This YouTube video plays a cameo role in the new profile of Elizabeth Warren, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau architect turned U.S. Senate candidate, that appears in November's issue of Vanity Fair. The video, writes Suzanna Andrews, may be part of the reason why Warren never had the chance to lead the agency she built:

But with Daley and Geithner—one of Obama’s closest advisers—sharing center stage, the balance of power in the debate over Warren shifted. Geithner would never criticize Warren publicly—and indeed, as a Treasury spokesperson says, he “has expressed his support and admiration for Professor Warren many times”—but few people in Washington doubted that he remained opposed to her candidacy. To at least one person who saw them in meetings together it appeared that “he looked down on her for no apparent or justifiable reason.” As for Warren, if one mentions the video “Elizabeth Warren Makes Timmy Geithner Squirm,” she says nothing, but an impish smile crosses her face.

Local angle: Internet security expert Jacob Appelbaum's hometown paper covers the news that a local Internet service provider, the Santa Rosa, Calif. based Sonic.net, went to bat for Appelbaum's right to know that the federal government was seeking access to records about his emails. Appelbaum is a supporter of WikiLeaks, which is under federal investigation.

Journalist and lecturer in political science Jim Sleeper, on social media: "I think, on balance, it is a plus. I would call it a necessary but not sufficient condition of serious politics." (Via Ben Smith)

As protesters around the country risk clashes with police to express their dissatisfaction with the status quo in America, a move by California Gov. Jerry Brown gives law enforcement a warrantless way to gain a penetrating gaze into the private lives of people arrested in the Golden State. Threat Level's David Kravets writes:

California Gov. Jerry Brown is vetoing legislation requiring police to obtain a court warrant to search the mobile phones of suspects at the time of any arrest.

The Sunday veto means that when police arrest anybody in the Golden State, they may search that person’s mobile phone — which in the digital age likely means the contents of persons’ e-mail, call records, text messages, photos, banking activity, cloud-storage services, and even where the phone has traveled.

Given enough data, can algorithms predict political upheavals and pandemics? From the New York Times, reporting on a government research project:

It is intended to be an entirely automated system, a “data eye in the sky” without human intervention, according to the program proposal. The research would not be limited to political and economic events, but would also explore the ability to predict pandemics and other types of widespread contagion, something that has been pursued independently by civilian researchers and by companies like Google.

Repurposed: Tuning out Barack Obama's 2012 campaign, one teenager who contributed to the ground game for OFA in '08 used the tactics he learned there to run for and win a seat on a local school board. Roll Call reports he "used the same techniques for his own race as he did for Team Obama — outreach via Facebook and deploying his teenage friends to use a call script during phone banks on his behalf."

Flattening world: CNN Tech reports, "According to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), internet-user penetration in sub-Saharan Africa has grown from 0.5% in 2000 to 10.6% last year ... both the proliferation of mobile phones and the rollout of faster internet networks -- like the fiber-optic cables launched in areas such as east Africa -- have helped the expansion of e-commerce activities in countries such as Nigeria, South Africa and Kenya."

The Federal Times' Sean Reilly asks the White House for a sit-down with the administration's "point man on FOIA policy," Steven Croley, and gets no response. Meanwhile, the federal government is seeking to present itself as a worldwide leader in transparency and open government.