The "USA Freedom Act" allows the NSA to demand the phone records of everyone that talked with everyone that talked with any specific party.

That's a lot of Americans in any one request.

Thought control to be imposed on UK schools requires them to report students for "non-violent extremism".

The government has labeled non-violent extremism as "terrorism" on the grounds that it might create an "atmosphere conducive to terrorism". Indeed, that happens. Dawkins has pointed out that moderate believers in any religion, while not themselves fanatics, tend to protect fanatics and make excuses for their violence.

But if the state snoops on nonviolent believers, makes lists of them, and represses them for what their views might lead to, it has abolished religious freedom. The state will call the policy a success because of all the hypothetical terrorist attacks that didn't take place, but what it will really do is make all Muslim students regard teachers as spies that cannot be trusted.

The way to discourage fundamentalism among students is to show them the suffering that fundamentalists cause. That discussion can't happen in school if school is a place of repression.

Paulo Coelho has published two of his books on the basis of "download, then pay if you wish."

I would be happy to pay if I download a book, but the methods he has permitted are through companies that track the readers, which is intolerable. Amazon is truly vicious and iTunes requires Apple's nonfree software.

I wish he would set up an anonymous way to pay.

Sudan's tyrant Bashir has been arrested in South Africa at the request of the ICC.

The US House of Representatives blocked military aid to a Ukrainian militia because it is Nazi.