NSA

From the New York Times (published on March 27, 1983):
No laws define the limits of the N.S.A.'s power. No Congressional committee subjects the agency's budget to a systematic, informed and skeptical review. With unknown billions of Federal dollars, the agency purchases the most sophisticated communications and computer equipment in the world. But truly to comprehend the growing reach of this formidable organization, it is necessary to recall once again how the computers that power the N.S.A. are also gradually changing lives of Americans - the way they bank, obtain benefits from the Government and communicate with family and friends.

I started this blog in 1996. Long before the term "blog" or "blogging" or "web log" had even been coined. I threw it away several times, and started over, most of the time due to either disk crashes, server moves, or incompatible CMS upgrades. Eventually I gave up. I didn't take it seriously. Then Facebook came along, and I put pithy, mostly idiotic, observations on there, hidden behind my wall of "friends".

Apparently, Facebook is now big enough to play in the big leagues and the consequences are becoming more and more apparent every day. There's been a lot of fallout since Edward Snowden came forward with new revelations about the NSA, which includes Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, and others, handing over data. Unfortunately, we've seen a number of web sites and services disappear as a result.