Get Cynical

From Schneier on Security:

Edward Snowden broke the law by releasing classified information. This isn’t under debate; it’s something everyone with a security clearance knows. It’s written in plain English on the documents you have to sign when you get a security clearance, and it’s part of the culture. The law is there for a good reason, and secrecy has an important role in military defense.

But before the Justice Department prosecutes Snowden, there are some other investigations that ought to happen.

We need to determine whether these National Security Agency programs are themselves legal. The administration has successfully barred anyone from bringing a lawsuit challenging these laws, on the grounds of national secrecy. Now that we know those arguments are without merit, it’s time for those court challenges.

It’s clear that some of the NSA programs exposed by Snowden violate the Constitution and others violate existing laws. Other people have an opposite view. The courts need to decide.

We need to determine whether classifying these programs is legal. Keeping things secret from the people is a very dangerous practice in a democracy, and the government is permitted to do so only under very specific circumstances. Reading the documents leaked so far, I don’t see anything that needs to be kept secret. The argument that exposing these documents helps the terrorists doesn’t even pass the laugh test; there’s nothing here that changes anything any potential terrorist would do or not do. But in any case, now that the documents are public, the courts need to rule on the legality of their secrecy.

Oopsie.

Meh.

From Gawker:

Police in Utah say a St. George man charged with raping his unconscious neighbor claimed he put his penis inside her to “save her life.”

“He said he did place it inside of her to try and get her temperature up,” reads the probable cause statement filed against 50-year-old Rodger William Kelly.

When officers arrived at the victim’s house on May 19th, they reportedly found Kelly inside the residence performing CPR.

Kelly told the cops he had spotted woman lying unconscious outside her apartment and proceeded to bring her inside. He then changed her clothes and placed her on the bed.

Kelly says he then held the woman and “attempted intercourse to warm her.”

It is unclear who phoned in the report of an unconscious person that prompted police to visit the residence.

After coming to, the woman told police she believed she had been raped after finding bruising on her upper thighs.

WTF?

From BBC News:

Edward Snowden, 29, checked out from his hotel on Monday. His whereabouts are unknown, but he is believed to be still in Hong Kong.

Earlier, he said he had an “obligation to help free people from oppression”.

It emerged last week that US agencies were gathering millions of phone records and monitoring internet data.

A spokesman for the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence said the case had been referred to the Department of Justice as a criminal matter.
Meanwhile a petition posted on the White House website, calling for Mr Snowden’s immediate pardon, has gathered more than 30,000 signatures.

However an opinion poll commissioned by the Washington Post suggests a majority of Americans think government monitoring of phone records is acceptable if the aim is to fight terrorism.

I may have to raise his grade to a C-:

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration has decided to stop trying to block over-the-counter availability of the best-known morning-after contraceptive pill for all women and girls, a move fraught with political repercussions for President Obama.

The government’s decision means that any woman or girl will soon be able to walk into a drugstore and buy the pill, Plan B One-Step, without a prescription.

The Justice Department had been fighting to prevent that outcome, but said late Monday afternoon that it would accept its losses in recent court rulings and begin putting into effect a judge’s order to have the Food and Drug Administration certify the drug for nonprescription use. In a letter to Judge Edward R. Korman of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, the administration said it would comply with his demands.

The Justice Department appears to have concluded that it might lose its case with the appeals court and would have to decide whether to appeal to the Supreme Court. That would drastically elevate the debate over the politically delicate issue for Mr. Obama.

A single serving Tumblr.

I have no idea who Ciara is but this is just funny:

Ciara’s performance at LA Pride did not go as planned last night … because she was served with legal papers right in the middle of her show!

As TMZ first reported … Hit Factory, a popular West Hollywood club, sued the singer for bailing on a performance scheduled for Friday night. Ciara’s people maintain they informed the club she could not be there, but they continued to promote her appearance anyway.

Since the club people knew exactly where Ciara was going to be Saturday night, they sent their process server right up to the stage to hand her the papers … which she quickly tossed back.

But it makes an excellent point either way.

(via Samo Tako)