NextDraft: Snowden’s Accomplice Speaks and Other Fascinating News on the Web

The Filmmaker Behind The NSA Leaks Who is Keyser Soze? … Nobody believed he was real … That was his power. The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist. And like that, poof. He’s gone. — The Usual Suspects You’ve probably never heard of documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras. She’s kept a low profile. But she’s the person who might be most responsible for getting secrets from Edward Snowden’s mind to the front page. As you’d expect, the story of Poitras and Snowden reads like a spy novel. In Hong Kong, Poitras looked for a man with a Rubik’s cube. When they moved into a hotel room, they placed their cell phone batteries in a refrigerator and lined pillows against the door. Here’s Glenn Greenwald, the journalist most associated with the story, describing Poitras: “I keep calling her the Keyser Soze of the story, because she’s at once completely invisible and yet ubiquitous.” From the NYT Magazine: How Laura Poitras Helped Snowden Spill His Secrets. Planned Airline Merger Hits Turbulence In somewhat of a surprise move, the Justice Department is seeking to block the merger of American Airlines and U.S. Airways, arguing that the joint entity would substantially reduce competition. (Apparently we don’t want any single company to have a stranglehold on the market for lost luggage and delayed flights.) Life in the Fast Lane Yesterday, Elon Musk introduced his much-anticipated idea for the Hyperloop, a mode of transportation that could theoretically whisk passengers from LA to SF in about 38 minutes. “According to Musk’s design, the Hyperloop’s capsules would be transported at speeds of 300 to 760 mph through a steel tube kept at low pressure. The capsules would shoot through the tube on a cushion of air (like a puck gliding on an air hockey table), accelerated by a magnetic system at points along the way.” The idea alone will put pressure on California politicians trying to push through plans to build a high speed train covering the same route. + This isn’t



via NewsFeed | TIME.com http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/08/13/snowdens-accomplice-speaks-and-other-fascinating-news-on-the-web/