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No, the intelligence services seeded those companies, or better, they granted funds for areas of interest to them, and the mentioned companies were the ones that made the most of it.Nothing new, the Armed Forces pretty much supported Intel (and many other semiconductor manufacturers) from the beginning because they need integrated circuits. A missile is a guided pipe bomb, you would not want to operate one with thermionic valves, solid state is what you want. Same goes for the space program, satellite technology first of all.The US government is not allowed to spy on American Citizens. It contracts that out to private companies instead, and where law enforcement has a legal right to do so, it taps those companies for the information it has collected, either as a matter of legislative authority, or specifically a court mandated right to obtain.In the event of terrorist activity, federal coordinating agencies have power derived from the Patriot Act or whatever re-branding exercise is current law of the land.The Patriot Act has a sunset provision, which means that if Congress does nothing, or the president refuses to sign the re-authorization, it lapses.Its bar none a complete suspension of our Constitutional Civil Rights. No one has challenged it in a court of law, because law enforcement has not substantially abused the system. They view this technology as they view other surveillance tools, namely they use them to identify the right haystack among thousand of possible haystacks (data clusters & patterns), and then they rely entirely on traditional police investigative techniques to make their case to a prosecutor for prosecution.Should law enforcement use the Patriot Act as a narrow gage filter and go on a fishing expedition and digitally trap anybody caught in the net, it would be challenged.Yes, the Obama administration availed itself of the FISA Courts and the surveillance apparatus to spy on the Trump campaign. That’s a fact, but to say it made a difference in the outcome of the election would be to admit that companies like Facebook and Google can swing the electoral vote 5% in either direction.Maybe that was true of Facebook in 2008 and 2012, but not in 2016.People are not stupid and mostly, good people tend not to ascribe to malice, what can be explained away by incompetence.Can US intelligence agencies have friendly foreign intelligence services spy on the US? Yes they do routinely (UK).Can they use that in court? No, so they cannot throw you in jail based on a foreign intelligence report. As with law enforcement, its about isolating the haystack. Old fashioned law enforcement does the rest.Do US intelligence services run foreign intelligence operations, through or with the assistance of US social media companies?Off course they do, the whole Arab Spring was a social media campaign organized by the Obama administration to undermine the authority of strong men rulers across the arab world (aka being on the “right side of history”). When that went spectacularly bad on them, they applied the same game plan on Russian interests in Ukraine, and Eastern Europe. That was also frustrated by the same expert counter intelligence.Problem is that they achieved nothing but a seven figure casualty toll.Now every two bit dictator anywhere in the world will immediately shut down US social media companies the moment the first voice of dissent is heard. The whole process was spectacularly counter productive.That has of course cut off revenue to the aforementioned companies, and killed the brand equity of Google, Facebook and Twitter.Were they paid for those tools? Or were they active participants in those activities? Did those companies hire retired intelligence assets? Did they have joint operational desks?Who knows, who cares, and at the end of the day it simply does not matter.The bottom line is that social media as a tool to build a democratic consensus, necessary in our Constitutional Republic, now has the same brand equity as CNN or MSNBC.A democratic electorate necessitates democratic maturity.What does socialism look like? After eight years of the Obama administration the electorate knows. That has a cost, and one well worth paying for if you subscribe to the notion of democratic maturity.The cost of the intelligence services employing social media campaigns is also worth noting. Now we know, and as an electorate we can make a cost-benefit analysis.Patriot Act? As long as law enforcement uses it to identify the right haystack, and does old fashioned police work to get the evidence, it will never be an issue. Its a compromise people are willing to tolerate.If they abuse it, we can vote out of office those that renewed the Patriot Act mandate, or avail ourselves of our Courts, and the Constitution, to strike it down.Its not black and white, and there is nothing to gain from being idealistic about it. Its pragmatism meets professional law enforcement.Most law enforcement officers are recruited straight out of the military. They have experience on foreign soil, and know exactly what a third world shit hole looks like, what the consequence of real socialism is, or what real (not imagined) tyranny looks like.You can be prejudiced because you are ignorant, or ignorant because you are prejudiced. Often its a hard call to make, and regardless you got to judge someone to do that.A tour of duty abroad takes the ignorant out of the equation. Which leaves you with the ability to discriminate good intelligence operations from Constitutionally bad operations, and consequently allows the one to make the call as to where the line actually should be defended.I say the one, because institutional ethical rules matter, but moral choices are individual choices.If you take ignorant out of the equation, prejudice most often disappears.To answer the question, there is nothing covert about intelligence work. Its data base work. It boils down to formulating the right search parameters, and finding patterns, and correlating different patterns to quilt together more patterns.If it crosses the constitutional line, they contract it out to private companies.Did the Obama administration abuse their authority?Edward Snowden certainly thought so. He was an employee of Booze Allen Hamilton, working on a federal intelligence contract.If he was enlisted in any capacity at the Department Of Defense, you could have grabbed him, courtmartialed him, and executed him on the spot on the grounds of National Security. Fair and square and without the slightest hesitation, point and shoot.But he is not. He was a private contractor subject to an employment contract. No private contract can stipulate capital punishment as legal recourse. That is the prerogative of military law subject to enlistment.Using civilians has consequence and cost.CIA, NSA, TSA, DHS take your pick, it does not matter who’s contracting.People will cry foul because there are hundreds of private intelligence companies working on contract. As if that was a bad thing. The more the better, its the concentration of power that leads to tyranny and abuse.Hobbes of course was right when he wrote in the Leviathan that we would “…turn into a nation of moral imbeciles pursuing our limited self interest…”You can blame that on computer scientists just like you can blame that on lawyerly ethics. Or pick on law enforcement or blame the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Does not matter in the least.At the end of the day Congress has the power and authority to fund it or not fund it, and its really a matter of them abdicating their authority to the bureaucratic administrative state.That of course in an individual act of moral bankruptcy, born of their financial self interest.Every individual citizen has the responsibility and authority to cast their vote, and clear them out of office if they so chose.That is of course an individual matter of democratic maturity and judgement.I trust that answers the question, thanks for the ask, always a pleasure.

Bangladesh.First of all, many foreigners — especially people from the West — must note, it is not India, neither a part of India; she is simply a sovereign and independent state - Bangladesh by name.The country's official name is People's Republic of Bangladesh.The country's independence was declared on 26 March, 1971, and it earned the long-waited liberation finally on 16 December, 1971 from the then East Pakistan. So, the Independence day is celebrated on 26 March, and 16 December is our Victory day.The flag of Bangladesh has a meaning. It is a beautiful rendition of a red disk on a green field. The bottle-green colour is the emblem of the widespread greenery of the country, and the reddish circle in the midst is the sun rising over the country also symbolising bloodshed of the martyrs in '71 liberation war.The father of our nation is "Bangabandhu" Mr. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. He is unanimously renowned for his bravery, unquestionable courage and leadership especially during the birth of Bangladesh and the post-liberation war period. He was assassinated along with the most of the members of his family on 15 August, 1975. 15 August is observed as our national mourning day.Sheikh Hasina is the current Prime Minister of Bangladesh. She is the daughter of Bangabandhu. She is well-known for sustaining equity to minorities and for being able to strengthen the diplomatic relationship a lot with countries like India and the US, and also for making the GDP rate over 6%.The parliament of Bangladesh is named as Jatiyo Sangshad. Jatiyo Sangsad Bhaban or National Parliament House is located at Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. Designed by architect Louis Kahn, the complex, is one of the largest legislative complexes in the world, comprising 200 acres (800,000 m²).Dhaka is the capital of Bangladesh and the country's largest city. It is known as a significant financial centre of South Asia. As of July, 2014 census, the population of Dhaka is 15.391 million, making Dhaka the most populated city of Bangladesh, and one of the densest megacities in the world. Too little space, yet too many people here! So, don't get nervous to see crowds all around you on the roads or on the public transports whenever you are travelling to Dhaka. :PBangladeshi people are often mistaken for an Indian (or even Sri Lankan) because of a number of facts including almost similar colour complexion, linguistic similarity in the states of Eastern India and Bangladesh, and belonging to the same historic evolution. Still, Bangladesh is the name of a separate and individual identity. So, misinterpreting us as Indians or anyone else? A definite no-no. (See: History of Bangladesh)We are people from such a country which has experienced blood-shed and sacrifice for the sake of language. The martyrs were shot and killed on 21 February, 1952 while protesting against the then Pakistani Government for trying to make Urdu the only national language of both East & West Pakistan, whereas East Pakistan (Bangladesh now) had more native Bangla speakers than West Pakistan's Urdu speakers. Therefore, 21 February is Bangladesh’s Shaheed Day. In fact, 21 February is observed and formally recognized by UN as the International Mother Language Day throughout the world. Shaheed Minar is built as a memorial to the event. Also, on every 21 February, a month-long book-fair is held very close to the Shaheed Minar premises in memory of the martyrs' sacrifice for language. This "Ekushey Boimela" is considered as a legacy of Bangladesh.People from Bangladesh are seriously not endowed with what is portrayed widely with brutal poverty and diseases. Bangladesh is much beyond the myths. The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the country was worth 173.82 billion US Dollars in 2014. The GDP value of Bangladesh represents 0.28% of the world economy. Bangladesh is among the few 16 countries that are expected to graduate from the group of the least developed countries by 2025, according to the UN.Bangladesh is noted for the ethnic homogeneity of its population. Over 98 percent of the people are Bengalis, predominantly Bangla-speaking people. We are a multi-cultural and multi-ethnic country. There are many dialects of Bengali spoken throughout the regions. The dialect spoken by those in Chittagong, Noakhali and Sylhet are particularly distinctive. Moreover, about 87% of Bangladeshis are Muslims, followed by Hindus (12%), Buddhists (1%) and Christians (0.5%). Minority ethnic groups include Meitei, Khasia, Saonthals, Chakma, Garo, Biharis, Oraons, Mundas and Rohingyas.The country's development is mainly based on its rural economy. And the rural economy is based on its agriculture. Agriculture is the single largest producing sector of the economy, since it comprises about 18.6% of the country's GDP and employs around 45% of the total labour force. It should be added that, paddy (raw rice) is the staple grain of Bangladesh.The country's main cuisine, as I said, is rice. People here love to take rice with curry of fish/meat/egg/vegetables/lentils. We are fond of Rice & Curry more than anything else. Therefore, rice is a common item everywhere in Bangladesh. Another item for which Bangladesh is famous for is Hilsa fish (Ilish). Nothing can beat its superb taste! Interestingly, Hilsa fish or Ilish is a symbol of solvency as well as a customary part of the gifts exchanged at weddings in Bangladesh.It is a barely acknowledged yet a very significant fact about our cuisine culture that, we have a special inclination to juicy and soft sweets like "Rosh-gollas/Rasgulla" and "Lalmohon/Golabjamun" more than English pies, tarts or pastries. Entrepreneurs do invest in culinary sector accordingly.Bangladesh is clearly a country of colours and festivals. No doubt, weddings are an essential part of it! Marriage is regarded here as something very sacred and strong. Most of the Bangladeshi put all their life-long savings aside only to ensure that their children or siblings might get married off well. Therefore, weddings here are particularly big and fat, and can span several days including Mehendi Night, Turmeric Ceremony, Aqd, Wedding Day, Bou-bhat (or Walima). No matter what is the family's class or religion, they put their best effort to make the wedding a prosperous one, because sometimes the glory becomes a matter of social stature. Red is the common colour of our bride's attire, since red is considered as the symbol of festivity, prosperity, love and fertility.In Bangladesh, Eid-ul-Fitr is the biggest religious festival. Apart from that, Eid-ul-Azha (Qurbani Eid) along with Durga Puja are also significant religious festivals. Moreover, Christmas, Vesak (Buddha's birthday/Buddha Purnima), Janmashtami, Eid-e-Miladunnabi, Shab-e-Barat, Shab-e-Qadr etc. are celebrated with great joy and equity. At Tangi, near Dhaka, on the bank of the river Turag, one of the greatest peaceful congregations of the Muslim takes place each year called Bishwa Ijtema which is an event that draws attention of all the Muslim brothers around the world.Among the social festivals, Pohela Boishakh, Pohela Falgun, Nabanna etc. are notable. The people here love to celebrate the occasions and tend to welcome the different seasons in a joyous mood throughout the year.The Bangladeshi people start their conversation with greetings (mostly with a "Salam" since most people are Muslim here). They are not very much adapted to a hand-shake with a stranger or a less known person. They maintain a certain amount of distance while standing and talking to each other. Yet, saying a "hello" and shaking hands are slowly being embraced in the urban culture.It is considered unusual to stay outside home past 10 PM without any serious urgency, and this applies even for boys, especially those who are still students and living with their parents. This norm has been emerged basically out of the security reason at both Dhaka and outside. In fact, in other regions, 10 PM is contemplated as the midnight hour. Its completely normal here when I have seen my 80 years old Grandpa worrying immensely because my 58 years old Dad was late at coming home while the clock stroke 9:45 PM at my home-town. Yeah, different society, different culture!Bangladeshis are a social community. They love to remain surrounded with friends and fellows everywhere. Bangladeshi people value relationships to a great extent. But, remember, these people are way more conservative while conversing for the first times. In most of the families, till date, sons tend to live jointly with their parents even after marriage. Families in Bengali communities are patriarchal. The culture here is mainly family-oriented. During holidays, people prefer to sit along with the family members and would take a cup of tea or dine together or enjoy T.V. or hang out altogether. Besides, in the evenings, we often hang out with friends and have "adda" (chitchat) with them. Café culture is becoming popular only in a few urban areas.When it comes to the point of "adda", tea becomes an essential part. In fact, tea (or "cha") is a must-served item while attending guests at the Bangladeshi households. Tea stalls are a familiar image in almost all the streets of the country. And, really, the flavour and aroma of the tea leaves gently stirred in hot boiled water with a spoonful of the sweetened condensed milk at the stalls is splendid and surely a not-to-miss for the visitors!We are a hospitable, warm and welcoming nation as a whole. Whoever will travel to Bangladesh, would be welcomed by the fellow Bangladeshi people as if it were his or her own homeland. We may not be a developed country yet, but in terms of hospitality we are always affluent. Bangladesh is a secular country. So, we offer hospitality to the people from every nook and corner of the world regardless of class and religion. This sense of hospitality is a special attribute of our people which we can be proud of. We share a very emotional characteristic in common. Moreover, the Bangladeshi are happier than Indians, Nepalese and Sri Lankans, according to the 2015 World Happiness Report.Bangladesh is land of variety of seasons! There are primarily four and altogether six seasons - Summer, Monsoon, Autumn, Late Autumn, Winter and Spring - each season comprising nearabout two months. The seasons bring variety of colours to the land throughout the whole year.Our national animal is this -The Royal Bengal Tiger lives in the Sundarbans in the southern part of Bangladesh. The Sundarbans is the largest mangrove forest in the world. The Sundarbans covers approximately 10,000 square kilometres (3,900 sq mi) of which 60 percent is in Bangladesh with the remainder in India. It is, in fact, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The forest is also renowned for Chital or Chitra (spotted dear).When it comes to the Royal Bengal, the name and glory of our rising tigers - our national cricket team- must be mentioned also. Bangladesh is a full member of the International Cricket Council (ICC) with test & ODI status. The ODI team led by Mashrafe Mortaza and coached by Mr. Hathurusingha already has earned indubitable glory by beating Pakistan and India and winning consecutive ODI series. The Bangladesh team has now improved immensely and has been able to build a lasting ground of confidence through a transition long desired. The Bangladeshi are crazy fans of cricket and football. It should be added that, world football to most of our country-folks is, till now, synonymous with either Argentina or Brazil.Bangladesh, though being a tiny country, is the motherland of a Nobel-Laureate. He is Dr. Muhammad Yunus, winning his Nobel Peace prize in 2006 "for advancing economic and social opportunities for the poor, especially women, through their pioneering microcredit work" shared with his Grameen Bank.Three Bangladeshis - Bangladeshi-origin Labour Party candidates Rushanara Ali from Bethnal Green and Bow constituency, Tulip Rizwana Siddiq from the Hampstead and Kilburn constituency and Rupa Asha Huq from the constituency of Ealing - were elected MPs in UK general election held on 2015.Our national fruit is Jackfruit because of its widespread availability in our country. You will find this view quite a lot here and there around the villages and in Dhaka city as well especially during summer:Also, mango is widely cultivated and consumed here. Mangoes are used here often as gifts and tokens while visiting somebody's house. The sweetness and juiciness of a mango can make a Bangladeshi real happy! :PCox's Bazar Beach in Chittagong division is the longest unbroken sea beach in the world,running 125 km. It is, in fact, the top tourist destination of Bangladesh.Whenever you are planning to visit my country, you are invited to visit the following places too —Shaheed Minar (the statue built in memoriam of the martyrs who fought against the then East-Pakistani rulers and sacrificed lives for establishing Bengali language as the mother tongue in 1952) -b. Lalbagh Fort -c. Ahsan Manjil Palace on the bank of Buriganga River -d. Bangladesh National Museum -e. Jatiyo Sriti Shoudho or National Martyrs' Memorial(in memoriam of the martyrs who sacrificed themselves for the sake of liberation of Bangladesh during 1971 against Pakistan) -f. University of Dhaka Campus -g. Uttara Ganabhaban: an old seat of Maharajas with a beautiful palace now serving as the Uttara Ganabhaban (President's Official residence of the northern region) -h. Sitakunda -i. Moynamoti: Buddhist Bihar -j. Patenga Beach at the outskirts of Chittagong city -k. Hanging Bridge over Kaptai Lake at Rangamati, Chittagong Division -l. Nafakhum Falls at Bandarban, Chittagong Division -m. Ratargul Swamp Forest, Sylhet Division -n. Nilgiri Hill Range (Bandarban) -o. Sajek Valley (Rangamati) -p. Jadipai Waterfall (Bandarban) -q. Buddha Dhatu Jadi (Bandarban Golden Temple) -r. Saint Martin - the only coral island of the country -s. Kantoji Mondir (Kantoji Terracotta Temple) at Dinajpur -t. Sylhet Tea gardens -Planning to visit Bangladesh? You are invited at any time. We have all types of seasons endowed with the blessing of nature. So, depending on the season you cherish, you can visit the country during your preferred time-period.The official weekends are Friday and Saturday. Some organisations stay open on Saturdays though.Most of the shopping malls and markets get closed by 8-8:30 PM. Some bazaars, though, remain open till 10 o'clock at night.There are many more things yet to illustrate and elaborate, but it has already been so long an answer! Answers will be updated time to time upon your valuable feedbacks. For now, these are some things one can check out before travelling to Bangladesh. Hope these come to help.

There is no such thing as data privacy.Look at the business model and figure out who benefits from the data access. That will tell you where the data is being leveraged.As a general rule, if a company is charging for the good, there is an incentive to keep the data within the company, and for said company to profit internally from the data collected.If a service is being provided revenue free, you can be assured that data access is being sold.Apple charges for the hardware and the software. They also provide a marketplace for others to sell their software and/or services for a substantial cut of that revenue. With plenty of revenue streams being generated, there is little incentive for them to share the data.Incentives matter, but provide no contractual stipulations.At the other end of the equation, Google provides a ponucopia of free software in addition to the free search facility it excels at providing. It is not selling product because the person doing the search, or using their free tools, is the product, and the advertisers and data miners are the customers for that data.Your search inquiries, your email communications, your use of their office productivity utilities, is the product.You can argue that it matters how that data is aggregated and allowed to be accessed, but at the end of the day, the consumer of value is the product itself.LexisNexis provides search facilities for the legal profession. Its must charge for the data access because it would be illegal to sell to the highest bidder lawyer or law firm search inquiries. Likewise, it would not make much sense to allow a Google to access your privileged client communications by virtue of using their office productivity tools.An argument could also be made that free tools should not be employed by health care providers. HIPAA laws provides such data protections, although it could be argued that if Google were to employ hard to crack encryption like Apple does, then the data capture would be limited to knowing who the health care provider and the patient is, but even that would be excessive in the context of HIPAA.There is of course no law prohibiting insurance companies doing what they please with the billing data. They regularly share that with government regulators, pharmaceutical companies and medical researchers academic or not. Which of course makes HIPAA privacy rules an oxymoron of delinquent proportions. But that’s what private-government partnerships are all about, evading Constitutional prohibitions against unlawful search.If you spring one hundred to four hundred bucks for an ancestry DNA test, you would assume the presumption of privacy.But here is where I undermine the very incentive argument I just made above.You can rest assured that they will provide access to the metadata to pharmaceutical companies, and they will allow the later to model their pharmaceuticals to your DNA sequences in the aggregate and in the specific. They might even patent your novel DNA, and never tell you about it. Sequenced DNA is allowed the “sweat of the brow” property argument.Your children might even have to pay royalties on patented DNA you forfeited when you paid them to sequence your DNA. Absurd but not so absurd that if patented corn seed gets blown by the wind onto somebody else’s corn field, that non contracting party is still liable for the patent violation.Maybe that’s a good thing, maybe its not. Maybe I don’t want a potential employer to know that I have a livery disposition, or that my great aunt Mary was in the loony bin.But once you send it in, incentives or not, your data is now the product being commercialized.So here is the problem: my ability to privately contract my privacy choices is not available to me.In the case of Google, they are contracting with third parties. I am nowhere part of that contract, but subject to a third party contract.In the case of software, its a shrink wrapped license to use. I do not even have property rights over a purchase.In other words I am bound by legal contractual agreements between corporations I have no say over, and privacy is the least of the problems that raises.The digital economy model has no provision for data privacy. It boils down to trade mark equity, and I give the prize to Apple Computers for the simple reason that they have revenue streams in excess of what they need to thrive and prosper.Nonetheless, in the digital domain, no data is sacred, it's at best segregated for single company exploitation.Thanks for asking, always a pleasure.