... the big banks are. Because they don't? Did we forget about HBSC that was too big to be brought to justice? Banks just know how to hide their ugly business better.

The problem is: these genocidal murderes were not convicted at all. Shoot the messenger.

Well said! (can't vote you up)

Actually, taking just a triffle more time to cook your vegetables instead of using a pressure cooker, gives a much more enjoyable experience.

Fortunately we are going to war, so our attention will be drawn away from all this constitutional/human rights chatter.

If you are talking about the American people: NO

If you are talking about the people that really control America: YES.

But actually, I'm bitter about ALL the countries that have these kinds of operations.

Democracy is based on well-informed decisions. Democracy is based on accountability. Democracy is based on freedom and thus privacy. In the whole western world, democracy is broken down. The news talks about Snowdon and not about what the hell our governments are doing (misinformation). This process of conducting eavesdropping is controlled by secret judges and you are not allowed to know if they tapped on you: zero accountability. When does "disagreeing on the government" start to become "dissident" or "terrorist"?

In Europe we might have a little more control over our governments than in America, but the real big decisions are still made by the (central) banks and multinationals, just like in America. We are supposed to work ourselves to death and to spend money that was never there but created by private, profit-making institutions (I'm talking about the private banks and not central banks).

As a result of the economy that needs continuous expansion (that's a little out of scope here, unfortunately), the western world induces terrorism by its arrogant, greedy and bullying behavior in the non-western world.

When up against such a big army of western allies, the only thing a small and suppressed country can do is terrorism. Almost all the current warlords (presidents, dictators: whatever) were put in place by one of the Western nations. To protect our interests: not those of the people. So most people are pour, badly educated and hate the empirical west for it with good reason. This is an efficient way to create extremism. We feed not people, we give them no knowledge: we feed them conflict and then sell arms to them.

The next step is to make more arms ourselves and deprive our OWN people of privacy, cause they might care. America and the UK are the biggest bullies of them all and blackmail other "allies" to join them.

So basically, I'm pissed with all western nations around the world because the pretend to preach "democracy" but actually are still colonizing the rest of the world, all with little profit for most people. Isn't it strange that production became many times more efficient than the population growth and we have cuts every year and people lose their homes?

And to keep this system of extortion going, we need to be cut off from reliable information, we must think of "them" and "us" and everything you think can and will be used against you.

That is what this about. Not about Snowdon. Not about some European guy complaining about America. It's about the future of mankind as a slave or a free man.

How is this relevant? It is interesting to see how this "they" and "us" thing works. You read an article and decide to pick out a single sentence to dismiss the rest of the article completely. By doing that you completely dismiss the argument that governments are doing the wrong things. It's a very negative and arrogant way of looking at the world. The American people just pick a different issue that eats away their (and others') right, to be indifferent about every year. It's pointless and boring. I love all the people, including the American people. I just hope that people will wake up one day, realising that the American GOVERNMENT is not working on their behalf but on the behalf of the very few very richt. I'm on your side damn it.

You summarized this well, in a way that even sheep should understand ;-)

By continuously shifting the attention away in the media from the human rights violations to what Snowdon is doing now (sitting on an airport) or did (show that the government is acting outside the law) people get bored. And especially since the violations of Americans' own rights is covered by law (that is implemented in a completely unaccountable way, though) the American people forget even more. But the European people - not their politicians, of course - are furious. If one chooses to be a diplomat or a politician, one knows there will be eavesdropping. But when I write a letter to someone, a foreign government that is supposed to be an allie should stay the f**k out of my mail: paper and electronic alike. Of course, I'm also blaming the United Kingdom. The western world induces terrorism itself by performing terrorism in other parts of the world. Conquer and divide. Give them weapons, let them fight each other as long as our companies' interests are ensured. Shoot people on flimsy evedence with a drone, without a trial, in countries we're not at war with. And the bloddy mess (innocent civilians) is a don't care. They are not our boys, but theirs. No wonder people start to fight back. People like Snowdon and Bradley Manning are necessary to show that politicians commit war crimes, blackmail countries and violate every possible law that's about humanity. That is because they act not in our interests (the public, the believed to be free people) but in the interest of big companies. Who also happen to own the media. And there goes your information, your well informed opinion and as a result yout humanity. The trend that you're seeing in this article is indifference. Governments are lobby clubs that lie to their people and allies alike. And they succeed.

Please don't yell on Java but instead yell on the plugin builders and browsers' handling of plugins. Browser application/native plugins are obsolete and inherently unsafe. If a company cannot come up with a decent JavaScript/HTML5 site, preferrably working over SSL, the site is not trustworthy and should not be visited. Java is a very stable and excellent performing language for real applications and specifically server applications. Though Oracle is wokring hard to alienate the Java world...