From the NYTimes:

Lavabit, a Texas-based service that was reportedly used by Edward J. Snowden, the leaker who had worked as a National Security Agency contractor, announced the suspension of its service Thursday afternoon. In a blog post, the company's owner, Ladar Levison, suggested -- though did not say explicitly -- that he had received a secret search order, and was choosing to shut the service to avoid being "complicit in crimes against the American people."

Within hours, a fast-growing Maryland-based start-up called Silent Circle also closed its e-mail service and destroyed its e-mail servers. The company said it saw the writing on the wall...

Years before anyone had ever heard of him The Band did a song about him...

It makes no difference how far I go
Like a scar, the hurt will always show
And it makes no difference who I meet
They're just a face in the crowd on a dead-end street

And the sun don't shine anymore
And the rains fall down on my door
[...]
Without your love, I'm nothing at all
Like an empty hall, it's a lonely fall
Since you've gone it's a losing battle
Stampeding cattle, they rattle the walls

And the sun don't shine anymore
And the rains fall down on my door

Mike Masnick, founder and CEO of Floor64 and editor of the Techdirt blog, in his comments Friday on obama's presser states the obvious that obama and his apologists appear incapable of grasping:

"[obama's] comments represent a fundamental misunderstanding of why the public doesn't trust the government. That's because he keeps insisting that the program isn't being abused and that all of this collection is legal. But, really, that's not what the concern is about. Even though we actually know that the NSA has a history of abuse (and other parts of the intelligence community before that), a major concern is that scooping up so much data is considered legal in the first place."

Vol. 93
Vol. 92

Have a great Saturday, my friends. Probably be lucky if the sun shines here. Oh well.

AN AXE LENGTH AWAY (a free comic a day, at least for now)

I know that one question that's been raised is, how do we approach the Olympics? I want to just make very clear right now, I do not think it's appropriate to boycott the Olympics. We've got a bunch of Americans out there who are training hard, who are doing everything they can to succeed. Nobody's more offended than me by some of the anti-gay and lesbian legislation that you've been seeing in Russia...

And one of the things I'm really looking forward to is maybe some gay and lesbian athletes bringing home the gold or silver or bronze, which I think would go a long way in rejecting the kind of attitudes that we're seeing there. And if Russia doesn't have gay or lesbian athletes, then that would probably make their team weaker.

And, it is encouraging that he is calling for spying "reforms" despite his telling a late-night comedian that "there is no spying on Americans."   However, it will take more than a good speech and some tweaking around the edges to assure me that the government has done its kitchen chores properly.  We may want a government that listens to all Americans, but not in the way it seems to be doing.  

Moreover, it seems curious that the president's recognition of the need for "reform" to any extent has caused ire at Edward Snowden's leaks at such a disproportionate level so as to jeopardize international relations.  

Opposition to a boycott of the Olympics does not seem to be modeled well by the president's own boycott of a private meeting with Putin two days after a group meeting with him.  Russia is more than Putin and, certainly, more than Snowden.  The relationships are critical--we are on pins and needles that Iran might get a nuclear weapon; we are concerned that North Korea has prematurely exploding missiles, but we seem to overlook that Russia has over 1500 decaying nuclear weapons.

We strive to achieve [our mandate] through a system that is carefully designed to be consistent with Authorities and Controls and enabled by capabilities that allow us to Collect, Analyze, and Report intelligence needed to protect national security.

As always, the NSA goes back to its authority rather than what it's actually doing and what its abilities are.

This process will often involve the collection of communications metadata -- data that helps NSA understand where to find valid foreign intelligence information needed to protect U.S. national security interests in a large and complicated global network. For instance, the collection of overseas communications metadata associated with telephone calls -- such as the telephone numbers, and time and duration of calls -- allows NSA to map communications between terrorists and their associates.

Well, yes, and also map out communications between everyone else. But, here's where the NSA has some fun. They claim that collecting all that metadata is actually good for American's privacy because by using it to map out networks among real terrorists it means they don't actually go after your stuff:

This strategy helps ensure that NSA's collection of communications content is more precisely focused on only those targets necessary to respond to identified foreign intelligence requirements.

Did you catch that? They only spy on all of us so they know how to avoid spying on all of us.

Burglars Return Stolen Computers To Nonprofit With Heartfelt Apology Note

When burglars in San Bernardino County, Calif., realized the computers they'd stolen were from a nonprofit that helps victims of sexual violence, they returned them -- along with an apology note that may restore your faith in humanity.
....
All my stuff was in front of the door," she told the station. "There was a shopping cart, and there were the PCs that were taken, there was the laptop. Everything was there."

In that laptop, an investigator discovered the note. It read:

We had no idea what we were takeing [sic]. Here your stuff back. We hope that you guys can continue to make a difference in peoples [sic] live. God bless.

Here's # 1. Click the link to read all 10 - it's worth it...

1. The government says that they need everyone's phone records because they want to see who calls known overseas terrorists from the US. But if the NSA had a telephone number of a terrorist abroad and wanted to see if it was called from the US, why couldn't it just ask the telephone company for the record of everyone who called it? It isn't true that it would take too much time. It would be instant. Obviously, the government wants the telephone records of millions of Americans for some other reason.

A popular singing duo who also displayed an additional flair for comedy, Steve & Eydie were a regular staple of television variety shows throughout the 1950s, '60s and '70s. In later years, as their TV appearances dwindled with the eclipse of the variety show format, they took their show on the road, and proved quite popular on the concert hall circuit with older audience members and baby boomers alike.

I think a big part of the couple's enduring appeal was that they always showed tremendous affection for one another, were genuinely appreciative of their audiences, and never pretended to be anything other than what they were, which was essentially a good nightclub act. They were certainly not above lampooning their own lounge-act image in self-deprecating fashion, per their 1997 cover of Soundgarden's "Black Hole Sun" on the offbeat "Lounge-A-Palooza" album.

He turned down the notion, originally pushed by Lindsay Graham, that the US boycott the 2014 Olympic Games as a retaliation for the granting of temporary asylum to Edward Snowden.

The fact that Putin signed a controversial law essentially outlawing public displays of homosexuality in Russia had added fuel to the fire - although not from the Russian gay and lesbian community which urged the participants to use the games to "speak out, not walk out".

In turning down the idea of a boycott, Obama correctly talked of the impact a boycott would have on the American women and men who train so diligently for this event.

Unhappy with the terms of an unsolicited credit card offer he received from online bank Tinkoff Credit Systems, Agarkov scanned the document, wrote in his own terms and sent it through. The bank approved the contract without reading the amended fine print, unwittingly agreeing to a 0 percent interest rate, unlimited credit and no fees, as well as a stipulation that the bank pay steep fines for changing or canceling the contract.

Agarkov used the card for two years, but the bank ultimately canceled it and sued Agarkov for $1,363. The bank said he owed them charges, interest and late-payment fees. A court ruled that, because of the no-fee, no-interest stipulation Agarkov had written in, he owed only his unpaid $575 balance. Now Agarkov is suing the bank for $727,000 for not honoring the contract's terms, and the bank is hollering fraud

And links to all of last week's comics, in case you missed any.

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Vol. 89

"The crucial intercept that prompted the U.S. government to close embassies in 22 countries was a conference call between al Qaeda's senior leaders and representatives of several of the group's affiliates throughout the region.

The intercept provided the U.S. intelligence community with a rare glimpse into how al Qaeda's leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, manages a global organization that includes affiliates in Africa, the Middle East, and southwest and southeast Asia."*

Three government officials leaked some very serious information to The Daily Beast about a massive conference call between al Qaeda leaders all over the world. This information is very sensitive, and effectively burns a crucial intelligence resource for us (at the very least), so why doesn't the Obama administration care? Why are Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning being hounded and punished for far less sensitive information? Cenk Uygur breaks down the ridiculous double standard.

This was serious stuff. So to be on the safe side, to err on the side of caution as it were, to justify the existence of the massive ubiquitous global spying apparatus directed at monitoring YOU, the obama administration closed US embassies all over the middle east.

I am not fond of the President's "maybe"s.  Taking the human element out of the equation is the answer.  Just do it...

...maybe we can embed technologies in there that prevent the snooping regardless of what government wants to do. I mean, there may be some technological fixes that provide another layer of assurance.

Wonder how its going to go, sign ordinance vs political free speech.

Cate Blanchette is simply astonishing as the title character, a snobbish Wall Street wife who loses everything when her husband is convicted of criminal financial chicanery, and whose insufferable pretentions of her former life subsequently collide head-on with the blunt realities of her newly-imposed living situation in working class San Francisco. If she doesn't earn an Oscar nomination for her performance I'll be equally surprised.