News Genius Quotes Of The Week, 06/07/2013

Be careful what you say - the NSA is watching! With the break of this week's biggest story, the NSA PRISM scandal, many other stories have lost the race for attention. Here with the Quotes of the Week, News Genius breaks these down, touching on Zynga, Vladimir Putin, marijuana, and bigotry. News Genius - "We do not provide any government agency with direct access to our servers." -- Gavin Matthews

5. “PRISM/US-984XN Overview, or, the SIGAD Used Most in NSA Reporting Overview” - NSA, PRISM Overview

upload.wikimedia.org

Breaking on top of reports of government wiretapping of the entire Verizon network and the AP, the PRISM NSA surveillance network presents an entire new concept of the Orwellian future. Discovered in documents shared with the Guardian and Washington Post, the program monitors and records every piece of data passing through 9 of the largest Internet companies (supposedly with permission), hoping to sniff out the conversations, personal information, and records of certain individuals. While the government claims that Congress authorized the program in order to monitor only foreign nationals, the reality seems quite a bit more grim. Maybe discussing that drug deal over Skype was not such a good idea after all...

4. “Blacks are 3.73 times more likely than whites to be arrested for marijuana possession“ - ACLU, The War on Marijuana in Black and White

www3.law.harvard.edu

Confirming years of anecdotal evidence in rap, reports issued by NORML, the ACLU, and even the Organization of American States, and common knowledge, the ACLU released a bombshell investigation on intense racial bias in marijuana arrest and prosecution. Due to the implications of the drug war and apparent inherent racism in policing, the nationwide disparity in marijuana arrests between blacks and whites has reached 3.7 times, meaning that for every white arrest, you can expect four black arrests. In places like Washington, D.C., the divide has reached as high as 8 times. The ACLU report eliminates regional trends, income brackets, and the various types and races of marijuana users, leaving only malicious racial bias as the motive behind the divide. If we needed a fatal bullet to end marijuana prohibition and arrest in the United States, this report is a hollow point.

3. “We are saying painful goodbyes to about 18% of our Zynga brothers and sisters” - Zynga CEO Mark Pincus, On Layoffs

blogs-images.forbes.com

Everyone’s favorite, most hated Facebook game company, Zynga, has apparently finally reached its growth apex. Riding on an impossibly large bubble of uninhibited valuation, growth, and expansion, the company’s earnings profile crashed this week, leading to a new round of ~2900 layoffs. In an effort to make up for nearly $40 million in costs, account for a disappointing IPO that led to a 50% devaluation of company stock, and to afford to develop its products past the first offering, Zynga must seriously reduce its size. While the changes are in no way unexpected, as the company claimed, nor sudden, matching previous office closings and smaller layoffs, the message is clear: the tech bubble pops when the peak is too sharp.

2. “So, overall, it is a mutual solution.” - Vladimir Putin, On Divorce with Lyudmila Alexandrovna

i.telegraph.co.uk

In a bit of Russian news, Vladimir Putin humored a rare televised interview to finally confirm that he and wife Lyudmila Putina are to divorce. Due to the dedication of Putin to his job, Putin’s work-related absence from his marriage and family, and Lyudmila’s general desire to be out of the limelight, the marriage was cited as being no longer productive. This pairs allegations, fiercely denied by the Kremlin, of an affair, particularly with Putin’s personal photographer. In typically dry Russian, a particularly brilliant rhetorical tool of Putin’s, the plan to divorce is a “mutual solution” to an ongoing problem, business as usual.

1. “If passed, S. 744 will leave our borders unsecure and our immigration system deeply dysfunctional.” - Senator Ted Cruz, Open Letter on "Gang of Eight" Immigration Bill

addictinginfo.org

Following the trend of politicians simply doctoring facts and figures to make sensationalized points about issues, Texas Senator Ted Cruz jumps onto the anti-Mexican immigration bandwagon and makes a fool of himself. Citing measures not actually in the “Gang of Eight” immigration reform bill, outright lying about qualification for immigration, and even referring to immigrants in the same light as terrorists and internment candidates, Senator Cruz’s open letter reads like an article from a bigoted Senator during the civil rights movement, not as something from 2013. Immigration reform, and the entangling measures and amnesty that pair it, is no easy task, but simply injecting garbage details and baseless criticism into the conversation gives Ted Cruz this week’s dunce cap.