is outside, slowly pounding on the wall, hoping some of those inside will hear enough to notice that they need to find a way to break out, to stop the construction before it's too late.

I think he's succeeding. As cynical as I am, I think that as the revelations continue, more people are starting to wake up to the reality of the nightmare that the NSA was trying to create while they slept. We need an internet that is encrypted, anonymous, and decentralised by default; And Mr. Snowden's sledgehammer may be inspiring a new generation of hackers to finally create it.

Seriously BBC, what does it actually cost to have a program like this on late at night, once a month?

The fragile self esteem of network executives intimidated by science.

Wow. Ten years. And here I am still dealing with 64 bit incompatability issues every six months or so.

Out of curiosity, how long did 16bit library problems linger after the 32 bit move?

So when the first killer robot starts killing the politicians they might decide the policy is bad?

"This is a pure case of upstarts rather than entrenched interests with political connections in California finding a way to make a profit and the state can't allow that."

Adjusted that FTFY of yours for you. (Because there are a few notable non-corporate examples from time to time.)

What a lot of people fail to recognise is that the people in charge of governments and the state tend to have the mentality and vindictiveness of very small children. Unfortunately, they also have an adults guile. Assumming that small children will behave rationally, reasonably, or for the common good is not a legitimate strategy.

I'll tell you WTF. The primary party injured by the trades and the coverup? The owners of the company stock, investors, retirement funds, etc - people who are being misled by company executives. The people who end up paying this fine? The same people, the owners of the stock. That doesn't sound a little "we had to destroy the village in order to save it" of a premise to you at all?

Besides which, I'm calling for being dubious of the regulators in addition to banks, not instead of the banks. :P

JP Morgan Chase lost about $7.2 billion dollars trading bonds (with its own private money, mind you, not depositors' money or anything). Then the feds decided this was bad and that they should fine them an extra $800 million. Even the Brits are dubious, suspecting that it's really because Chase has been publicly complaining about the feds and wondering when exactly it became a crime to lose money...

So if you want a laugh, sure, you can choose the popular-screed opinion du jour where banks are the bad guys. But I'd say, why limit your targets like that? We can be cynical about banks and regulators!! :P

You seriously don't have the slightest clue how much things actually cost. The entire place probably cost a fraction of, say, one Tomahawk missile launch into Syria.

It probably cost 10-20 times the average annual US wage more than a straightforward and more functional bullpen office layout.

We canne do it captain! The ships reputation will nae hold!!

I'm holding out for the app to help me avoid huge ships.

A recession is defined as two consecutive quarters of negative growth. Thus, the recession is technically over.

This definition is fundamentally flawed. Under this, it is technically possible for an economy to decline indefinitely which never actually entering a recession. GDP change from quarter to quarter could progress like so

-2.0%, +0.1%, -2.0%, +0.1%, -2.0%, +0.1%, -2.0%, +0.1%, .....

Which works out at a -3.7% decline every year, but still technically no recession. This is what we refer to in the mathematical business as "absurd".

Unfortunately, this appears to be exactly how the political class across the Eurozone appears to doing. The continent is slowly imploding, but event one 0.1% quarter of growth is taken as proof that "The recession is over". The way the modern world is going, I'm really beginning to understand exactly how the Soviet Union operated on a political level.

There is nothing you can do to defend yourself against an agency that knows everything you do. What are you supposed to do? Tell them no and hope they play nice?

I've said it once and I'll say it again. "Enemy of the State" is a movie that gets more scarier and more precient with each passing year. It's only a matter of time until a senator really is outright murdered.