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Valuable Links For Authors Author Guidelines Post Writing Tips Why Submit Articles HomeFinance ArticlesInsurance ArticlesHow to Choose a Low cost Automobile Insurance CompanyHow to Decide on a Inexpensive Vehicle Insurance coverage Organization By Paul Barnes on September 06, 2010
Being aware of the sort of coverage you want goes a long way in assisting you choose the right policy. If you buy a policy blindly without having performing some study, you danger not just getting a incorrect variety of policy, but also paying much more than you must for it. Each provider has their personal prices and occasionally this difference can run into hundreds of dollars.
To give you a excellent instance of just how significantly you can save, pick any 3 insurance companies at random. Evaluate their rates on a offered policy and you will discover that the distinction can be as high as $ 400! This is why quotes comparison is quite crucial. You will only commit a handful of minutes on-line and get to save that higher amount of money. This ought to apply regardless of whether you are acquiring a policy for the 1st time or renewing.
To get started, go straight to your browser and kind ?multiple auto insurance coverage quotes? or ?auto insurance coverage quotes comparison?. Select any of the best websites on the search outcomes. On opening the site, you will be necessary to provide some info about the automobile you drive and your driving history. This is the information that the inexpensive automobile insurance business will use to give you acceptable quotes.
Each and every insurance organization uses distinct formulas to come up with a quote. Some might place a lot more emphasis on the variety of car you drive, others on exactly where you reside and nonetheless other folks on your driving experience. This explains the distinction in prices as charged by every insurer.
Consider also the company?s reputation before signing up with them. Some businesses have a very good reputation when it comes to paying claims even though other individuals are poor in that. You want a inexpensive car insurance coverage firm that will settle your claims rapidly and with fairness.
General, go for the low cost car insurance business that offers premium service and sufficient coverage at the very best price.
The low cost vehicle insurance business ought to have a great reputation and a considerable number of years in expertise. Examine auto insurance coverage quotes and decide on the most favorable automobile insurance coverage business.
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Paul Barnes has published 13 articles. Post submitted on September 06, 2010. Word count: 326
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Essentially, automobile insurance will differ. This is important as part of undertaking a monetary plan. The important point is to guarantee that you sign up with an insurance coverage business that will cater for all your wants such as supplying coverage for your car.
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Arizona auto insurance coverage is mandatory. If you are going to be driving here and get stopped by a police officer you have to show proof of insurance coverage.
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In this file photo, George Mitchell receives the inaugural IHS CERA Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2011 CERAWEEK energy conference in Houston. Mitchell died Friday at age 94.
Giant. Genius. Gentleman.
Those are some of the words I heard time and again as I gathered reaction Friday to the passing of Houston energy industry icon George Mitchell.
National Oilwell Varco (NYSE: NOV) CEO Pete Miller was one of the first to respond, and he quickly noted the Galveston, Texas, native?s impact on the energy industry. To many in the industry, he was known as the "father" of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, the method used to extract oil and gas from shale rock formations.
?He was a true giant of the oil business.The shale revolution we are witnessing today is really a result of his efforts and foresight,? Miller said. ?He was a leader, an innovator and a wonderful gentleman.?
Allan Weatherford, president and CEO of Liberty Pipeline Services LLC in Spring, Texas, said Mitchell was a visionary who saw things in the 1960s that no one else did.
?He was definitely an iconic figure,? he said.
Mitchell would?ve turned 95 in August. He studied petroleum engineering and geology at Texas A&M University in College Station and started consulting in the oil business back in the late 1940s. In 1947, George and his brother, Johnny, made what was the first of many deals in the fast-growing oil business by investing in their first exploration venture with a rather emphatic name: Oil Drilling Inc.
Mitchell stepped back from the limelight in recent years. But he made news in December when he called for tight regulations on the technology that he pioneered, which has fueled a renaissance in the energy space.
He told America Public Media?s Marketplace that, as he looked back on his long career in oil and gas, he continued to support the use of fossil fuels. But he also said the folks who run independent operations tend to be ?wild,? and the Department of Energy must ?get tough? with them.
Deon Daugherty covers energy and law for the Houston Business Journal. Read the top Texas energy news in our free weekly newsletter, Energy Inc. Subscribe to the Energy Inc. newsletter. For her breaking stories, follow her on Twitter.
San Diego Padres' Andrew Cashner hits an RBI bunt against the San Francisco Giants' in the 13th inning of a baseball game Monday, June 17, 2013, in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Ben Margot)
San Diego Padres' Andrew Cashner hits an RBI bunt against the San Francisco Giants' in the 13th inning of a baseball game Monday, June 17, 2013, in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Ben Margot)
San Diego Padres' Alexi Amarista reacts after scoring against the San Francisco Giants in the 13th inning of a baseball game Monday, June 17, 2013, in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Ben Margot)
San Diego Padres' Chris Denorfia swings for an RBI double off San Francisco Giants' Barry Zito in the third inning of a baseball game Monday, June 17, 2013, in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Ben Margot)
San Francisco Giants' Barry Zito works against the San Diego Padres in the first inning of a baseball game Monday, June 17, 2013, in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Ben Margot)
San Diego Padres' Edinson Volquez works against the San Francisco Giants in the first inning of a baseball game Monday, June 17, 2013, in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Ben Margot)
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) ? Andrew Cashner provided quite the thrilling warmup for his Tuesday start against San Francisco: a tiebreaking bunt as a pinch hitter in the 13th inning Monday night.
Will Venable made an incredible catch to save San Diego, Cashner drove in the go-ahead run with a perfect safety squeeze, and the Padres extended their season-best winning streak to seven games with a 5-3 victory over the San Francisco Giants.
"That was pretty cool," Cashner said. "I've never had a game-winning RBI. But if Will Venable doesn't have that catch ... it's one of the best catches I've ever seen."
Well, he didn't exactly see it live. Cashner was in the batting cage taking swings.
Venable's diving grab on the center-field warning track with his back to home plate ended the 12th and stole a game-winning hit from Juan Perez.
"The wind was funny tonight," Padres manager Bud Black said. "Off the bat, I thought Will was going to run back and catch it, and then it kept carrying."
Moments later, Alexi Amarista started the winning rally with a single and went to third on Chris Denorfia's single. Cashner came up to face Jose Mijares (0-1) and dropped a bunt single between the mound and third base for his sixth career hit and second RBI.
San Diego added another run on a bases-loaded walk from Jake Dunning. Giants manager Bruce Bochy had made a double switch to bring in Dunning and had intended to have a fresh Buster Posey lead off the next inning, but mistakenly put him in the seventh hole.
"I messed up the double switch. I got distracted," Bochy said. "I was out there arguing and I totally brain-cramped on that. Once I said it wrong, I was done. I knew that. That's a first. I probably should have stepped back and thought a little bit. ... Once I called it wrong I can't take it back. Got distracted, you're upset a little bit, that shouldn't happen but it did."
Nick Vincent (1-0) pitched two scoreless innings. Huston Street finished the 4-hour, 35-minute game for his 14th save in 15 chances. It was San Francisco's longest game of the year.
The Padres finally came through after they had two runners on and one out in the 11th and 12th, but Giants relievers Sandy Rosario and Javier Lopez got a pair of strikeouts to end each threat.
Chase Headley hit a tying single in the seventh against Jean Machi, who induced an inning-ending double play by Jesus Guzman to avoid further damage.
The Giants (35-34) couldn't hold a 3-1 lead for Barry Zito and dropped into fourth place in the NL West for the first time since April 8.
Logan Forsythe had his first three-hit game this year for San Diego, swept in San Francisco's waterfront ballpark April 19-21.
Joaquin Arias hit a sacrifice fly, Brandon Belt and Hector Sanchez each had an RBI single and Perez added two hits and a defensive gem on a night when the road-weary, injury-plagued Giants sent out a lineup largely of backups.
They landed in San Francisco about 3 a.m. Monday after a night game in Atlanta, showed up late to the ballpark and didn't take batting practice before the game. San Francisco just completed a grueling stretch with 14 of 18 games away from AT&T Park.
Zito struck out a season-high eight and got back on track at home where he pitches so well, but had nothing to show for it as the Padres rallied against the bullpen. The lefty walked off to a standing ovation from the sellout crowd with two outs in the sixth and runners on first and third.
Machi relieved and threw a wild pitch that allowed a run to score, then retired pinch-hitter Nick Hundley on a groundout. Machi has allowed a run in six straight outings and 10 of his last 11.
Zito had his most strikeouts since getting 10 against Atlanta on Aug. 6, 2010.
Padres starter Edinson Volquez struck out six in five innings. He doubled leading off the third and scored on Denorfia's double for San Diego's first run.
Volquez knew Venable was going to make the clutch catch.
"I said, 'That ball, it's not going to bounce,'" the pitcher recalled saying. "He can run. He said he let down the team down because he struck out."
San Francisco shortstop Brandon Crawford went 1 for 6 while batting third for the first time this season.
Bochy was asked before the game why he used Crawford there.
"Crawford asked me the same thing," Bochy said. "I just said, 'Maybe I got into the wine too much last night.'"
NOTES: San Diego is still waiting to determine whether SS Everth Cabrera and OF Carlos Quentin will need a stint on the disabled list. Cabrera came out of Sunday's game after the eighth inning with a left hamstring injury. Quentin missed his third straight game Monday because of left shoulder soreness. ... Giants 3B Pablo Sandoval (strained left foot) and CF Angel Pagan (strained left hamstring) are expected to be activated for the start of a series at Dodger Stadium beginning next Monday. Sandoval played catch and hit in the cage without a walking boot Monday. He is tentatively slated to begin a rehab assignment Friday with Class-A San Jose, and Pagan will likely go out on rehab soon, too. ... San Francisco reliever Santiago Casilla, who had right knee surgery, is expected to throw off a mound within a week. ... San Francisco hosted second-round draft pick INF-RHP Ryder Jones. His late grandfather, Ron Brown, who died last August of cancer, was a huge Giants fan. "This is so cool, because he would have loved this," said Jones' mother, Tiffani, fighting tears in the dugout. ... The Giants are 20-12 against the NL West. ... RHP Matt Cain (5-3) pitches Tuesday night for the Giants against Cashner (5-3).
Academics earn street cred with TED Talks but no points from peers, IU research showsPublic release date: 18-Jun-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Steve Chaplin stjchap@iu.edu 812-856-1896 Indiana University
Though fewer in number, presentations by academics preferred by public
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- TED Talks, the most popular conference and events website in the world with over 1 billion informational videos viewed, provides academics with increased popular exposure but does nothing to boost citations of their work by peers, new research led by Indiana University has found.
In the comprehensive study of over 1,200 TED Talks videos and their presenters, lead author Cassidy R. Sugimoto, an assistant professor in IU Bloomington's Department of Information and Library Science, and a team of researchers from Great Britain and Canada, also looked at the demographic make-up of TED Talks presenters -- only 21 percent were academics, and of those only about one-quarter were women -- and the relationship between a presenter's credentials and a video's popularity.
Data gathered from the TED website and from YouTube also found that male-authored videos on YouTube were more popular and more liked than those authored by women -- possibly because research has shown that females are less likely to comment on YouTube than males -- and that videos by academics were commented upon more often than those presented by non-academics. While YouTube videos by male presenters were more viewed than those by women, this was not true of the TED website.
"Overall, academic presenters were in the minority, yet their videos were preferred," Sugimoto said. "This runs counter to past research that has argued that the public, because of a lack of literacy on the subject, has a negative perception of science and technology that has been fostered by the media."
The new work instead finds positive associations with science and technology information and possibly, Sugimoto noted, some discerning characteristics in the public between presentations by academics and non-academics.
"While TED does not increase the impact of work by scientists within the academic community as seen through more citations, it does popularize research outside of academia," she said. "Academics are receiving greater online visibility, but there is no evidence that TED Talks leads to an increase in the traditional metric of academic capital: citations."
Sugimoto said the Matthew Effect is likely in play -- that the rich get richer while the poor get poorer -- as it's possible TED academic presenters are chosen at least partly because they are already recognized scholars.
In general, most TED video presenters were male (73 percent) and non-academic (79 percent). Within the 21 percent that were academics, the researchers found that 73 percent of those held the rank of at least professor; 75 percent were based in the U.S.; 71 percent had their own Wikipedia page; and 77 percent were cited more frequently than the average. While viewers commented more on videos by academics than non-academics, viewers did not popularize one academic over another based upon age or university affiliation.
"Either university affiliation doesn't register with or is irrelevant to the online audience, or if it is relevant, it may be offset by those academics from less prestigious universities working harder to be invited to present at TED or have their video published," Sugimoto said.
And as far as boosting citations via TED presentations, the researchers looked at citations for an academic for three years before and after TED presentation and found no hike in citations after appearing on the TED website.
"The suggestion is that TED doesn't promote a scientist's work within their own community or that any positive impact is offset by peers questioning the presenter's motivations," Sugimoto said.
The team used both bibliometric (most commonly, academic journal citation analysis) and webometric techniques, which include biodirectional hyperlink analysis of Web-based products.
Co-authors with Sugimoto on "Scientists Popularizing Science: Characteristics and Impact of TED Talk Presenters," were IU doctoral student Andrew Tsou; Mike Thelwall of University of Wolverhampton, United Kingdom; Vincent Lariviere and Benoit Macaluso of Universite de Montreal and the Universite du Quebec a Montreal; and Philippe Mongeon, Universite de Montreal. The new research appeared in PLoS ONE.
The work was funded by the Digging Into Data initiative, a multinational funding program to promote "big data" research. Teams must be composed of scholars from at least two countries and receive funding from one of a number of potential national scholars. The U.S. portion of this grant was funded by the National Science Foundation. For more about the initiative, see this previous press release on IU's Digging Into Data scholars.
As a researcher studying doctoral education and scholarly communication in the IU Bloomington School of Informatics and Computing, Sugimoto is interested in the public's perception of science, how the public consumes scientific information and the resulting relationship with the public's perception and knowledge of science. She received a Ph.D. in information and library science from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2010 and came to IU the same year.
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Academics earn street cred with TED Talks but no points from peers, IU research showsPublic release date: 18-Jun-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Steve Chaplin stjchap@iu.edu 812-856-1896 Indiana University
Though fewer in number, presentations by academics preferred by public
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- TED Talks, the most popular conference and events website in the world with over 1 billion informational videos viewed, provides academics with increased popular exposure but does nothing to boost citations of their work by peers, new research led by Indiana University has found.
In the comprehensive study of over 1,200 TED Talks videos and their presenters, lead author Cassidy R. Sugimoto, an assistant professor in IU Bloomington's Department of Information and Library Science, and a team of researchers from Great Britain and Canada, also looked at the demographic make-up of TED Talks presenters -- only 21 percent were academics, and of those only about one-quarter were women -- and the relationship between a presenter's credentials and a video's popularity.
Data gathered from the TED website and from YouTube also found that male-authored videos on YouTube were more popular and more liked than those authored by women -- possibly because research has shown that females are less likely to comment on YouTube than males -- and that videos by academics were commented upon more often than those presented by non-academics. While YouTube videos by male presenters were more viewed than those by women, this was not true of the TED website.
"Overall, academic presenters were in the minority, yet their videos were preferred," Sugimoto said. "This runs counter to past research that has argued that the public, because of a lack of literacy on the subject, has a negative perception of science and technology that has been fostered by the media."
The new work instead finds positive associations with science and technology information and possibly, Sugimoto noted, some discerning characteristics in the public between presentations by academics and non-academics.
"While TED does not increase the impact of work by scientists within the academic community as seen through more citations, it does popularize research outside of academia," she said. "Academics are receiving greater online visibility, but there is no evidence that TED Talks leads to an increase in the traditional metric of academic capital: citations."
Sugimoto said the Matthew Effect is likely in play -- that the rich get richer while the poor get poorer -- as it's possible TED academic presenters are chosen at least partly because they are already recognized scholars.
In general, most TED video presenters were male (73 percent) and non-academic (79 percent). Within the 21 percent that were academics, the researchers found that 73 percent of those held the rank of at least professor; 75 percent were based in the U.S.; 71 percent had their own Wikipedia page; and 77 percent were cited more frequently than the average. While viewers commented more on videos by academics than non-academics, viewers did not popularize one academic over another based upon age or university affiliation.
"Either university affiliation doesn't register with or is irrelevant to the online audience, or if it is relevant, it may be offset by those academics from less prestigious universities working harder to be invited to present at TED or have their video published," Sugimoto said.
And as far as boosting citations via TED presentations, the researchers looked at citations for an academic for three years before and after TED presentation and found no hike in citations after appearing on the TED website.
"The suggestion is that TED doesn't promote a scientist's work within their own community or that any positive impact is offset by peers questioning the presenter's motivations," Sugimoto said.
The team used both bibliometric (most commonly, academic journal citation analysis) and webometric techniques, which include biodirectional hyperlink analysis of Web-based products.
Co-authors with Sugimoto on "Scientists Popularizing Science: Characteristics and Impact of TED Talk Presenters," were IU doctoral student Andrew Tsou; Mike Thelwall of University of Wolverhampton, United Kingdom; Vincent Lariviere and Benoit Macaluso of Universite de Montreal and the Universite du Quebec a Montreal; and Philippe Mongeon, Universite de Montreal. The new research appeared in PLoS ONE.
The work was funded by the Digging Into Data initiative, a multinational funding program to promote "big data" research. Teams must be composed of scholars from at least two countries and receive funding from one of a number of potential national scholars. The U.S. portion of this grant was funded by the National Science Foundation. For more about the initiative, see this previous press release on IU's Digging Into Data scholars.
As a researcher studying doctoral education and scholarly communication in the IU Bloomington School of Informatics and Computing, Sugimoto is interested in the public's perception of science, how the public consumes scientific information and the resulting relationship with the public's perception and knowledge of science. She received a Ph.D. in information and library science from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2010 and came to IU the same year.
###
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Eric Greitens became a Navy SEAL by becoming a leader.
He figured the best way to start Hell Week would be to pull together a team of seven and keep them together, using the chaos of night to their advantage.
As air-raid sirens blared, artillery simulators exploded and guns ripped through rounds of ammunition, ?Greitens diverted his team from the ?grinder,? an infamous concrete compound where soaked, exhausted men were doing pushups.
They paused, ran down to the beach and planned. After another pause, Greitens said: ?Gentlemen, let?s go join the party. Stay connected. Hold on tight to the man in front of you. We are about to have a great time.?
Once inside the grinder, they continued their subversive tactics, knowing that hell lay ahead.
SEALs, Greitens says, are supposed to take advantage of chaos, and he felt they?d won the first round, even though he?d been told it was harder to lead than to follow.
?It seemed to me that leading could, in fact, be easier,? he says. ?For fear to take hold of you, it needed to be given room to run. As a leader, all the space in your mind was taken up by a focus on your men.?
? Adapted from The Warrior?s Heart, Eric Greitens, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
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Oculus announced its first round of funding today, wherein the company secured $16 million from investors specifically aimed at putting the Oculus Rift in consumer hands. The nascent virtual reality hardware company has repeatedly said its end goal with the Rift is to make it a consumer product; currently, only folks who backed the Rift on Kickstarter and those willing to spend $300 on a developer kit have access. A handful of games support the Rift, though more and more developers are promising not just support in their games, but entire games built from the ground up with VR in mind. An HD version of the headset was also introduced at last week's E3 gaming show.
Oculus' new business partners apparently see enough financial potential in the Rift to not only invest heavily, but to also take on board positions -- both Santo Politi of Spark Capital and Antonio Rodriguez of Matrix Partners are now on the Oculus board of directors. "What Palmer, Brendan and the team are building at Oculus so closely matches the Metaverse that we had to be part of it. Working with them to get this platform to market at scale will be enormously exciting," Rodriguez said of today's news.
The company launched last year with a Kickstarter campaign targeting $250,000 -- the project eventually raised just shy of $2.5 million, and now sells its Rift dev kit outside of the Kickstarter campaign.
WASHINGTON (AP) ? NSA leaker Edward Snowden is defending his disclosure of top-secret U.S. spying programs in an online chat Monday with The Guardian and is attacking U.S. officials for calling him a traitor.
"The U.S. government is not going to be able to cover this up by jailing or murdering me," he said. He added the government "immediately and predictably destroyed any possibility of a fair trial at home," by labeling him a traitor, and indicated he would not return to the U.S. voluntarily.
Congressional leaders have called Snowden a traitor for revealing once-secret surveillance programs two weeks ago in the Guardian and The Washington Post. The National Security Agency programs collect records of millions of Americans' telephone calls and Internet usage as a counterterror tool. The disclosures revealed the scope of the collections, which surprised many Americans and have sparked debate about how much privacy the government can take away in the name of national security.
"It would be foolish to volunteer yourself to" possible arrest and criminal charges "if you can do more good outside of prison than in it," he said.
In one posted reply to a question, Snowden dismissed being called a traitor by former Vice President Dick Cheney, who made the allegations in an interview this week on Fox News Sunday. Cheney was echoing a charge by Senate Intelligence Committee chair Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.,
"Being called a traitor by Dick Cheney is the highest honor you can give an American, and the more panicked talk we hear from people like him, Feinstein...the better off we all are," he said. "This is a man who gave us the warrantless wiretapping scheme as a kind of atrocity warm-up on the way to deceitfully engineering a conflict that has killed over 4,400 and maimed nearly 32,000 Americans, as well as leaving over 100,000 Iraqis dead," he added, referring to the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
The Guardian announced that its website was hosting an online chat with Snowden, in hiding in Hong Kong, with reporter Glenn Greenwald receiving and posting his questions. The Associated Press couldn't independently verify that Snowden was the man who posted 19 replies to questions.
In answer to a question about charges made by Cheney and other U.S. officials that he might be spying for China, and trading information for asylum, Snowden wrote, "Ask yourself: if I were a Chinese spy, why wouldn't I have flown directly into Beijing? I could be living in a palace petting a phoenix by now."
He added later, "I have had no contact with the Chinese government."
Snowden explained that he had not flown directly to Iceland, where he has said he would like to seek asylum, because of the restrictions on travel for U.S. government employees with top clearances that require permission 30 days in advance, making Hong Kong the more accessible option.
Snowden dismissed the U.S. government's claims that the NSA surveillance programs had helped thwart dozens of terrorist attacks in more than 20 countries, including the 2009 al-Qaida plot by Afghan American Najibullah Zazi to blow up New York subways.
"Journalists should ask a specific question: ... how many terrorist attacks were prevented SOLELY by information derived from this suspicionless surveillance that could not be gained via any other source? Then ask how many individual communications were ingested to acheive (sic) that, and ask yourself if it was worth it."
He added that "Bathtub falls and police officers kill more Americans than terrorism, yet we've been asked to sacrifice our most sacred rights for fear of falling victim to it."
Snowden was working as a contractor for NSA at the time he had access to the then-secret programs. He defended his actions and said he considered what to reveal and what not to, saying he did not reveal any U.S. operations against what he called legitimate military targets, but instead showed that the NSA is hacking civilian infrastructure like universities and private businesses.
"These nakedly, aggressively criminal acts are wrong no matter the target. Not only that, when NSA makes a technical mistake during an exploitation operation, critical systems crash," he said, though he gave no examples of what systems have crashed or in which countries.
"Congress hasn't declared war on the countries ? the majority of them are our allies ? but without asking for public permission, NSA is running network operations against them that affect millions of innocent people," he said. "And for what? So we can have secret access to a computer in a country we're not even fighting?"
Snowden was referring to Prism, one of the programs he disclosed. The program sweeps up Internet usage data from all over the world that goes through nine major U.S.-based Internet providers. The NSA can look at foreign usage without any warrants, and says the program doesn't target Americans.
U.S. officials say the data-gathering programs are legal and operated under secret court supervision.
Snowden explained his claim that from his desk, he could "wiretap" any phone call or email ? a claim top intelligence officials have denied. "If an NSA, FBI, CIA, DIA, etc. analyst has access to query raw SIGINT (signals intelligence) databases, they can enter and get results for anything they want," he wrote in the answer posted on the Guardian site. "Phone number, email, user id, cell phone handset id (IMEI), and so on ? it's all the same."
The NSA did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment. But Director of National Intelligence James Clapper has said that the kind of data that can be accessed and who can access it is severely limited.
Snowden said the restrictions on what could be seen by an individual analyst vary according to policy changes, which can happen "at any time," and said that a technical "filter" on NSA data-gathering meant to filter out U.S. communications is "weak," such that U.S. communications often get ingested.
The former contractor also added that NSA provides Congress "with a special immunity to its surveillance," without explaining further.
Snowden defended U.S. Army Pfc. Bradley Manning for his disclosures of documents to Wikileaks, which he called a "legitimate journalistic outlet," which "carefully redacted all of their releases in accordance with a judgment of public interest." He said the Wikileaks release of unredacted material was "due to the failure of a partner journalist to control a passphrase," which led to the charge against Manning that he dumped the documents, which Snowden called an attempt to smear Manning.
Manning is currently on trial at Fort Meade ? the same Army base where the NSA is headquartered ? on charges of aiding the enemy for releasing documents to Wikileaks.
Snowden defended his description of his salary as being $200,000 a year, calling that a "career high," but saying he did take a pay cut to take the job at Booz Allen Hamilton, where he worked as a contractor at an NSA facility in Hawaii. When Booz Allen fired him, they said his salary was $122,000.
In one of his final replies, Snowden attacked the "mainstream media" for its coverage, saying it "now seems far more interested in what I said when I was 17 or what my girlfriend looks like rather than, say, the largest program of suspicion-less surveillance in human history."
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Public release date: 18-Jun-2013
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