Hello everyone, I'm Laura and it's Monday
so this is of course the Monday show. Coming
up we have some more news about Mars, some
more news about the NSA and a story about
vigilantes in Mexico.
And of course we have your comments. If you
don't want to watch one of these stories you
can skip past it using the arrow on the right
here or if you want to watch one of them again,
you can skip backwards using the arrow on
the left.
So first up Mars. You might remember that
on Friday Sam showed you a NASA animation
that revealed what Mars probably looked like
four billion years ago. Essentially a land
of rolling clouds, oceans and rivers but no
life. Well anyway, today that's the 18th November
for those of you watching in the future. NASA
are sending a new mission to Mars to discover
what happened to all of that water. Scientists
prime suspect for the waters disappearing
act is the sun which they believe has been
peeling away the planets atmosphere molecule
by molecule for billions of years. The Mars
atmosphere and volatile evolution mission
more handily known as MAVEN will arrive in
Mars orbit in September 2014 and begin to
examine the thin layer of gases that remain
in its skies, to find out whether the sun
really is to blame and if so how it might
have done it.
And now onto the NSA, or the US' National
Security Agency for those of you who are new
to this channel. It might make some of you
smile to know that since the Edward Snowden
leaks which revealed the NSA's capacity to
spy on millions of ordinary people, the agency
has been inundated with freedom of information
requests from the American public. So much
so that these inquiries have risen by 988%.
According to the chief of the NSA's freedom
of information act and privacy act office,
individuals have been requesting records on
their phone calls as well as their phone numbers,
email addresses, and IP addresses. What might
make you smile less however is that anyone
who makes one of these requests simply receives
a standardized letter from the NSA saying
that "the agency can neither confirm nor deny
that this information has been gathered."
Next up we have your comments. A video about
strike debt an off shoot of the Occupy Wall
Street movement abolishing $15 million of
personal debt, Curvian Vynes said this "awesome
these innovative ways humans can come up with
to fight the beast. Well done. But it's just
another temporary band aid. We need to cut
off the head."
Which seemed to be the exact point that Strike
Debt were making by only running the project
for a year. And on our piece about Jeremy
Hammond, the hacker and Anon who has been
sentenced to ten years in prison in the US,
We Deserve Better said,
"No question Hammond is being crushed as part
of a government effort to destroy anyone who
is tech-savvy... however the part I don't
get is why he bulk-deleted the emails and
leaked credit card info - if it was just about
revealing the truth, he only would have leaked
the emails and not done the other stuff."
Well if you have an opinion on this you can
let us know in the comments. And lastly on
our live hangout discussion with the journalist
and writer Glyn Moody on the subject of the
Trans-Pacific Partnership, Stewart Mcleod
said this,
"Why are these talks allowed to take place
in private this is against the public interest
and the democratic process. Why is lobbying
allowed? Vested interests should not be able
to alter or as it seems write the laws for
nation states?"
And lastly for today, over in Mexico 100s
of armed vigilantes have taken over a town
in the Western state of Michoacan called Tancitaro.
The vigilantes belong to so-called self defense
units that are made up of residents from nearby
towns who began to take up arms earlier this
year to fight back against the Knights Templar
drug cartel.
The Knights Templar is an apparently cult
like drug cartel which the vigilantes say
has been carrying out extortion, rapes, kidnappings
and murders in the area. Following deadly
clashes with suspected members of the Knights
Templar, these self-defense units seized the
town hall and main square of Tancitaro as
well as kicking out the municipal police and
taking over security in the town. You can
let us know what you think about this and
all of our stories in the comments below and
we'll see you again next Monday.
