Last week, The Houston Chronicle reported that a Texas psychic was ordered to pay nearly $7 million to a couple she accused of having a mass grave on their property. Back in 2011, a media frenzy ensued when it was reported that up to 30 dismembered bodies were found on this couple's property near Houston, but it turned out to be a huge hoax, a psychic tip gone out of control.

Is history repeating itself, first as farcical hacker movie, then as government surveillance controversy?

After Hasan Elahi somehow ended up on an FBI watch list and found himself being repeatedly detained after flights, he decided to become "radically transparent." Elahi made an art project of documenting every part of his life and put it all online.

On this week's show we discuss Thursday's revelations about government surveillance of both foreign internet content and domestic phone call records. The data news team at our parent station WNYC wants to know how you feel about this. Check out this surveillance sentiment matrix below and add your opinion. Also be sure to listen to this week's episode to hear interviews with Washingtonian national security reporter Shane Harris and co-director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, Elizabeth Goitein, about the what we can glean from the information that became public this week. And yes, the irony of the surveillance sentiment matrix requiring you to enter your zip code and email to use is not lost on us.

National Security reporter Shane Harris explains how the government struggles to use the information it collects on American citizens.  

These are a few of our favorite things this week.

In November of last year, Bob interviewed Craig Brittain, the founder and operator of a revenge porn website called 'Is Anybody Down?' The interview elicited strong reactions from the audience, because of the contentiousness between Bob and Craig, most notably their last exchange, in which Bob tells Craig there's more dignity in starving than in running a revenge porn site.

But if Brittain's twitter feed is to be believed, he has had a change of heart and is now out of the revenge porn business.

Another coronavirus has been appearing with troubling frequency, this one seems to have originated in Saudi Arabia.

Back by popular demand, these are a few of our favorite things.

Yesterday, the Washington Post published an article about the 2010 search warrant on a government adviser named Jin-Woo Kim. Kim allegedly leaked sensitive information to a Fox News reporter named James Rosen, and Kim was eventually indicted. But unlike last week's story of the DOJ subpoenaing Associated Press phone records, this case has the Justice Department not only tracking a journalist's movements, but requesting a warrant to seize two days worth of his emails. In the warrant application, the DOJ says there is probable cause to charge Rosen "at the very least, either as an aider, abettor and/or co-conspirator of Mr. Kim."

Fox’s Executive Vice President of News Michael Clemente released a statement to the press today, which read:

We are outraged to learn today that James Rosen was named a criminal co-conspirator for simply doing his job as a reporter. In fact, it is downright chilling. We will unequivocally defend his right to operate as a member of what up until now has always been a free press.

We're going to be following this story as it develops this week. What do you think of this about it?

In putting together last week's special show on the uncertain future of media business models, a lot of great tape ended up on the cutting room floor. Here's one such interview with Janko Roettgers, staff writer for the GigaOM network and author of Cut the Cord: All You Need to Know to Drop Cable. Brooke asks this pioneer cord cutter what content, if any, he's willing to pay for. 

At-home 3D printing has gotten cheaper, technically simpler and has garnered a ton of media coverage. It can be hard though, to get your head around what exactly 3D printing something actually looks like. Well, here's OTM's first swing at original video production - a look at a 3D printer in action and an idea of how easy they've become to use. How easy is it? Easy enough for a determined 11-year-old.  Nathan Fitch shot and edited the film. OTM's Chris Neary produced it.

On The Media- 3D Printing from nathan fitch on Vimeo.

Nathan Fitch is a New York City based photographer and visual storyteller.

A few weeks ago we talked to Dr. Robert Nussbaum, a geneticist at the University of California San Francisco. Nussbaum was frustrated by the monopoly that one company, Myriad, had over the interpretations of abnormalities in two genes  - BRCA1 and BRCA2 – those abnormalities are predictors of breast and ovarian cancer. Those two genes are also patented by Myriad and the legality of that patenting is currently before the Supreme Court. But Nussbaum’s issue, as a geneticist and a genetic counselor, wasn’t the ownership of genes, it’s the ownership of years and years of test results that Myriad has privatized. Keeping that information from the public means that his patients, usually women, are denied second-opinions and alternative interpretations of genetic information that for many of them has enormous stakes.

Well today one of those women came forward to tell what she’d done when confronted with her BRCA1 and 2 test results – Angelina Jolie wrote in the New York Times that she’s gotten a preventive double mastectomy because her BRCA1 and 2 tests indicate that she has a high likelihood of developing breast cancer. Nussbaum told us that this was a stark, but not uncommon decision made by his patients who confront few other choices when they get back alarming Myriad test results. Unfortunately it was a part of the story that got edited out of the interview we broadcast. Since Jolie has put it back in the news it might be worth re-listening to our interview with Nussbaum about the consequences of locking away public health information.

Over the past year Brooke Gladstone has become a committed Brooklyn Nets fan. Last week the Nets fired their head coach P.J. Carlesimo. That's what you call serendipity people. Brooke should, nay, must, be the next coach of the Nets. She wants it, the OTM blog wants it, and after this campaign gets going the people of Brooklyn will want it.

On Sunday, Defense Distributed, the Texas based outfit that's been trying to create a blueprint for a gun that anyone can download and make at home, published a video showing their pistol in action. It seems like they've achieved their goal. A homemade pistol, made mostly out of plastic, that anyone with a 3D printer can make. 

A solution! (Sort of.)

On our May 3rd show we talked to Mark Caramanica  of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, about the Supreme Court’s recent decision concerning FOIA requests. Caramanica told us that as a result of the high court’s decision, if you live outside of a state like Virginia, that limits public records requests to state residents, you will have to find a “straw man” to file on your behalf. Michael Morisy, co-founder of MuckRock, is one of those straw men. MuckRock has filed some 2000 FOIA requests for citizens, academics and journalists in all 50 states. Brooke talks to Michael Morisy, who says access to information has obsessed him since he was reporter on his college paper.

We've been talking about how to improve Twitter as a breaking news tool both on our show and with you guys, our listeners. We also heard from The Guardian's Heidi Moore and NPR's Andy Carvin. Their thoughts after the jump. 

In July of 2010, a catastrophic oil spill took place in Marshall, Michigan, flooding a million gallons of oil into the Kalamazoo river. At the time, the media paid it little attention, distracted perhaps by the more dramatic Deepwater Horizon oil disaster that was just winding down in the Gulf of Mexico.