Well, you claim to denigrate both extremes, but that is not evident. You also seem to be single minded that "conspiracy theorists" are ridiculous due to some certitude that if based on evidence is not noticeable outside of your mind. There is solid proof that the US government as well as other governments and corporations have habitually used propaganda to sway public opinion all the way up to covering illegal misdeeds. Again I point to findings of the US government itself in the Church Committee and the Rockefeller Commission, MKUTLRA being one of the best known examples. Everyone who brought it up was just crazy wacky conspiracy theorist, as a matter of fact people are still accused of being crazy for believing in it 35 years after Congress brought the information out. Somehow though you seem to be trying to force a distinction in, "official propaganda" and "spontaneous informal fanfiction type propaganda blogs" (whatever that is). The only difference that is apparent is that the government has been shown to be lying consistently for decades and the veracity of the "spontaneous" blogs is as yet unproven. So I don't see the logic in your argument, there may be some logic in it, but it is not readily apparent to me. It seems to me that you are simply jumping on the bandwagon of vilifying anyone who questions authority. A case in point is the Osama assassination, anyone who did not accept the official narrative, even though the narrative kept changing was branded a conspiracy theorist, instead of the more apt label of being skeptical of the governments version of events. Lastly many of the crazy wacky conspiracy theories may in fact originate from the government, it was a tactic used in COINTELPRO and Cass Sunstein who is the Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs co-authored a paper detailing a plan to infiltrate conspiracy sites and groups. It is likely that some of the wackiest theories are proposed by independent individuals, but on the face of it we have proof of past behavior and proof of intent on the part of an agency with billions of dollars at their disposal and little oversight. As well the Army recently requested tenders on astroturfing software to allow a single operative to fake many personas. This demonstrates means, motive and opportunity so the idea that some of the line noise is intentional is not far out at all. Lastly you mention places like fox news, "manipulating and fostering these cottage propaganda hobbyists" which maybe true, but ignores the Operation Mockingbird premise and the Army recently admitting to placing their propaganda specialist in major news stations for, "work experience". Again with the consistent track record of the US government one would be foolish not to suspect ulterior motives in these types of actions. So feel free to denigrate those who have a different viewpoint and use magic words to dismiss them outright, freedom of speech and all that.We're going to have to agree to disagree though as I love truth and don't care if the source is "official" or not. I listen to all types of opinions from many different sources and attempt to come to my own conclusions or at least assign rough probabilities so that I may make the judgments necessary to navigate my way through life.

Certainly there are both extremes, as there are extremes at both ends of any spectrum. Notice though how you denigrate one of those extremes and simply note the other. We live in the information age and propaganda is king, this technique of dismissing opposing viewpoints by invoking the magic words, "conspiracy theorist" lowers the level of discourse for all. True discussion does not rely on poisoning the well type techniques, but on the give and take of information judged on it's own merits.

I wish they would let the market operate. Since we can't stop all of this data collection, can I at least offer to sell them all of my information directly? That way I at least get some value back for my life data.

The question is do they pay well?

You know that companies are using astroturfing bots right? So I assume they sometimes get mod points too :-)

You realize IT is not terribly difficult to learn don't you? Why many of us here have been rather accomplished at it since we were children and for most of us that was back when a computer didn't do much until you learned how to tell it to do something (programming). It is a bit complex, but all that means is it takes time to learn, fanatics if nothing else have lots of dedication. This shouldn't be news for you, many of our largest companies have IT personnel, CFOs, CEOs and so on that will do anything for money. It's not that uncommon in business, there have been many books and articles on the subject. Lastly the idea that Bin Laden and his entire organization are "rabid religious extremists who reject all modern ideas" is blatant propaganda. He himself was an educated man as were / are many others in the group. Just because someone is an enemy doesn't mean they cannot be skilled and accomplished. Underestimating an enemy historically has not worked out so well for those foolhardy enough to make that mistake.

You've got that backwards. Theatre revenues have been drying up due to crap offerings, horrible visual / audio experience, inconvenience and high prices. The solution is not to stop technological progress or force everyone to stick with the old inefficient (but profitable) distribution method. If the existing MPAA companies cannot adapt to providing quality products at the convenience / price point that the market will bear, some other company will. When the dinosaurs died off the little furry guys moved in and have done fairly well.

Sssshh! If they announce that new "feature" it's all you buddy.

No you cannot.

There is a huge difference between retaining headers and urls which simply requires storing a copy and mining the traffic for data. While both are pretty stupid, they are not the same.

You seem to have trouble with the concept so I'll help out. Paziek was using the scenario of a physical invasion of privacy to illustrate the problem with letting providers invade the privacy of online communications. I will assume you have a problem with the stark symbolism that paziek used as that is the only reason I can see for your personal attack. However some people online seem to have a problem understanding abstract concepts and it is often safer to use very strong examples to avoid confusion. Please correct me if I am wrong paziek.

What makes you assume that a man with millions of dollars at his disposal cannot hire whatever IT services he desires? Even if you limit the possible pool to Arabic IT professionals you are dealing with a large group of people. Is it so hard to believe that at least one of them either shares his ideology or doesn't care and just wants the money? As you see everyday in the news, there are always people willing to do anything for money. There are probably more than a handful of Americans who would have taken the job, with 300 million people it would be darn near a certainty.

I'll just leave this here http://www.americasarmy.com/

I have not had to deal with this "feature" so I do not know first hand. However if AC is correct it is asking you to verify your account which is not strictly truthful. Maybe the message could be slightly more verbose to eliminate the misunderstanding, usually the key is to keep information and instructions a brief as possible due to the well known user stupidity effect, but that doesn't fit every case. The potential for abuse by Google of personal information is enough of an issue that Google cannot simply not misuse personal information, it has to be seen to not misuse personal information.

Of course this is necessary, hospital examinations are expensive and you just know there are freeloaders who purchase cheap tickets and act all suspicious in order to qualify for the free hospital exam paid for by Uncle Sam. Now if the high-school drop out that is running the "scanner" sees a mass, he won't know that it's a tumor and the freeloader doesn't get something for nothing.