Today's Internets - "It’s time to call the N.S.A.’s mass surveillance programs what they are: criminal."

The Criminal N.S.A. - NYTimes.com: 

"The Fourth Amendment obliges the government to demonstrate probable cause before conducting invasive surveillance. There is simply no precedent under the Constitution for the government’s seizing such vast amounts of revealing data on innocent Americans’ communications. The government has made a mockery of that protection by relying on select Supreme Court cases, decided before the era of the public Internet and cellphones, to argue that citizens have no expectation of privacy in either phone metadata or in e-mails or other private electronic messages that it stores with third parties.

This hairsplitting is inimical to privacy and contrary to what at least five justices ruled just last year in a case called United States v. Jones. One of the most conservative justices on the Court, Samuel A. Alito Jr., wrote that where even public information about individuals is monitored over the long term, at some point, government crosses a line and must comply with the protections of the Fourth Amendment. That principle is, if anything, even more true for Americans’ sensitive nonpublic information like phone metadata and social networking activity. 

We may never know all the details of the mass surveillance programs, but we know this: The administration has justified them through abuse of language, intentional evasion of statutory protections, secret, unreviewable investigative procedures and constitutional arguments that make a mockery of the government’s professed concern with protecting Americans’ privacy. It’s time to call the N.S.A.’s mass surveillance programs what they are: criminal."

Soviet Hybrid Entertainment — Big Damn Heroes:

The Heart of the Matter: Fetishizing Secrecy: 

"I started thinking about this earlier this month, when Edward Snowden blew the whistle on the NSA's illegal domestic spying operation.  I was struck by how many people describing something that's not much more than a bulked-up non disclosure agreement spoke of some sacred secrecy "oath."  The meme has really taken hold -- Director of Central Intelligence John Brennan is now explicitly demanding that CIA employees "Honor The Oath," thereby implying that a secrecy agreement is of significance equal to a CIA employee's (actual) oath to protect and defend the Constitution.  Doubtless many journalists will uncritically regurgitate Brennan's terminology, never pausing to consider whether there even is such a secrecy "oath," or whether it should be treated as remotely important as an oath to protect and defend the Constitution.

And then I read about Obama's Insider Threat Program, his policy for getting all government employees to inform on each other and equating all leaks with aiding and abetting enemies.  Here, see for yourself how insane and Stazi-like this initiative really is.  It almost reads like a parody.  But it isn't.  It's the behavior of a paranoid government that has become psychologically obsessed with the value of the secrets it hoards.  And what's at least as disturbing as the program itself is how little attention it's gotten in the press or among the public.  Again, too many Americans have come to accept that massive secrecy isn't just normal, but in fact desirable.

It isn't.  Secrecy is not one of the primary pillars of the strength of a democracy.  Fetishizing the importance of secrecy at the expense of a focus on the Constitution, the rule of law, and transparency is like thinking your overall health is determined more by how much coffee you can consume than it is by food, water, and exercise. Secrecy is fundamentally antithetical to democracy and should be treated with great suspicion.  Small amounts are a necessary evil.  Beyond that, it is poison.  And we have become addicted to it.  Our addiction has made us lose sight of what really makes us strong:  the Constitution; and just and sane policies; and our commitment to being a good nation instead of a priapic obsession with being a Great one.  East Germany relied on secrecy for its strength.  So did Communist Russia.  Do want to use those states as role models?  Is it not obvious that America would be stronger with less secrecy, not with more?"

Happy Endings Now Legal In China | What Would Tyler Durden Do: 

"The Chinese government has decided that happy endings at massage parlors aren’t prostitution and are therefor legal. I was surprised it was against the law as the happy ending is one of China’s most beloved cultural exports. The court said that jerking someone off is not sex, it’s just another muscle that needs a healthy rubdown. They also said “breast massages” were OK. That’s not a woman having her boobs fondled but rather a chick using her boobs to give the man “release”. This is pretty progressive for the fucked-up draconian Chinese communist system that pretty much outlawed fun in 1945. Obviously, like a lot of things, this is just another concession to the almighty altar of capitalism. "

Anti-Aging Posture - Natural Posture Solutions: 

"We tend to think that rounded backs are an inevitable feature of aging and that everyone, if they live long enough, will eventually crumble. Such shrinking collapse is actually the result of decades of misaligned bones. People who are supported by aligned bones remain tall and upright and enjoy elongated spines and easy flexibility for an entire lifetime. " 

Hey, MSM: All Journalism is Advocacy Journalism | Matt Taibbi | Rolling Stone: 

"All journalism is advocacy journalism. No matter how it's presented, every report by every reporter advances someone's point of view. The advocacy can be hidden, as it is in the monotone narration of a news anchor for a big network like CBS or NBC (where the biases of advertisers and corporate backers like GE are disguised in a thousand subtle ways), or it can be out in the open, as it proudly is with Greenwald, or graspingly with Sorkin, or institutionally with a company like Fox.

But to pretend there's such a thing as journalism without advocacy is just silly; nobody in this business really takes that concept seriously. "Objectivity" is a fairy tale invented purely for the consumption of the credulous public, sort of like the Santa Claus myth. Obviously, journalists can strive to be balanced and objective, but that's all it is, striving...

The truly scary thing about all of this is that we're living in an age where some very strange decisions are being made about who deserves rights, and who doesn't. Someone shooting at an American soldier in Afghanistan (or who is even alleged to have done so) isn't really a soldier, and therefore isn't really protected by the Geneva Conventions, and therefore can be whisked away for life to some extralegal detention center. We can kill some Americans by drone attacks without trial because they'd ceased to have rights once they become enemy combatants, a determination made not collectively but by some Star Chamber somewhere."

Parks and Recreation • We’re out of Snake Juice so here’s your new...: