Edward Snowden Is a National Hero: The former NSA contractor revealed yet another way the US government is secretly spying on its civilians—breaking our encryption while leading us to believe they’re not:
The agency has circumvented or cracked much of the encryption, or digital scrambling, that guards global commerce and banking systems, protects sensitive data like trade secrets and medical records, and automatically secures the e-mails, Web searches, Internet chats and phone calls of Americans and others around the world, the documents show.
Many users assume — or have been assured by Internet companies — that their data is safe from prying eyes, including those of the government, and the N.S.A. wants to keep it that way. The agency treats its recent successes in deciphering protected information as among its most closely guarded secrets, restricted to those cleared for a highly classified program code-named Bullrun, according to the documents, provided by Edward J. Snowden, the former N.S.A. contractor.
God bless that man.
And Now, a Very Technical Analysis of What This All Means: The Cryptographic Engineering blog rips it apart.
Obama Will Ask the Nation to Kill Syrians: After confronting a logjam at the G20 Summit in Russia, the president will make a televised appeal to Americans next Tuesday to support bombing Syria as means to punish President Bashar al-Assad for allegedly using chemical weapons to kill nearly 1,500 civilians. He’ll need popular support, it seems; inside the Beltway, skeptics think Obama would lose big in the House of Representatives.
Unemployment Is Down a Tick: But parsing the data should be left to people who make bar graphs. And what those bar graph makers say is that “the share of young people working—especially in their late teens, but up until their mid-20s too—is down pretty dramatically.”
A Weak Economy? Blame the stalling porn studios.
What Say You, Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell? Even Republican John McCain is legalizing pot. Are our senators in the same boat?
Well, Senators? Even our sheriff is doing it.
A Man Circumnavigated Manhattan in 24 Minutes: The driver posted video on YouTube—because!!—and now police say they’ve identified him.
The Weather Is Supposed to Be Nice This Weekend: Next week also looks bloody glorious.
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