Close the NSA ?

The latest moral crisis to ruffle the feathers of both the common man and celebrities is the recent leaks regarding the NSA’s surveillance programs. Under Section 215 of the Patriot Act, the agency is given the power to collect Americans’ phone metadata in bulk, and not even the rich and powerful are immune.
Read more at: http://www.webpronews.com/now-celebrities-are-even-coming-out-against-the-nsa-2013-10

We already know that the NSA has seriously mishandled stuff they are collecting.

We should NEVER trust the federal government to do what they say.

Spying on Flyers

Security check now starts long before you fly. “The Transportation Security Administration is expanding its screening of passengers before they arrive at the airport by searching a wide array of government and private databases that can include records like car registrations and employment information,” according to the New York Times. “While the agency says that the goal is to streamline the security procedures for millions of passengers who pose no risk, the new measures give the government greater authority to use travelers’ data for domestic airport screenings. Previously that level of scrutiny applied only to individuals entering the United States.”

Read the full story at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/10/23/switchboard-tsa-starts-snooping-on-us-long-before-we-get-to-the-airport/?tid=up_next

Why do I feel less secure as a citizen of America by this news???

They creep up on you very slowly.  If you fly, you and your consolidated history are now in the federal governments databases.

“Show me your papers citizen, wait, never mind, we have them on the computer.”

Where do you think all this will lead??

Saturated Fat May Be Good For You

British cardiologist Aseem Malhotra writes in a stinging “Observations” column in the British Medical Journal):

Virtually all the truths about preventing heart attacks that physicians and patients have held dear for more than a generation are wrong and need to be abandoned, Malhotra writes. He musters a passel of recent research that suggests that the “obsession” with lowering a patients’ total cholesterol with statins, and a public health message that has made all sources of saturated fat verboten to the health-conscious, have failed to reduce heart disease.

Read full article: http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-saturated-fat-20131022,0,2193813.story#axzz2ih8cPDPA

What is one to believe nowadays?  What I take away from this is to take medical advice with a small dose of skepticism.

Electronic Surveillance is Everywhere

We live in the golden era of surveillance; every phone is designed to be tapped, the Internet passes through snooping equipment of agencies that are so vast and unaccountable that we hardly know their bounds. Corporations are forced (though some are willing enough!) to hand over our data and data of those whom we love. Our lives are ruled by networks and yet those networks are not ruled by our consent. These networks keep us hooked up but it is not without costs that they keep us hooked together. The businesses, the governments, and the individuals that power those networks are incentivized to spy, to betray and to do it silently. The architecture of the very systems produces these outcomes.—This is tyranny.

http://craphound.com/homeland/Cory_Doctorow_-_Homeland.pdf

The Most Honest Three Minutes …

The Most Honest Three Minutes In Television History

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ML3qYHWRIZk

Jeff  Daniels

Extreme caution: there is VERY STRONG language in this video from YouTube