Buzzfeed has a nice, time-lapse map depicting where all those surveillance flights were taking place between August and December of last year, along with the frequency of flights in the same location.  Both DHS and the FBI defended the flights as necessary to track “serious criminals” and “terrorists”.  Buzzfeed noticed, however, that the flights dropped by 70% on weekends and holidays, indicating that something else afoot.

The “Sea Hunter” is a 132 feet long, remotely-controlled ship that will supposedly hunt enemy submarines.  The cost of the project stands at $20 million.  The ship is currently unarmed, I wonder how long that will last? Reuters

Anyone reading that should immediately do the same. Infowars

Antiwar.  13 years, trillions of tax dollars, thousands of lives, and a helluva lot else, and what has our government got out of this “investment”?  A failed state overrun by violence, and Iraqi troops who run off, leaving their expensive American gear to be picked up by ISIS.

Flights employed cellphone tracking and “augmented reality” technology over US cities. Cop Block

Let’s see to what extent a US “ally”(money’s on Saudi Arabia) had a hand in the attacks. Sputnik

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.

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

Courtesy of Houston mayor.  Regardless of your opinion of vaccines, isn’t the anti-anti-vaccine hysteria a bit much?  Are they worried that the arguments are so persuasive that don’t want a film like this grabbing any “prestige” by being screened at high profile events? Activist Post

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.