Lots of you in Hawaii are either getting hammered by Tropical Storm Flossie or preparing for its arrival, but a bit of a morning diversion might be useful.

A reader posed this interesting scenario a couple of days ago.

I am sure that everyone, except for the killer, believes that the murderer of Mary Beth San Juan should be caught and punished as soon as possible.

Let us suppose for the sake of argument that the NSA has in its databank some intelligence information that could help solve the crime. Perhaps they have cellphone records that could pinpoint the location of the victim that could be traced to the ATM that the suspect used in the highly publicized video that is now being shown on the news. Perhaps the NSA has the actual phone conversations from the decedent’s cell phone. Perhaps the NSA has satellite photos that have such high definition that they can pinpoint the location of the Mercedes Benz that appears to have been taken from the dead woman. Whatever the information is, let us suppose for the sake of this argument that it could instantly solve this crime. The question is, if you had the power to order that this critical crime solving information to be made available by the NSA, would you do so?

I’ve got my own response, which I’ll try to add later today, weather and conditions permitting.

In the meantime, your viewpoints and analysis are invited.

And for those tracking the storm: