I wish I could remember where I saw that. Some apologist for NSA hoovering up everyone’s meta data, said the government wasn’t really spying on everyone. All they collected “was just a bunch of numbers”.

Why don’t we just publish all of his tax returns, after all they’re “just a bunch of numbers” including the Social Security Account Number, bank account numbers, and telephone numbers. If a “bunch of numbers” aren’t important, why does the RIAA get to sue people for copying songs, because they are “just a bunch of numbers” on a computer or CD.

Everything stored on a computer is “just a bunch of numbers”, which why they are called “digital”, and there are actually only two numbers involved – One and Zero. This entire web page, text, pictures, graphics, all of it is a collection of Ones and Zeros. Movies on DVD are One and Zeros. If they record your telephone conversations, they’ll be stored as Ones and Zeros, as will any video they take.

BTW, since I created some of the numbers they are sucking up, they are infringing on my copyright.

So while you are looking at the features available from PGP and Tor, I’ve been reading all of the lies from public officials like General Keith ‘Empire builder’ Alexander, and the retiring FBI director, Robert Mueller. They have the same credibility as the Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, who point blank lied to Congress about this mess.

Senators Ron Wyden and Mark Udall having been trying to warn people about this for a very long time, but couldn’t tell people what was bothering them because it was classified.

Look, Obama established the level of trust he is due on this issue before he was President. He said he would vote against a law that gave retroactive immunity to telecom companies for cooperating in the Shrubbery’s warrantless wire-tapping schemes. He turned around and voted for it. He has no credibility on this. He clearly demonstrated that he can’t be trusted.

If you were wondering why the slide show was classified “No foreign dissemination”, the reaction of the European Union to these programs should give you a hint – they are livid.

If you would like a collection of some different opinions on the revelations of Edward Snowden, go to Naked Capitalism and read Top National Security Experts: Spying Program Doesn’t Make Us Safer, and Spying Leaks Don’t Harm America.

Richard Clarke was the guy who tried to convince the Shrubbery and MS Rice that Osama bin Laden was a threat, and the only member of that administration to apologize for the failure to stop the attack.

Congresscritter Jim Sensenbrenner, the author of the PATRIOT Act said that section 215 was drafted to prevent data mining, not allow it.

William Binney, former head of NSA’s global digital data gathering agrees with Badtux and me about what they are doing, and adds some details that make it even more explicit that they are using it to go after ‘enemies of the state’, not terrorists.

Thomas Drake was an earlier NSA whistleblower whose post on this issue, Snowden saw what I saw: surveillance criminally subverting the constitution, is worth a read, even though it is extensively quoted at Naked Capitalism.

NTodd notes that the Postal Service doesn’t spy on you. Maybe this is a conspiracy to have everyone go back to using first class mail?

[Full disclosure – Thomas Drake did in RC-135s, what I was doing in RC-130s in that area ten years earlier. I was also in RC-135s, but in different areas. We weren’t called crypto-linguists, but then they kept classifying our job title as being too descriptive, and changing it.]

Adopted as the flag of the United States of America by the Flag Resolution of 1777 enacted on 14 June, 1777.

The flag was first flown from Fort Stanwix, on the site of the present city of Rome, New York, on August 3, 1777. It was first under fire three days later in the Battle of Oriskany, August 6, 1777.

An official flag has a rise to run ratio of 1 to 1.9 [the flag should be 1.9 times as long as it is high] with the canton [the dark blue part] that rises over the top seven stripes with a run of 40% of the flag’s run.

The only time you will see a “correct” US Flag is if you see the official colors of a military unit. Most flags are 3’X5′ or 4’X6′ instead of 3’X5.7′ or 4’X7.6′.

Frances Bellamy, the Baptist minister and socialist who wrote the Pledge of Allegiance was from Rome, New York.

No Respect

Hee…Hee…Hee…

[Editor: JR pulled a fast one on me, turning his back when I hit the shutter. I ignored it as I thought I had an nice shot of the Hermit, but the light conditions slowed down the shutter and I blurred the shot.]

Friday Ark