Oh Jesus. Caldera... That was my first 'fulltime' distro and I had almost forgotten it existed.

A single tear fell from my eyes while reading this. I am the 'short bursts of massive productivity' type of person and I try to keep those bursts confined to business hours. I have often had co-workers who are doing the same amount of work in 16 hour shifts get praise for being dedicated, when they are just slow and make so many mistakes they spend half the day correcting them. Give me goals. Give me deadlines. Go away.

I am not shocked, nor do I believe this is anything new. That has nothing to do with the original comment or my reply to your comment. Shall we try to stay on topic?
Your claim was that the 'poiliticians and spooks' are better equipped to decide what is of national interest than a citizen. I disagree strongly. It should be obvious with very little research to see that I am not alone in thinking that those same politicians and spooks are not working for you, but against you.

No, the poster above probably is referring to people who are actively (see a common root there) working against the actions of their representatives. I understand that your own government using the same tactics as these regimes you seem to despise so much against their own citizenry is causing you to have some mental stability issues, but that doesn't mean the rest of us are as confused.
Your government is treating your citizens as enemies. Defend them all you like, most of your countrymen do not agree with you.

And that contrasts so starkly with your presumably more intelligent belief that the "politicians and spooks" have anything but their own interests at heart. No, wait, it doesn't.

What is in the national interest at this point would be alloying the citizens which make up the nation to know what shady garbage their representatives up in the high castle are shovelling down their throats daily.
Some operative words there in case your fox news filter hasn't added them as talking points yet:
Citizens make a nation
Politicians are supposed to represent those citizens
What is in the national interest is EXACTLY what is of interest to the citizens

Your government officials are not acting as representatives, but as babysitters. Babysitters who are minding functionally retarded children.
In your case they might be on the right track.

Point form for easy digestion (and rebuttals)

• 1, Many employers no longer accept hardcopy applications, they instead point you at a webform.
• 2, Many rural high school students have no access to (outdated) encyclopedias outside of school hours, yet are required to do research during homework.
• 3, Many college professors post their lectures online with notes, and these are not available offline.
• 4, Much of our modern social interaction is done online rather than by phone or face to face
• 5, Self improvement is made almost trivial if you have internet access.
• 6, More progressive countries have already declared internet access a basic human right.

I believe this might be enough to convince you if you are willing to put some thought into it.
If, however, you are not willing to actually think about it without yelling about lawns and the good ol' days when kids stayed off them, then there is nothing we can do to convince you.
Lots of people get by without flush toilets and electric lights, this does not mean we are not in need of ubiquitous sewer and electric systems.

I would like to see some citations of Canada buying any 'resources' from the loonies (cwutididthar?) down south. Last I checked. the USA generally buys oil, water, electricity, meat, grain, and lumber from up north, not the other way around. You stopped being a an exporter of resources many many moons ago.

Karma be damned... Die in a fire you rotten piece of shit.

You win. and you have also been eaten by a grue.

they often have business objectives to worry about that are more important than making sure the security is top notch.

WTF?? so you are saying they have stuff like acquiring information and goods to do. which will make them money. and they don't have time to ensure this information is safe?
I have a diamond operation. i'm way too busy pulling diamonds out of the ground to hire a security force at my diamond storage facility.