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Their best examples from the program include catching a taxi driver that sent $5000 to Somalia for terrorist activities. In terms of results, the programs suck.

It's not really about terrorism, it's about control.

Apollo 10 Official Transcripts.

Stafford: "Oh -- Who did it?"

Young and Cernan: "Who did what?"

Cernan: "Where did that come from?"

Stafford: "Get me a napkin quick. There's a turd floating through the air."

Young: "I didn't do it. It ain't one of mine."

Cernan: "I don't think it's one of mine."

Stafford: "Mine was a little more sticky than that. Throw that away."

Young: "God Almighty"

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A separate incident.

Cernan: "Here's another goddam turd. What's the matter with you guys? Here, give me a --" (laughter from Young and Stafford)

Stafford: "It was just floating around?"

Cernan: "Yes."

Stafford (laughing): "Mine was stickier than that."

Young: "Mine was too. It hit that bag --"

Cernan: "I don't know whose that is. I can neither claim it nor disclaim it (laughter)."

Young: "What the hell is going on here?"

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Official Nasa Source of these transcripts....

http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/history/mission_trans/AS10_CM.PDF

The furthest a 3rd Amendment issue has gone is the Court of Appeals 2nd Circuit, the Supreme Court has never ruled on a case.

The story you linked to has all sorts of constitutional violations in it, but it's going to be hard on the 3rd, because the agents were state police and not federal soldiers.

• No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law

A very large barrier to entry, however in that one case they said about National Guardsman... "we agree with the district court that the Third Amendment is incorporated into the Fourteenth Amendment for application to the states."

It's going to be an awesome case.

I'm not studying physics, but I have what might be considered a good analogy - please people correct me if I'm wrong.

Imagine you have two galaxies, A and B, with a distance of 1000 light years between them. Now imagine each lightyear³ is surrounded by chicken wire - basically an empty box of "space" but this helps you to visualize.

You now have 1000 chicken wire boxes that fit between the two galaxies, the expansion of space is like someone shoving more chicken wire boxes in between, thus making the galaxies spread further apart. Ie they have just added more "space".

The universe is thus becoming less dense, and the big bang wasn't a traditional explosion because the only thing that changed was more empty boxes were added between all the matter. This is why the universe is cooling - there is the same amount of matter, but it has larger gaps, and those gaps are continuously getting bigger.

This is what is so perplexing - without doing anything there are suddenly larger and larger gaps between everyone, and the further away you are - the amount of boxes added actually accelerates! These boxes of empty space can be added faster than the speed of light.

I strongly disagree with your assessment on Clapper's questioning, I feel that your response about being trapped between two oaths is disingenuous.

Clapper and his staff were given the questions 1 week before the hearing. That gave him adequate time to prepare a response that didn't include lying to the american people. The appropriate response without oath breaking, is "I am not able to talk about any specific NSA techniques publicly, but I'm happy to do so in a closed hearing".

The fact that Clapper chose to lie, to me indicates that he was trying to refute evidence brought by witnesses/whistleblowers about the programs. At the time, there were serious questions in court cases about specific surveillance, and some of the victims of the Espionage Act charges were appearing in court and making statements to the press.

I'm sure you're a nice guy, and I don't have anything against particular NSA operatives, but it sounds to me like you don't have the ability criticize your previous employer. There are some genuinely shocking revelations coming out. Even Edward Snowden believes in the NSA, just not the way they are going about things. It's ok to support them, but if you have nothing to criticize, it's a worry.

The last thing, IMO, we need is more NSA apologists.