“First developed as a weapon by the U.S. Army, VX is an oily, odorless and tasteless liquid that kills on contact with the skin or when inhaled in aerosol form.”

Like other nerve agents, it is treatable in the first minutes after exposure but otherwise leads swiftly to fatal convulsions and respiratory failure.

The NSA’s business is ‘information dominance,’ the use of other people’s secrets to shape events.

Privacy is relational. It depends on the audience. You don’t want your employer to know you’re job hunting. You don’t spill all about your love life to your mom or your kids. You don’t tell trade secrets to your rivals.

Activists and geeks, standing together, are demonstrating powers beyond the reach of government control.

Some misunderstandings are hard to cure.

Daniel Ellsberg showed tremendous courage back in the 70s.

In Africa through the 1990s, with notable exceptions in Senegal and Uganda, nearly all the ruling powers denied they had a problem with AIDS.

When the New York Times revealed the warrantless surveillance of voice calls, in December 2005, the telephone companies got nervous.