Secret laws, secret evidence, it's all unprovable bul**hit.
There really hasn't been a noticable change in the number of 'incidents' after the creation of the NSA to before the creation of the NSA.
Of course the NSA 'claims' they stopped stuff, but they can't tell you what or they'd have to kill you. Yeah, right. Excuse me, the B.S. detector is red-lined and pegging.

Can you trust the NSA? Not in the slightest.
Can you trust Snowden? Unknown, but his 'revelations' have really put the NSA into a frenzy, which if nothing else, indirectly indicates that they feel he is blowing the whistle on them. If they'd have gone a softer route, it would probably indicate that they were just dealing with an inconvenience, but this harder attack by the NSA has the hallmark of a wounded animal. So yes, his information is probably has a definite ring of truth, if not photocopies of it.

If it's true, why is he still alive? First of all, you've been watching too many movies. That's not to say the US hasn't and doesn't have some pet assassins, but let's face it, those are really hard to employ. A bullet to the head is dramatic, but it also causes lots and lots of problems. Then there's the 'accident' rouse. Do that to someone in the spotlight, and everybody screams conspiracy. Again, big hairy problems. On top of that, it's not easy to do that kind of stuff in other countries, especially if the target keeps moving. Ok, it's nigh bloody impossible if you aren't in a war torn nobody cares what you do third world toilet, there, you happy? A far more common, easier, cheaper, and more effective method is discrediting the problem. If you can just convince people that the leak is full it, a publicity seeking whore, or completely nuts, if not all of the above, there's no need to kill anyone.
Now, some of you are still going to obsess on Borne Identity. Sure it's a good movie, but come on. Let's put it this way, in real life, how many thousands of cops are shot in the face when they pull over someone? How close to 100% of the cars involved in a crash explode? How many surprise election results are due to mind control? Just how many of your neighbors have been abducted by aliens? Do you have a gun with a capacity of 6, 10, or 12 rounds that can fire at least 30 shots before reloading?
Hollywood sells stories. The more extreme, dramatic, and exciting it is, the more they like it. They don't portray reality, you have PBS for that, they portray excitement. The real world is really boring, until someone starts shooting at you, then it's so scary you need new undies. So when it comes to what you've seen in movies and tv shows, ignore it, it's about as accurate as a pink magical unicorn offering you his services as a butler.

Do I believe Snowden? Honestly, I want his claims investigated. First, he seems to have a rather broad range of subjects he's been privy too, which seems odd. Second, somebody whacked that hornets nest called the NSA pretty good, so there has to be a stick in there somewhere.
In other words, I'm not going to give him carte blanche, but he's definitely right about something.

They actually tried to claim that SJG was making a handbook for hacking computers. They were referring to the (at that time) upcoming Cyberpunk setting book for G.U.R.P.S. . Yeah, last time I checked, the proper way to steal data was to take your cyberdeck, jack it into your brain, load some ICEbreakers, and cruise cyberspace battling ICE and cracking data nodes. Uh huh. Right up there with the AC unit cooling the room by using demons of perversity to kick the cold atoms into the room and the hot ones out.

I remember logging in the day after the raid. Strange message came up instead of their normal B.B.S. .
Then the stories from SJG about the raid. How the 'agents' ate the teams donuts, and broke open locks with the team standing there with the keys.
It was later found out that the warrant authorizing the raid really shouldn't have been granted in the first place, to put it mildly.

I know SJG has the story on their site. If you're interested, go check it out. I'm sure it's a lot better than my so called memory.
http://sjgames.com/SS/

I am sorry you feel your god is that incompetent.

Not to mention that the developments and data that is made available to the public and private industries by NASA and their space exploration and technology developments are responsible for a not insignificant chunk of the GNP. If it were private industry that were doing that, and they won't due to risk and unquantifiable short term return estimates, they would charge through the nose or hoard all that good stuff for themselves. The net result to the economy and human life would be negligible at best, and compared to our current status quo, a definite negative.

No, it's far better to have this stuff done by the government.

Do you know anywhere in the US where you can rent as well as sell/buy used PC games? Neither do I. I guess Steams lack of those features is rather a moot point, and there are tons of people whining about Steam.

If you're curious, my state passed a law over a decade ago that totally killed PC software rentals and used sales. :(

By the way, the new 'features' of xbox v3 has me totally committed to buying something else, probably a ps4.

I propose that the very attempt to detect it is in fact a form of it.
Especially when the output is, "No, he's being totally serious, really!" :)

I was about to post a snarky reply, but come on, it's so deep around here you can't even scuba dive to the bottom. ;)

And yes, I do know the previous poster just added to the depth. :p

The advertisers want to shove those ads down your throat in a rapid fire super sized orgy of marketing intrusion.
The reason why the ads aren't as bad now is because people rebelled and found ways to kick their asses off the websites.
Then the advertisers found ways around those first restrictions and plastered everyones faces again.
The users again found a way to deal with it.
This back and forth went on many times, and will probably continue for a long time to go.

The "not so bad" ads you see now are the result of this war. Some of the advertisers finally figured out that people do NOT want constant mega in your face advertisements, it just pisses them off to the point where they find a way to get rid of them. Because of that, the advertisers have accepted a reduction of intrusion to a level that will fall below many peoples threshold of bullshit they don't want to see such that they don't bother to take action.
It's like the difference between a fly buzzing in your face and landing on your nose, vs the one flying around down the hallway. Which one are you going to swat? Most people won't even bother with the one down the hall unless they are an obsessed fly killer, or they've finally gotten tired of the last 3 hours of faint buzzing.
The advertisers want to be the fly on your nose, but everybody kills those, so they have no choice but to move out of swatting range if they want to live.

And they are made from GMOs
And were responsible for 9/11
And they shot Kennedy
And they instigated the Sino-Russian war.
And they voted for a presidential candidate in an election
And they ate your chocolate
And they
and ...

I can't think of any more silly excuses today, I've apparently used my entire allotment. :)

For over a year, one companies published tech support number was a phone sex line.
It wasn't the company I worked for, but it was one that I had to send people to several times a month. As soon as we found out, and couldn't get that company to respond to us, we just sent them to that companies website.

As hard as this is for some slashdotters to believe, Microsoft always took care of our calls seriously and forwarded us or our reports to the right people immediately. Things were resolved as fast as could be expected. (Sometimes it takes devs a while to fix a problem, but a website issue was within hours or less.)

Somehow I don't think the Microsoft escapee configured their support links. They only have their own IT to blame for causing the problem, and their customer (dis)service for not promptly contacting IT to get it fixed. (Unless CS did, and IT there was too busy with a circlejerk to do their job.)

Why do you think they'll stop with Apple?
If they win this suit, they will use it as additional ammo for targeting the next big company, and then the next, and so on until there's nothing left worth gunning for that hasn't already paid through the nose. It's the same pattern as all the rest of them use.

And the legal system. (Or whatever you want to call that mess that allows all the stupid, worthless, or frivolous lawsuits.)

Doesn't seem to stop law enforcement these days for everything else, why should this be any different?

Depending on where this has occurred, they may very well be nailed for child support. It has happened with one time that I've heard of, though they weren't famous and it wasn't a clone, just a normal IVF. If I remember right, there was some controversy over the sperm and it not being intended for fertilization purposes.