Senate bill would force tech companies to comply with just about any government order

The “Compliance With Court Orders Act of 2016”, birthed by privacy-fearing senators Dianne Feinsten and Richard Burr, is a tiny, 9-page bill that would force tech companies to comply in situations that Apple and the FBI found themselves in.  Reason

Of course, the easy access to third-party encryption software renders the squabble over encryption meaningless.  No bill is going to prevent anyone from finding and installing it.

Saudi war on Yemen has made Al-Qaeda there stronger and richer

The unintended consequences of war are the only ones that matter in the long run.  Saudis are bombing the Houthis, an enemy of Al-Qaeda in Yemen, and Al-Qaeda are stepping into the power vacuum.  So, yes, the US government is inadvertently aiding Al-Qaeda by bombing their enemies, effectively handing another Middle Eastern country over to the terrorist group. Reuters

No, encryption isn’t to blame for the success of European terror; intelligence failure at recognizing obvious clues/hints is

Automatically blaming encryption for terror attacks must be cathartic for the political class, because it shifts the blame from them over to liberty/privacy.  But Euro terrorists used burner phones to evade law enforcement, despite the outcry over encryption.  Authorities already had plenty of info on the terrorists prior to their attack, and as this Tech Dirt piece makes clear, law enforcement were probably smothered under a glut of info, not a lack of it.  Too much info to sift through, and a lack of will to pull the threads together in time, are more to blame for the attacks’ success than privacy.

Cops brutally beat wrong person, realize they’re being filmed, tell those filming to delete video

Undercover cops didn’t identify themselves as cops, forced then-21-yr-old James King against their SUV and took his wallet.  The young man understandably tried to run, thinking he was being mugged.  He was tackled by the cops and beat/choked until he lost consciousness.  They then tell the bystanders filming to delete the video evidence.  Unbelievably, the bystanders did as instructed.  No consequences means this will continue to happen. Cop Block

The Saudis just killed 119 Yemen civilians with US-made bombs

The Saudis are unleashing their US-made stockpile of First World weapons on a poor, Third World country.  The survivors of this onslaught will not forget who made the bombs, and who funded and supported the destruction of their country, and the murder of their countrymen.  Again, THIS is how terrorists are created.  Why is the world ignoring it? Antiwar