• The US military is putting the call out to researchers to develop a bullet that  tracks its targets. The US government's 'Small Business Innovation Research Program' put out the call, asking that researchers look into "less than lethal" varieties of the "magic bullet". The US military already has a drone that hovers over a target before diving into it and blowing up, kamikaze style. Perhaps some of those drones will be used by the CIA to kill people in Yemen or Pakistan, even if it doesn't know who they are, precisely? (h/t @der_bluthund)

• A fire department in Canyon County Idaho has become the first public agency in the state to get a surveillance drone. DHS paid for the $33,400 drone, manufactured by Draganfly Innovations, Inc. That seems like an awful lot of money for a drone that can only fly for 15 minutes at a time, doesn't it? The fire department said it would share the drone with the local police when the latter need it.

• Police don't like surveillance….when the cameras are trained on them.

• Public Intelligence has posted a map showing a number of NSA domestic data interception/collection points, using information provided by computer expert and data privacy activist Jake Appelbaum. Do you live near any of these places?

• The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has released a report criticizing the Department of Defense's biometrics program in Afghanistan, alleging that a number of problems have led to breakdowns in reliability: "As a result, DOD cannot expeditiously correct data transmission issues as they arise, such as the approximately 4,000 biometrics collected from 2004 to 2008 that were separated from their associated identities. Such decoupling renders the data useless and increases the likelihood of enemy combatants going undetected within Afghanistan and across borders." This "decoupling" also potentially puts innocent Afghans at risk. Seems as if biometrics are only as good as the people operating them, then?

• Speaking of biometrics, some scientists think that reading brain waves will be the next phase of automatic identification. Um. No thanks. Computers can stay out of my brain, thank you very much.

• Think the NSA's worldwide vacuum style digital surveillance is creepy? Duh, it's creepy. But what about IARPA's "Open Source Intelligence" program, which aims to use news reports and social media to predict the future? That's right, the US military wants to know who will rebel against which governments, and when, before it happens. The US sure missed the Egyptian revolution. But if this program works as intended, and the US government can accurately predict civil unrest and rebellions, towards what end will it mobilize this resource? Would the US have tried to do something to stop the Egyptian revolution? Seems like a classic case of sticking your nose where it doesn't belong.