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In the wee hours of Sunday, the U.S. Embassy in Berlin became the unwitting host of a light show expressing opposition the U.S. surveillance programs.

"The United Stasi of America," was splashed on a wall at the embassy around 1 a.m., the work of German guerrilla artists.

The Europeans in general have been extremely critical of the surveillance programs. And the Germans have been particularly vocal given the history of the Nazis and the Stasi, the secret police during the communist era in East Germany.

The light projection also included the likeness of Kim Dotcom, also known as Kim Schmitz, the Internet entrepreneur who founded Megaupload and its successor, Mega.

However, the actual projection was carried out by Oliver Bienkowski, and is captured here in this YouTube video.

After the Federal Open Market Committee meeting in June, the financial markets "freaked out," according to David Wessel, economics editor of The Wall Street Journal.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke sent a shockwave through the markets when suggested the Fed's stimulus could end.

David tells Morning Edition host Renee Montagne "Bernanke tried to explain that if, and only if, the economy kept improving, the Fed would begin later this year to reduce the amount of money it's pumping into the economy later this year."

The markets interpreted Bernanke's comments to mean interest rates would increase and that prompted a sell-off in bonds and stocks.

The Fed is buying $85 billion in bonds a month to help keep borrowing low. That economic move has encouraged borrowing and spending.

Dennis Lockhart, president of the Atlanta Fed bank, told an audience in Marietta, Ga., in June, that what the Fed was trying to do for the economy was similar to how a smoker who wants to quit begins using a nicotine patch.

The markets, however, took it to mean the Fed was going to quit "cold turkey," Lockhart said.

"It took speeches by half a dozen other Fed officials and about a dozen other metaphors to clarify Bernanke's clarification," David tells Renee.

Stocks have largely recovered since Bernanke made his stimulus comments, but there has been a surge in long-term interest rates.

The benchmark, 10-year Treasury rate "has gone from below 1.7 percent at the beginning of May to nearly 2.7 percent this week," David says.

In the last Freddie Mac survey, mortgage rates have gone from about 3.4 percent to 4.3 percent.

"The market is pushing up interest rates because the incoming news on the U.S. economy has been encouraging, and in part because markets are anticipating the day when the Federal Reserve won't be trying so hard to keep rates down," David adds.

There could be further clarification of the Fed's plans at 2 p.m. today with the release of the minutes from the June meeting.

And there's always the chance the markets could get agitated again when Bernanke speaks about two hours later. He is expected to deliver remarks on the central bank's track record throughout its 100 year history at a conference in Cambridge, Mass.

After the Federal Open Market Committee meeting in June, the financial markets "freaked out," according to David Wessel, economics editor of The Wall Street Journal.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke sent a shockwave through the markets when suggested the Fed's stimulus could end.

David tells Morning Edition host Renee Montagne "Bernanke tried to explain that if, and only if, the economy kept improving, the Fed would begin later this year to reduce the amount of money it's pumping into the economy later this year."

The markets interpreted Bernanke's comments to mean interest rates would increase and that prompted a sell-off in bonds and stocks.

The Fed is buying $85 billion in bonds a month to help keep borrowing low. That economic move has encouraged borrowing and spending.

Dennis Lockhart, president of the Atlanta Fed bank, told an audience in Marietta, Ga., in June, that what the Fed was trying to do for the economy was similar to how a smoker who wants to quit begins using a nicotine patch.

The markets, however, took it to mean the Fed was going to quit "cold turkey," Lockhart said.

"It took speeches by half a dozen other Fed officials and about a dozen other metaphors to clarify Bernanke's clarification," David tells Renee.

Stocks have largely recovered since Bernanke made his stimulus comments, but there has been a surge in long-term interest rates.

The benchmark, 10-year Treasury rate "has gone from below 1.7 percent at the beginning of May to nearly 2.7 percent this week," David says.

In the last Freddie Mac survey, mortgage rates have gone from about 3.4 percent to 4.3 percent.

"The market is pushing up interest rates because the incoming news on the U.S. economy has been encouraging, and in part because markets are anticipating the day when the Federal Reserve won't be trying so hard to keep rates down," David adds.

There could be further clarification of the Fed's plans at 2 p.m. today with the release of the minutes from the June meeting.

And there's always the chance the markets could get agitated again when Bernanke speaks about two hours later. He is expected to deliver remarks on the central bank's track record throughout its 100 year history at a conference in Cambridge, Mass.

On the image of vigilantes like Batman and Bernhard Goetz, who became famous in the '80s after he shot a group of teenagers who he said tried to rob him on the New York City subway

"Vigilantes are particularly complex scenarios because any sophisticated intellectual person, if you say to them, you know, 'Is vigilante justice good for society?' they will say, 'No.' But when people hear a story about a real vigilante, with very little information — all that they know is that a peaceful person was attacked and responded with force and basically took justice into their own hands because no one was going to help them. In that kind of slightly defined abstraction, people like the idea of a vigilante. It's like Batman.

"But as soon as that vigilante becomes a real person, as soon as Bernhard Goetz starts saying things about his life and his worldview and we learn details about how he lives and we see what he looks like and we see all these things about him; suddenly then the vigilante becomes very problematic again.

This is often described as somebody's image "falling apart."

"The irony is that it's actually someone not falling apart; it's actually someone being put together. I mean with someone like Bernhard Goetz, or with the fictional idea of Batman, if you don't know anything about a person, you only put good things into the shell."

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