Ask the average school kid where his or her rights come from, and the majority will respond: "The government."
Try dividing the containers into a larger "Source Code Repository" and a much smaller "Active Codebase"..Syncing only the Active Codebase truecrypt container with Dropbox to reduce sync data payload..
Cody its just fact about the various back-doors. Should we start with skype or the way Microsoft does its licensing?
You are speaking of the real meaning of democracy: Δημοκρατία "rule of the peoples" People are not really aware that a basic 'principle' of our society is compromised. US monopolies and secret services are antidemocratic! Then the school kid should have detention in school. The government is the executive force, not the legislative and not the judicial force. The legislative force belongs to the congress and parliament, the judicial to the courts. But you are right anyway. Most feel the force comes from the control of governments. It actually comes from antidemocratic behaviour.
Hi Yen, I just want to add that in the US, school IS the problem. Schools are controlled by Liberals in the US. Kids are not taught the meaning of the Constitution anymore, therefore they know nothing about what the government is supposed to do. I don't think most kids today even realize that the government works for us, not the other way. We are raising generations of ignorant people in the US, no wonder the government can do everything they want and get away with it. We have become sheep in the USA. Snowden is a hero to a lot of people here!
Bold: To me, too. I had expressed that at my last signature. I don't know details of the political / educational situation in the US. Well the impression that the government doesn't work for the people does it really come from lack of knowledge? Or is it just the way they really behave? I think it is because the people (people's opinions / needs / ideas) are not really represented by the govt anymore. And kids versus 'adult' is a generation problem which is rather a social / cultural than an educational. (I am teaching students every year. I become one year older, but the students are 18-21 years, that gap becomes bigger every year..and the idea that in the past anything had been better comes into the mind). But it is mostly a very personal opinion and each generation is affected in a way. The US politics appeared to me ignorant (my opinion) when they were republican. When they are democratic they seem to be more reasonable. Finally the NSA thing has started with a republican.
USA is a plutocracy, just look at the shutdown! Myrrh explained it properly here: Microsoft et al are part of the Plutocracy, what do you expect them to do ? It sickens me to see the USA become so backward, it has been there in the past but now it's so blatantly exposed that it makes me wonder how come the poorer classes in the USA haven't revolted as yet ?!
The greed for money seems to be legitimate in a democracy, the greed for force by an individual / government / institution is usually called dictatorship which is clearly antidemocratic. Yes Myrrh described it perfectly. What sickens me is that the EU just mimics the US in this regard. Merkel said the secret services acted according to laws. Then I have to say there is something wrong with the laws which is even worse than to have just broken them!
The racist people in the Tea Party took over the House of Representatives, half of our U.S. congress chamber. I guess all the racist people felt like they needed to vote super-anti-Obama people into office. We actually have a partial gov't shutdown right now because of these idiots not funding their own bills to try to stick it to Obama and extort him. They call him all sorts of slanderous things, but it's all just thinly veiled racism. They love to call him a leftist, but the truth is that he is just a centrist. It's like the bad rap that Putin gets. People don't listen to his words. They just post pictures of him without his shirt and mock him. People love making things up without any evidence to prove the contrary. Even people on this board do it a lot. I'm no exception. I get caught up in the moment sometimes and say that I know something is true without actually testing things myself and I have to come back and admit I'm wrong. The problem with the U.S. congress and these privacy issues in general is that they are not grown-up enough to admit when they got caught up in the situation and made a policy mistake.
Example number 1: your statement I consider myself "Tea Party" but racism has nothing to do with it. I don't care about the color of the man's skin. I care about individuals not groups. Individual rights, opportunities and responsibility, and holding government responsible to obey their own laws. You are 100% right on this diagnosis: