Thanks to skyrocketing demand for opiates in some form here, the Sinaloa drug cartel is making a fortune supplying heroin in the United States.

Business Insider: Mexican heroin is flooding the US, and the Sinaloa Cartel is steering the flow

The article points out that the cartels have moved away from marijuana as a cash crop due to the broad legalization that the plant has experienced in the US.

Another wonderful side effect of the US drug war? Potency, purity of drugs reaching ever higher levels

The Good, the Bad, and the Unspeakably Ugly: A Reason Surveillance Reform Bill Primer

Also, Reason’s Holiday Guide to Surveillance Reform Legislation.

Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act in action

Could the smart city be the death of privacy?

Forcepoint predicts security threats and privacy wars for 2018

Should we reassess body cameras based on latest study?

EFF: Why we’re helping The Stranger unseal electronic surveillance records

Everyone’s personal data is for sale in China

Privacy matters, even if you think it doesn’t

Germany bans children’s smartwatches over privacy concerns

Ron Paul: Why are we helping Saudi Arabia destroy Yemen?

Thousands will die daily if Saudi Arabia doesn’t lift blockade, says new survey

Opium production has set another record in Afghanistan

Oklahoma medical cannabis campaign wants a June 2018 vote

How Facial Recognition Tech Is Creeping Into Your Life

Is the government waging an out-of-sight fight with Apple over encryption?

‘Slaughterbot’ film warns tiny drones could carry out murders

The feds, not companies, are most liable to mishandle our personal data

Judge requires warrant for use of Stingray surveillance device

How the drug war unfairly punishes female “drug mules”

The war on Yemen is killing 130 children each day

Medical News Today: Psychedelic plant brew could improve mental health

Over 6,000 within a year:

“The report includes rape, sexual assault, forcible sodomy, aggravated and abusive sexual contact and attempts to commit those crimes. It includes active duty service members, activated Reserve and National Guard members, civilian victims who allege a sexual assault by an active duty member and adult dependents of active duty members.

The numbers do not necessarily reflect where or even when an alleged assault occurred because victims may report a sexual assault at a time and place of their choosing, according to the report.

The Army had 2,205 reported assaults, the Navy had 1,285, the Air Force had 1,043 and the Marines had 825. There were 670 reported assaults at joint bases and another 125 in combat areas for a total of 6,153, which averages to 16.8 reported assaults per day.

The Pentagon estimates that just 32 percent of service members who experience a sexual assault go on to report the incident. That’s up from 15 percent or fewer prior to 2014.”

Depressing. 

Philippine president Duterte is making the attempt.  Turns out it takes quite a lot more murder than he probably anticipated.

According to latest study.

“The NSA needs to stop hacking”

Excerpts:

“And as this New York Times story illustrates, the agency has been completely incapable of figuring out how the breach happened. Their computer networks could have been penetrated, or they could have someone on the inside leaking the tools. But after more than a year, they have not been able to plug the leak. It’s long past time the NSA was forced to stop hacking, and to start protecting the American people from the sort of tools they create.

At the time of the leak last year, I speculated that the NSA was exposing the American people to online attack, but I was not prepared for how bad it would be. Several huge ransomware attacks (in which a computer is infiltrated, its hard drive encrypted, and the de-encrypt key held for a bitcoin ransom) using NSA hacking tools have swept the globe, hitting companies like FedEx, Merck, and Mondelez International, as well as hospitals and telecoms in 99 countries.

Even NSA partisans admit that this leak is creating much worse problems than the Snowden revelations (which were, after all, carefully vetted by journalists before being published). And despite a months-long internal investigation, the NSA still isn’t even sure what sort of leaks these are, let alone how the hackers are doing it.(…)

(…)In practice, it’s now beyond question that the benefits of developing these hacking tools pale in comparison to the danger they pose simply by existing. The NSA might be able to hire the best computer scientists in the world, but they are manifestly incapable of keeping the tools they produce secure. (The Shadow Brokers are apparently associated with the Russian government, which, for whatever reason, is seemingly a lot better at hacking than the American one.)”

The hubris that goes into the making of such a disaster is mind boggling.

An 11-month old baby.

Jeff Schechtman on the high price paid for the longest war in US history.