jdgalt

I'm not sure if by "root cert structure" you mean SSL or DNS, but yes to both.

There are hundreds of SSL "cert authorities" and any of them can create an "official" cert for (to use an example) YourBank.com, thus allowing them to listen in as man-in-the-middle when you use https: to login to your bank. Many countries hostile to us are on the list of "cert authorities" as well as many large corporations. (If your company has a firewall, they almost certainly listen in on SSL traffic going in/out, including your login to your bank.) For now, about the only defense is to install a browser add-on that tells you about SSL certificate changes (I use "CertificatePatrol" in Mozilla Firefox) and pay attention to its warnings.

DNS has not been abused as much, except for the takedown of dissident sites the government finds threatening. My advice is, if you belong to any controversial site, store a local copy of its IP address and update the list periodically, so you can restore your access to the site (by adding it to /etc/hosts or C:\Windows\hosts, or simply using its raw IP address) if the spooks disable or redirect its domain name. You may also want to install proxy or redirection add-ons to your browser.

Have a look at prism-break.com for other ideas.

I don't see how it's possible to honestly read the Constitution to allow it.

The trouble is that the public has no way, short of John Locke's method, to enforce the limits we set when we chartered the government, since neither elected officials nor the courts are willing to do their plain duty.

Ultimately, the public will have to show that we're willing to live without things like cable TV and cell phones rather than submit to evil terms imposed by their providers. The companies pay attention to only one thing: their bottom line. We have to hurt that, or go home.

The biggest problem with it, IMO, is its effect on the lower middle class. I earn just enough that I don't qualify for Medicaid. The result is, I get forced to buy a policy, and the only ones I can afford (even with the subsidy) have a $5,000 deductible. Making $14,000 a year, there's no way I'll ever pay a $5,000 deductible, so the plan is one I can never use.

I actually held an insurance agent's license once, and I seem to recall that selling someone a policy he can never use constitutes open-and-shut fraud. I'd sure like to send Obama himself to prison on one count of fraud for each of the tens of millions of people in my situation.

And he promised he'd only raise taxes on the rich!

I don't trust the FTC as far as I can throw them. They're in companies' pocket. What's needed is either a good class action suit (now probably impossible because companies like AT&T impose arbitration on us all) or enough competition that nobody has to put up with policies like theirs.