Digital Spending Trend in 2014

The 2014 Digital Dollar Shift [Infographic] - 58% of business to business (B2B) marketers are spending more on social media this year, with just one in fifty decreasing their spend in this area in 2014, reveals a new study. Find out all about the current state of digital spending trends in the infographic above. AllTwitter

Introducing the Internet.org App - Over 85% of the world’s population lives in areas with existing cellular coverage, yet only about 30% of the total population accesses the internet. Affordability and awareness are significant barriers to internet adoption for many and today we are introducing the Internet.org app to make the internet accessible to more people by providing a set of free basic services. Facebook

Your New LinkedIn Profile Makes You Ridiculously Good Looking on Mobile, and in Meetings - What if, minutes before you met me for the first time, someone whispered in your ear and reminded you not only where I work (LinkedIn) and what I do (product management), but also who we both know in common, whether we overlapped any years in school, or if we worked at the same company? If you knew what we had in common or any of my interests (say biking or Latin poetry), chances are that we’ll probably have a pretty great first conversation. LinkedIn

Report: Social Sharing On Mobile Devices Surges 30% In Second Quarter - Adding to the evidence that 2014 is a mobile tipping point, social data and sharing tool provider ShareThis reported today that sharing via smartphones and tablets surged more than 30% during the second quarter. Marketing Land

Mobile Paid Search Spend Up 98% Globally vs. Last Year [Report] - Covario released its quarterly report today that looks at global paid search spend. Mobile online advertising was the undisputed star of the findings, with 98 percent increase in spend year-over-year (YoY) and 6 percent increase quarter-over-quarter (QoQ) globally. Search Engine Watch

Google Launches New Local Search Algorithm: SEOs Notice Significant Ranking Changes - This week, Google pushed out a new and major local search ranking algorithm change. I broke the story at Search Engine Land where Google provided details for me on this update. Search Engine Roundtable

Study Shows Mobile Social Users Are More Active and Engaged - 64% of online adults use a desktop or laptop to access social media at least once a week. That’s a nice number. A lot nicer than the 45% who use a smartphone or the 25% who use a tablet. But when talking about social media marketing, the majority doesn’t always rule.Marketing Pilgrim

Study Shows Organic Search Responsible for 64% of Web Traffic - Groupon recently published a study showing that 60% of what Google Analytics defines as “direct traffic” is actually organic traffic. The study was conducted by Groupon’s Director of Product Management, who heads their organic search. In the study he shared details about an experiment that involved completely deindexing Groupon from Google for 6 hours. Search Engine Journal

LinkedIn Unveils Direct Sponsored Content for Better Targeting and Testing - The new feature will not only help marketers with A/B testing, but industry participants say it also indicates a big move for native advertising. Right on the heels of its acquisition of Bizo, LinkedIn has released a new feature called Direct Sponsored Content (DSC) to help marketers deliver more personalized content to specific audiences. ClickZ

Facebook: 23% of all Social Traffic in June (Pinterest Dips, Twitter Flat at 1%) [STATS] - Facebook’s slice of the social referral traffic pie got a little bit bigger last month, with the giant now accounting for almost one quarter of all social website visits, reports Shareaholic. AllTwitter

Facebook Pulling Messages from iOS, Android Apps in Favor of Messenger - Facebook users who want to send and receive messages via their iOS and Android devices will soon only be able to do so via the social network’s Messenger applications, as messaging will be removed from its flagship applications for both operating systems, Facebook confirmed to TechCrunch. InsideFacebook

Facebook Now Makes 62% of Its Ad Money in Mobile - One day, if it wanted to, Facebook could shut down its desktop site and become a mobile-only company. The majority of the social network’s advertising revenue — 62% of the $2.68 billion Facebook made from advertising in the second quarter, according to results it released on Wednesday — already comes from mobile. AdAge

Facebook Reports 19% Increase In Daily Active Users - Facebook just released their Second Quarter 2014 Financial Summary and it’s looking good for the social media giant.Marketing Pilgrim

So you want to boycott Israel?

So your organization has decided to boycott all products and services from Israel. Here is a list of activities that you now need to perform in order to comply with this boycott.

Part One – Technology and Food

First, remove all Intel Pentium and Celeron computer processor chips from personal computers (desktops, laptops and notebooks) as these were either developed or manufactured in Israel.

Note that the revolutionary new Ivy Bridge processor will be manufactured in Israel. Any computers running the Windows XT operating system must be turned off immediately as this was developed in Israel. All current Microsoft operating systems are not to be used as Microsoft is heavily reliant on its Israel R&D centre.

Step 2. Any computers that still work need to have their anti-virus software and personal firewalls removed as this technology originated in Israel. The organisation’s firewall will also need to be switched off. Staff should no longer open external emails as most of these will be infected with viruses. No outgoing emails can be sent. The algorithm (code) that’s used today for sending e-mails, was made by an Israeli who worked at the Ben-Gurion University in Be’er-Sheva in 1980.

Step 3. Discard all mobile phones, as this technology was developed in Israel, where the first mobile phones were manufactured. Mobile chip technology from a single Israeli company has now been installed in over 100 million devices. Only top-level staff may retain mobile phones for emergency situations. However the use of SMS (Texting) is expressly forbidden as this facility was developed in Israel. No 4G devices can be used, as the chipset is Israeli.

Step 4. Turn off your voice-mail service and delete any recorded messages. Israeli companies invented the voice-mail system. If someone you do not know answers your phone-call, then hang up. Israeli call-centres and call-centre technology is in widespread operation in the UK.

Step 5. Before accepting any printed material, check that the supplier has not used the Israeli device that might have saved up to 50% of the ink used.

Step 6. At home, do not use Facebook as many in-built and add-on applications are Israeli-developed. Do not watch videos on the Internet as the platform used to upload them may be from AOL and hence from an Israeli company. Do not use the Internet to search for answers to your questions as this may involve use of an Israeli-developed search engine. Better to remain unenlightened.

Step 7. On your TV or home entertainment centre, do not use Video On Demand (VOD) to watch movies as you may inadvertently see an advert displayed using Israeli software. Do not purchase any games devices as these are likely to use Israeli technology.

Step 8. Do not read books using an e-book as this may contain Israeli technology. Do not use data storage as it may have been developed at Israel’s storage technology R&D center.

Step 9. Do not buy an electric car as it is likely to be powered with anIsraeli battery or use Israeli developed charging mats. Continue to sit in traffic knowing that you are polluting the environment and financing oil-rich despotic regimes.

Turning to food and drink, all food outlets on the organisation’s premises must dispose of cherry tomatoes, which were developed in Israel. Staff must ensure that no cherry tomatoes are included in sandwiches brought into office premises. The ban also applies to honey and any products derived from honey. Israel has developed solutions to the worldwide problem of bee-colony collapse, so that any products derived from bees might only be available now due to an Israeli invention.

Avoid drinking any of the world-recognised award-winning Israeli wines. Do not consume homemade drinks from Israeli-manufactured householddrinks machines.

Avoid any fruit from South Africa or Peru as produce from these countries is being marketed with Israeli brand names.

No agricultural products from the following areas must be consumed as they use water irrigation and agricultural technology provided directly from Israel. This includes most of Africa, China, India, Indonesia (a Muslim country), Nepal and many others.

Much fruit and vegetables (including organic) imported into the UK has been enhanced using Israeli technology. This may save millions of people from starving around the world, but is not a good reason for you to eat it. To be safe, only eat fruit and vegetables that you have grown yourself using seeds that have been in your family for generations.

Part Two – Staff Health.

Destroy all personal medication. Israel’s Teva Pharmaceuticals, the largest generic drugs company in the world, will have manufactured many of your medicines. Staff with the following illnesses will need to take specific precautions.

Cancer – do not take any form of medication or treatment. Israeli scientistshave been working at the forefront of oncology for decades.

AIDS and HIV – beware; researchers at Israel’s Weizmann Institute or Hebrew University developed or improved AZT and Hypericin-based drugs; they have also developed a treatment that destroys HIV-infected cells without damaging healthy ones.

Diabetes – do not measure or inject Insulin using the devices developed by Israeli scientists.

Multiple Sclerosis – stop taking Copaxone, one of the most efficient medicines and the only non-interferon agent, as Teva developed it. Don’t touch Laquinimod either.

Parkinson’s – remove the Israel-pioneered brain pacemaker to stop tremors. Discontinue Levodopa, which reduces motor disturbances. Cease sessions that involve magnetic cortex stimulation.

Staff with a family history of heart disease and arteriosclerosis must not use the Israeli device for early detection of these. Rather, wait until onset of the disease.

Epileptics – stop treatment that may have benefited from the Israeli discovery of the underlying mutant gene; also throw away the bracelet that sends out an alert when a person goes into seizure.

Staff or relatives with Age-related Macular Degeneration – remove Israeliimplants that arrest the disease.

Liver disease – abandon Israeli-developed antibody immunotherapy treatments.

Emphysema – steer clear of the Israeli protein replacement therapy.

Myeloma – stop taking the drug Velcade, which was developed over a period of 30 years by scientists at Haifa.

Sleep apnea – no tests using the breakthrough Israeli device for diagnosis.

Dyslexics must not benefit from the Israeli Internet-based reading system.

Skin allergies must be treated with steroid creams only, as the new safernon-steroid alternative is Israeli.

Any incident of stroke or head trauma or onset of Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, MS, epilepsy, glaucoma or brain tumor must avoid using any of the Weizmann Institute’s patented methods of treatment.

Before any surgery or medical tests, check that hospital catheters have not been protected from infection using the new plastic from Israel that disables microorganisms. Avoid throat surgery as this may utilize Israelisurgical lasers.

Ensure any colonoscopy or gastro investigation does not use internal Israeli cameras such as the Pillcam. Never undergo surgery to install an artificial heart, as the first artificial heart transplant took place in Israel.

Kidney transplant patients must wait for donors of the same blood group as only Israel’s revolutionary new methods allow donors from other blood groups. Staff of Arab origin must not make use of the only database for matching potential Arab donors of bone-marrow – in Israel.

In the event of a spinal injury or disease, do not accept spinal implants – likely to be an Israeli product or development. Heart rhythm problems must not be solved with the Israeli-developed heart pulse generator. All heartstents are off-limits as most of these originate from Israeli medical companies.

Check all vaccines as many of these have been developed in Israel. Ensure that all X-rays do carry a radiation risk, as the only radiation-free system is Israeli. Treatments derived from Stem Cell research must be avoided as most of these are Israeli-developed.

If you or your family are struck with a bacterial infection, do not take alternatives to older, ineffective bacteria-resistant antibiotics, as an Israelidiscovery will have been responsible for the modern, effective drugs. Check that any pain relief medication is not based on soya as an Israeli doctor discovered the beneficial effect of the soya bean.

Do not use the revolutionary new Israeli bandage that saved the life of Arizona senator Gabriella Giffords after she was shot in the head. If you break a bone badly, reject any treatment that involves introducing collagen, as this may have been manufactured from Israeli plants.

Do not protect babies and infants from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome with the Babysense system from Israel.

Do not use Epilady (or epilator) – two Israelis invented this hair removal device.

Finally, reject all major dental treatment, as your teeth may need to be scanned with an Israeli-developed dental scanner.

Part Three – Dealing with People.

When interviewing prospective new staff or holding meetings with members of the public or with individuals from other companies, it is vital that you check whether they originate from, or are associated with the following countries and areas. You must ensure that you do not have any contact with people who have benefited from Israel’s aid to those countries. The organization must avoid any possible acknowledgment of Israel’s contribution to world relief. In addition, you must obtain a formal statement from the government of these countries that Israeli aid was not responsible for the production or development of any goods and services supplied to the organization.

These locations include:

Japan (As well as rescue teams, Israel supplied Geiger counters and Israeli thermal imaging cameras are monitoring the reactor cores – Mar 2011)

Ghana (has been receiving technological aid from Israel since 2006; Israel is now providing neonatal units to save many of the 4,800 babies that die each year – Mar 2011)

New Zealand (Israel sent several rescue teams, temporary shelters and water purification systems following the Christchurch earthquake in Feb 2011)

Chile, whose rescued miners were treated to a tour of Israel as part of their “Pilgrimage of Thanks” (Feb 2011)

Vietnam, whose milk industry is being totally transformed using high-yield Israeli cows (Feb 2011)

Uganda (Israeli solar-powered refrigerators were provided to store v1accines used to eliminate an outbreak of Polio from the country in Jan 2011)

Kenya (Israel’s Agency for International Development built a state-of-the-art Emergency Room in a hospital serving 6 million Kenyans in Jan 2011)

The Maldives (although non-Islamic worship is banned here, Israeli eye-doctors performed free operations for citizens in Dec 2010)

Philippines (signed major trade agreement with Israel in Nov 2010)

Romania (Israeli doctors treated babies following fire at a neonatal unit – Sep 2010)

Cameroon (Ophthalmologists from Haifa restored vision to patients and trained local medical teams in these procedures – Aug 2010)

The Congo (Israel were the first burn specialists on the scene following the oil tanker fire disaster in July 2010)

Angola (mines cleared by Israeli technology – July 2010)

Mississippi (bio-remediation technique used to clean up after oil spills was developed in Israel)

China (a major purchaser of Israeli technology, and recipient of medical aid and training)

South Africa (Israelis trained their doctors to perform circumcisions to prevent the spread of AIDS – July 2010)

Haiti (Israel set-up the largest field hospital to treat victims of the 2010 earthquake, the hurricane and the cholera outbreaks and provided vital assistance for over a year)

Sri Lanka (Israel conducted a massive airlift with food, 50 medical staff and rescue teams only 48 hours after the Tsunami in Dec 2004)

India (Israel sent an fully-equipped field hospital following Gujarat earthquake in Feb 2001)

El Salvador (Israel relief aid following earthquake in 2001)

Georgia (Israel contributed food and seeds for farmers following severe drought in 2001)

Turkey (Israel relief aid following earthquake in 2000)

Mozambique ((Israel relief aid following floods in 2000)

Colombia (Israel sent medical aid and food following earthquake in 1999)

Venezuela (President Chavez has forgotten Israel’s aid following floods of 1999)

Central America (Israel sent emergency medical aid teams and equipment to help victims of Hurricane Mitch in 1998)

Pakistan (2005) and Peru (2007) both accepted aid from Israeli NGOs following earthquake disasters.

Peru’s hydro-electric power plants are also being built and run by an Israeli company.

Rawanda, Mexico, Chad, Sudan (Darfur) and Malawi all have received humanitarian aid from Israel, including medical assistance from Israel’s NGO IsraAID.

Always remember that the boycott extends to any individuals from the above regions that have been exposed to Israeli assistance during the 63 years existence of the current Jewish State.

Part Four – Other Impacts.

-Reject all products from the USA. Analysis conducted in a typical US stateshows that Israeli innovations were responsible for $2.4 billion in direct revenue to that state’s economy in 2009 and generated nearly 6,000 jobs.

-Do not tutor your children in advanced Mathematics techniques, which may have originated in Israel. Also, if these techniques are used in your children’s schools, withdraw your children immediately.

-Keen ornithologists should consider giving up their hobby as many rarespecies stop off or reside in Israel during their twice-yearly migration.
-Do not watch the new series of NCIS as one of the actresses is Israeli.

-Avoid going to any football matches featuring teams with Israeli players.

-Destroy all your recordings of Madonna, Bob Dylan, Simon & Garfunkel,Deep Purple, Bon Jovie, Justin Bieber, George Benson, Moby and many, many more artists who have ridiculed the illogical boycott and have proudly performed (or will shortly perform) concerts in Israel.

-Destroy any recordings of U2, Lady Gaga, Beyonce, Bruce Springsteen, Beck, Rihanna Coldplay and any artist whose music has been recorded using the sound technology of the Grammy Award winning Israeli company Wave Audio. You also must get rid of any personal copies of Shrek,American Beauty and Star Wars. Do not trust anything recorded by Sony, JVC, Toshiba or Dell.

-Don’t go to see The Black Swan with Natalie Portman, or watch any old films with Elizabeth Taylor – both lovers of the Jewish State.

-Do not stay in hotels or visit shopping centers owned by Israeli companies (sorry, you will need to check which ones yourself).

-Do not have anything to do with the banks who are using Israeli softwareto prevent fraud.

-Do not use any credit or debit card as the Security monitoring system used by the credit card companies is likely to be Israeli.

-Do not buy an engagement ring containing a diamond as it is possible that this may have been cut in Israel.

-Do not travel by air, as your plane might get towed by the Israeli-built “Taxibot.”

-Do not use public transport inside Amsterdam, Moscow or Northern Chinain case you benefit from Israeli transportation devices.

-If you suffer a power or network failure, be grateful that at least you haven’t installed the Israeli system that prevents power outages.

-Finally, you need to leave all your taps running when you leave home and must never flush your toilet, because Israel provides water-savingtechnology to over half of the planet. It also is providing sewage treatmenttechnology across the world, including to the UK. It should be obvious by now that all the measures specified in Parts 1 – 4 of this series of blogs will inevitably mean that your organization and your staff will be completely unable to function. Let’s therefore hope that the decision by your organization to boycott Israeli products is flushed down the toilet of history.

The Economics of Money

To his Coy Mistress: A Hymn to Money

inShare3

Oh, Money, let me hold you in my thrall;
Caressing your sweet shape is paradise.
No matter through what dark abyss I crawl,
To have you when I want you is real nice.

Your grainy, faintly powder-dusted touch
And vaguely minty smell when you are fresh
Grow leathery when you’ve been handled much,
Your wrinkled softness wise almost as flesh.

The Freudians have called you excremental.
Romantics say you’re bitter and alone.
But I know you’re just coy and temperamental.
The hard-to-get are pleasantest to own.

I’m satisfied to take you from behind;
It doesn’t mean you have to love me too.
Ignore my passion, I don’t really mind.
I want it all, and that means having you.

The Economics of the Internet: Privacy versus Security

What Does the Internet Cost?

It’s corny and it kind of smells like a high school debate, but I still watch Spencer Tracy and Frederic March in Inherit the Wind (1960) whenever I bumble into it on TMC. There’s a speech Tracy (as the Clarence Darrow clone Henry Drummond) makes about “progress.” He says, “Progress has never been a bargain. You have to pay for it,” and he goes on to talk about how women can now vote but at the cost of the “right to retreat behind the powder puff or your petticoat” (we’re in 1925, remember) and how aviators may now “conquer the air, but the birds will lose their wonder and the clouds will smell of gasoline.” He complains: “Sometimes I think there’s a man who sits behind a counter and says, “All right, you can have a telephone but you lose privacy and the charm of distance.”

The Snowden leaks have made a lot of us angry, really angry. At first, many of us were mad at Snowden, but now—as the headline of a recent Trevor Timm Guardian column tells us—our outrage is directed against the NSA: “More people than ever oppose the NSA practices Edward Snowden revealed. Why should he spend his life in prison?”

We want our privacy, offline and online. According to the dissent of Justice Brandeis in Olmstead v. United States(1928), privacy is a constitutional right. But sometimes I think about that “man sitting behind the counter,” offering me global connectivity at the price of (some) privacy. As Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen ask in The New Digital Age (2013), “What is the relationship between privacy and security, and how much will we have to give up to be part of the digital age?”

And make no mistake, the Internet most definitely has costs. Maximum privacy exacts a cost in security, and maximum security exacts a cost in privacy. To complicate matters further, pay out too much of your privacy in exchange for security, and you actually become less secure—subject to the whims of a government become too powerful. Checking the tyranny of individual whim is what John Adams (among others) thought good government should be all about. Adams wanted a “government of laws, not men.” Laws have no whims. Men—people—do. (Think Caligula and Idi Amin; think Stalin.) But laws have to be very carefully crafted. As Jack Goldsmith and Tim Wu write in Who Controls the Internet? (2006), “Should data privacy be unregulated, modestly regulated, or heavily regulated? A single answer … would leave the world divided and disconnected.”

We may have a right to privacy, but executing that right, it turns out, has a price. It turns out that the ultimate price for maximum privacy is not giving up security, but connectivity. Get off the Internet and stay off. No more Amazon for you. No more Facebook. No more depositing checks with a click of your smartphone.

The balance among privacy, security, commerce, convenience, connection, national law, and international law will always be a negotiation with few absolutes beyond that of some cost, the necessity of exchanging one value for another. Getting angry about this won’t change it. Try curling up with The Wealth of Nations. Maybe you’ll feel better.

But what about Trevor Timm’s headline: “More people than ever oppose the NSA practices Edward Snowden revealed. Why should he spend his life in prison?”

Are we as a nation and a society and a civilization better off with some inkling of the power of the NSA than without any idea of what it does or has done? That is, was the security cost of the Snowden leaks worth what we gained in privacy or, at least, in privacy awareness? Could it be that the Snowden leaks actually increased our collective security by alerting us to the security threat the NSA—the very agency charged with protecting security—actually represents? Or do the Snowden leaks come with security and privacy costs nobody has yet even calculated?

Let me explain this last query.

Timm’s answer to the question of whether Snowden should go to prison or be granted amnesty is based on his assessment that recent legal decisions concerning the Espionage Act would almost surely prevent Snowden from presenting an adequate defense in an American courtroom. Based on the assertion that “more people than ever oppose the NSA practices Edward Snowden revealed,” therefore, the only just alternative is to circumvent existing law via executive amnesty.

This could be done. The president could issue an amnesty, and Snowden would be free—though not acquitted. Whatever the cost to the president, the cost to all of us would be a broad step back from a government of laws into a government of men, in the form of perceived or assumed popular opinion and will and executive fiat. Amnesty would also validate one unelected work-for-hire consultant’s decision to break the law for what he, acting alone, perceived as a greater good. This would further denigrate government by laws while elevating government by men.

Amnesty might well be the “right” course to take. When the British government looked for a way to make it possible for contractors to sue the Crown, it had to circumvent a law forbidding such suits by introducing the concept of a “petition of right.” Decisions made under such a petition did not begin, “Let justice be done,” but instead “Let right be done,” recognizing that what’s legal and what’s right don’t always coincide.

Yet, in the Snowden case, would the cost in security and privacy be worth it? What if some Jack Bauer type illegally breaks into any number of computers to expose a security threat and then, based on a Snowden amnesty, demands amnesty from prosecution under privacylaws?

Honestly, I cannot answer any of my questions. I can only ask them and ask others to ask them, including everyone with a stake in the Internet, which is, in fact, practically everyone, not to mention those among us who are as yet unwilling to give up on a government by laws. Snowden himself gave up on it. Likely he saw no other choice. Yet it remains difficult to forgive his selection of alternative and refuge: Russia! Russia, led by Vladimir Putin, who, like Joseph Stalin before him, governs the nation not as the chief magistrate of its laws, but as a man—B

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  Dale Fuller 2nd
  

  Chairman of the Board at ProSites Inc.

  “Progress has never been a bargain. You have to pay for it,” My problem is with the "who is setting the price"... ? is it like history where the winners write the books. I would like it all out in the open so each can decide. Well said Siobhan....
  

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  5 hours ago
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  Larry Callander 2nd
  

  SE Area Manager - Site Development

  Well said. We never always agreed with one another but I always respected your opinion. Still do.
  

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  5 hours ago
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  Andrew Dickson
  

  Personal Counselor

  Good points. Lawlessness (your "rule by man") is running ever increasingly rampant throughout US government. "Who you know" will soon determine your guilt or innocence more than any other factor. New laws are even written with this in mind - meaning almost everyone will be breaking the new law as a matter of custom but nevermind because your local police dept will get to decide whether or not to prosecute you or not. It creates a culture of fear due to the uncertainty created. Exactly what these big govt folk want.
  

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  4 hours ago
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  Rod S. 2nd
  

  Computer Software Professional (All connections welcome; I won't complain that I don't know you)

  The jury has the right to decide that he did the right thing. Acts of Congress (the work product of politicians) are not guaranteed to be either right or just. “The pages of history shine on instances of the jury’s exercise of its prerogative to disregard instructions of the judges...” U. S. v. Dougherty, 473 F 2nd 1113, 1139 (1972) “The law itself is on trial quite as much as the cause which is to be decided.” Harlan F. Stone, 12th Chief Justice, U. S. Supreme Court, 1941. “The jury has the power to bring a verdict in the teeth of both law and fact.” Oliver Wendell Holmes, U. S. Supreme Court Justice, 1902. “The jury has the right to determine both the law and the facts.” Samuel Chase, U. S. Supreme Court Justice, 1796; Signer of the unanimous Declaration. “The jury has the right to judge both the law as well as the fact in controversy.” John Jay, 1st Chief Justice, U. S. Supreme Court, 1789. "In all criminal cases whatever, the jury shall have the right to determine the law, and the facts under the direction of the Court as to the law, and the right of new trial, as in civil cases." Oregon Constitution, Article I Section 16.
  

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  3 hours ago
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  Allyson Saad
  

  Independent Research & Writing for Select Projects

  Sure - ignorance of what our government is up to leaves one blissfully unaccountable & unburdened. That doesn't sound especially patriotic, constitutional, or even very intelligent, however. More like a deliberately negligent ostrich. As for the trade-off between privacy & information on the internet, there's a difference between the rights of an individual to freely express (political) thought, for example, & the constitutional limits of the govt's right to monitor it. The govt's activities should be seen as illegal and unconstitutional. As such, Snowden took on the burden of citizenship too many of us have abdicated and stood up for our constitution.
  

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  1 hour ago
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  Jon Hanlon
  

  Open to opportunities

  Snowden took a solemn oath to protect the data of his employers and then reneged on this deal. There were other avenues available to him without delivering secrets to hostile entities, revealing the identities of highly placed operatives, and directly endangering lives.
  

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  9 minutes ago
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  jerry van delft
  

  Scholarships and School Engagement Review at Federation University Australia

  You make some very good points about the cost benefit between security and privacy. I agree that the questions you have posed are complex and question the very balance between a government of laws and a government of men. The Snowden case is caught between a rock and a hard place. You are damned if you give him amnesty - as it sets a precedence, and you are damned if you prosecute - as you then abrogate the right of the citizens to know when their security and privacy have been breeched.
  

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  8 minutes ago