Broadcasts from the Ministry of Truth, and you ditched iTunes for this?

At a conference in San Antonio in October, principal deputy director of national intelligence Donald Kerr offered a truly Clintonian view of privacy. He said that people should get accustomed to the fact that citizens can no longer expect anonymity, but should instead push for government and private industry to better protect people’s sensitive information. And to throw a xenophobic spin on it, Mr. Kerr finds it odd that people object to the government illegally surveilling its own citizens when these same people are “perfectly willing for a green-card holder at an (Internet service provider) who may or may have not have been an illegal entrant to the United States to handle their data”. Way to play the immigrant card, Mr. Kerr.

Word comes that NBC is readying a video download service to replace their expiring distribution deal with Apple.  The downloads are free, but that’s about the only advantage this service has over iTunes.  Mac user?  Sorry, you’re out of luck.  This is a Windows only, Internet Explorer only, Windows Media Player only service.  Sounds like NBC has taken the wrong page from Apple’s playbook.