Snowden said at the beginning the Intelligence Community does some things in secrecy and without public's consent. I did not quite get that. Isn't the job of intelligence to do things in secrecy? The only things they have to follow is the Constitution and the rules.

Taking back the internet is beyond us now.

I remember when the internet was born and remember the promise everyone talked about..... the information will be free, unrestricted and open, governments will not be able to hide secrets from people, there will be an audit trail and education will be free, books will be free and so on. What happened? The promise was cut short with fire walls, intranet, monitoring and spying by the big brother, serious hacking and privacy challenges etc. Russia declared two years ago that that it has invented the internet that is totally hack free. China is seriously monitoring all information coming in and going out, it allows what apps can work on its internet. We all know what North Korea's internet is.

What happened?
The big guys stepped in and took control of the technology to use it their advantage and just keeping the minimum for people. The internet providers choose what to allows us on the internet with Net Neutrality.

Now we are talking similar things, similar or even bigger promise about the blockchain. People are touting the magic of blockchain such as ... "decentralization, immutability, security, and transparency." like it will give us a total freedom from government and exploiting system like the banking industry. These are the beautiful things it is promising:

1. Break Hold of the Banking Industry -- Cryptocurrencies will avoid the dominance and exploitation of the banking industry of intermediary banks, delays to deliver money to increase float
2. Make governments honest
3. Saves costs - the transcation machine is automatic
4. Higher security - data cannot be altered or deleted, protected cryptography, transactions are are time stamped, No risk of duplicate entry or fraud
5. Transparency Allows for verification without having to be dependent on third-parties
6. Decentralized - Not on a server or servers. Transactions stored in millions of computers
7. Rules Driven - with the smart contracts. Transactions are triggered only when the conditions are met

What is happening?
Corporations and governments are taking it over and customizing to use for own purposes. Banks will use it too but no one is giving up control over markets. They will make the big promise of blockchain fade....