Xeni speaks with author and Wired editor in chief Chris Anderson, and "airplane geek" Jordi Munoz, about the quest to create the ultimate sub-$100 aerial drone. One design involved the use of a Nintendo Wii controller. UAVs are often associated with military combat or police surveillance, but what "friendlier" uses might we put them to, in civilian hands? Shot at the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference in San Diego, California. Here's more on their Minimum Blimp.

In 2005, Mark Klein, a former AT&T; technician, brought to public attention documents which showed that the National Security Agency had obtained copies of Internet traffic flowing through an AT&T; facility in San Francisco and through several other AT&T; locations across the country.

This led to public outcry over the US government's warrantless wiretapping program, and a lawsuit against AT&T; by the Electronic Frontier Foundation .

At the 2008 EFF Pioneer Awards ceremony during the O'Reilly ETech conference, the EFF honored Klein's whistleblowing efforts. In this interview at the awards ceremony, Klein and EFF Legal Director Cindy Cohn speak with us about efforts to persuade lawmakers not to grant legal immunity to telecoms that may have broken the law while helping the government in anti-terrorism efforts.

On March 6, 2008, another whistleblower came forward with similar claims. Computer security consultant Babak Pasdar said he'd discovered a mysterious "Quantico Circuit" while working for an unnamed major wireless carrier.

He believes this circuit gives the U.S. government direct, high-speed access to customers' voice and data transmissions.

For more information: EFF.org.

Update: Wired's Threat Level blog posted about this BBtv episode just now, and reminds us...

And just to toot our own horn, although Wired wasn't the first to write about the Klein documents, we did acquire them while they were under court seal (from a party not subject to the gag order) and publish them for geeks of the world to analyze. (Explanation here.)

In today's edition of Boing Boing tv, dramatic readings of real-life unsolicited emails. Part one, HOWITZER CANNONPANTS, a spiritual and pharmaceutical parable that ends not with ressurection, but erection. Part two, THANKS, MAURICE, one of dozens of emails received by Boing Boing editors from a disturbed man in Canada who sought cash, justice, and an end to "Mind Controlled Hatred." Credits for Creative Commons-licensed video and photos used in this ep, after the jump.

In today's Boing Boing tv, Xeni visits Machine Project in LA to check out artist Brody Condon's piece "Performance Modification," in which....

10 performers outfitted in medieval/space/fantasy armor re-create Bruce Nauman’s 1973 work “Tony Sinking into the Floor, Face Up and Face Down”. Performed in slow motion and combined with movements based on computer game death animations, this piece is accompanied by a high volume binaural beats reputed to induce out of body experiences.

Condon has a history of work involving computer game modification, and performance events with medieval re-enactment and fantasy live action role playing games.

In part two, an impressionistic montage of iPhone snapshots taken among those living, slow-mo dead.