Something to Know - 6 July

1.  As talking about spying on ourselves, countries spying on other countries, and all thing spying turns into daily blogs and discussions, we do learn that all that stuff has been around a long time, and that there is a culture of a cottage industry spying that is as normal as the rising and setting of the sun.  So, what does that all prove, and what have we become?:

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2013/07/nsa-costly-european-adventure.html?mbid=nl_Daily%20(279)

2.  From the Albany News Bureau, we have a SF Chronicle story that kind of borrows from the line yesterday about how big corporate money drives the national dialogue - Subject being invasion of privacy and spying:

http://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/article/How-cash-rules-surveillance-policy-4647678.php?t=7d0934b51b

3.  Where Representative Darrell Issa stuck his crooked nose into something to create his own snarky weeks of fame, it turns out that his ill-founded conclusions are now being swept quietly away as his evidence that the behavior of the IRS showed no bias.  About all it did was to show that the Supreme Court ruling on Citizens United created a situation with no defined structure of law for the IRS to follow, and bureaucrats trying to do their job tried to do the best they could:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/05/us/politics/irs-scrutiny-went-beyond-the-political.html?pagewanted=2&_r=0&emc=eta1&pagewanted=print

4.  Edward Snowden is a gifted techie who pretty much defined his own job skills and resumé as he went along.   The problem with the NSA or any agency that depends so highly on technologies-on-steroids, is that the managers and supervisors are lacking in those skills, and can be unaware of situations where employee mis-deeds can and do occur.   So, in the race to do the mostest and fastest with the continually evolving abilities of technology, those in command are years behind those they are supervising.  So tonight, Snowden can now choose between Venezuela or Nicaragua to plot his next career path:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/05/us/resume-shows-snowden-honed-hacking-skills.html?emc=eta1&pagewanted=print

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Juan

I love California, I practically grew up in Phoenix. 

-- Dan Quayle