A short one

Chantal was a non event that we in the Virgin Islands are very thankful for. She brushed past our shores dusting us with the smallest of squalls from her outer rings and seas that stayed relatively moderate. Thank you for sparing us.

Today the birds are all back to their nosy chatter unlike yesterday when they had become quite silent. The power stayed on and the only real change to every day life was the what ifs. We went swimming this morning in water that was relatively clear...seeing turtles, rays, loads of fish and not one shark.

Now we wait for the next one.

 This and That

i was reading about a small internet company in Utah of all places that has refused to hand over access to their customers accounts without a warrant spelling out what the probable cause is. Instead of handing over bulk info on all his subscribers Pete Ashdown of XMission has been protecting his patrons by not responding to requests for information that wasn't accompanied by a specific warrant.

Ashdown was apparently influenced by his Danish mother in the same way i was influenced by my English mother. World War II and the Nazis created enough instability in both our mothers lives that they drilled it into us what to look for. His mother provided him with a foundation of knowledge about the excesses of authoritarian governments, enough so that he knew to fight back when government was over extending.

Unfortunately there are too few like him in this country, but it is nice to know that there are some out there that aren't cooperating with the surveillance state. Its unfortunate that our media isn't reporting this and i had to find it in the Guardian.

When rights are lost it is very difficult to retrieve them.

Polls say that most citizens across the country view Snowden as a whistleblower not a traitor...and there is still no evidence that he has given any sensitive information to China or Russia. In fact he told Greenwald yesterday that neither country has had access to his computers. i'm in the whistleblower camp where do you stand?

See ya next week.