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I guess this comes as no surprise:

Former National Security Agency contract employee Edward Snowden used a computer thumb drive to smuggle highly classified documents out of an NSA facility in Hawaii, using a portable digital device supposedly barred inside the cyber spying agency, U.S. officials said.

….“Of course, there are always exceptions” to the thumb drive ban, a former NSA official said, particularly for network administrators. “There are people who need to use a thumb drive and they have special permission. But when you use one, people always look at you funny.

Hmmm. “Looking at you funny” doesn’t really seem like high-grade security, does it?

On the other hand, what’s the answer? Thumb drives these days can be as small as a fingernail, so it’s hard to know what kind of measures can keep them out of secure sites completely. And yes, network admins probably do need to use them sometimes. Ironically, this means that the kind of people who probably pose the greatest security threat are also the kind of people who are least invested in NSA’s actual mission.

I suppose the answer here is going to be yet another crackdown on thumb drives, as well as a more general crackdown on security in general. This will throw plenty of sand in the gears at NSA, but I have a feeling Snowden might not have a problem with that.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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