This week, Greg Davies from the BlendoveR podcast and frequent Geeks of Doom contributor (including the Tardisblend podcast) joins us to discuss how the National Security Agency is eavesdropping on our phone calls, e-mails, texts, and all online activity in the name of national security. Are we overreacting, or not acting enough? Also, the NSA may have our data, but they can never patent our DNA. Microsoft does a 180 on their followup to the 360, and Google creates a network of floating balloons…

Podcast

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What We’re Playing With

Dwayne & Andy: Ouya

Headlines

• Microsoft to Pull Complete Reversal on Xbox One DRM Policies
  • Your Feedback Matters – Update on Xbox One
• Introducing Project Loon: Balloon-powered Internet access
• Why Google Reader Really Got the Axe
  • Feedly Cloud Goes Live To Replace Google Reader’s Backend
  • Digg’s Google Reader replacement beta opens on June 26th
• Supreme Court rules human genes cannot be patented

Audible Book of the Week

• The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America by James Bamford
• Sign up at AudibleTrial.com/TheDrillDown

Music Break : Spies by Coldplay

Hot Topic: NSA Eavesdropping/PRISM

• Timeline of NSA Domestic Spying
• NSA collecting phone records of millions of Verizon customers daily
  • NSA admits listening to U.S. phone calls without warrants
• President Obama on NSA spying: Congress has known about it and approved for years
• U.S. intelligence mining data from nine U.S. Internet companies in broad secret program
  • Google denies PRISM involvement, says secrecy ‘undermines the freedoms we all cherish’
  • Mark Zuckerberg responds to PRISM allegations
  • Apple’s Commitment to Customer Privacy
  • The Latest to Disclose Government Requests, Yahoo Reveals the Least
  • Google, Facebook & Microsoft Ask US Gov’t For Permission To Report FISA Data Requests
    • Google challenges U.S. gag order, citing First Amendment
  • WaPost backtracks on claim tech companies “˜participate knowingly’ in PRISM data collection
  • Doublespeak Denials Of PRISM Hid The Truth About Participation
  • The real story in the NSA scandal is the collapse of journalism

Music Break: Somebody’s Watching Me by Rockwell

• Edward Snowden: the whistleblower behind the NSA surveillance revelations
  • Edward Snowden: US government has been hacking Hong Kong and China for years
  • 3 NSA veterans speak out on whistle-blower: We told you so
• U.S. Agencies Said to Swap Data With Thousands of Firms
  • Secret Court Ruling Put Tech Companies in Data Bind
• Expanded ‘2-person rule’ could help plug NSA leaks
• Why Privacy Matters Even if You Have ‘Nothing to Hide’
  • Woz: This is not my America
• Don’t ask your government for your Privacy, take it back: Here’s How

Viral Video of the Week

Tap It: The NSA Slow Jam

Outro: Spying Glass by Horace Andy

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Geeks Of Doom’s The Drill Down is a roundtable-style audio podcast where we discuss the most important issues of the week, in tech and on the web and how they affect us all.

Hosts are Geeks of Doom contributor Andrew Sorcini (Mr. BabyMan), marketing research analyst Dwayne De Freitas, and Startup Digest CTO Christopher Burnor. Occasionally joining them is Box tech consultant Tosin Onafowokan.