IF YOU WANT PRIVACY, YOU CAN BUY IT: “Phil Zimmermann and some of the original PGP team have joined up with former US Navy SEALs to build an encrypted communications platform that should be proof against any surveillance. The company, called Silent Circle, will launch later this year, when $20 a month will buy you encrypted email, text messages, phone calls, and videoconferencing in a package that looks to be strong enough to have the NSA seriously worried. Zimmermann says that surveillance by the state and others has increased vastly over the last few years, and privacy improvement are again needed.”

I remember after 9/11 when there was a brief and nasty effort to somehow blame Zimmermann — when, in fact, the hijackers relied not on strong encryption, but on the ineptitude of intelligence agencies, using open Yahoo accounts with names like “Soldier of Allah.”