Image: Cornell

• THE SPEECHJAMMER. Researchers have developed a tool that records audio of someone speaking and then immediately broadcasts it back at them in a loop that is so confusing it disorients the speaker into silence. Yup. A silence machine. 

• The State Department is jumping on the bandwagon along with every other conceivable government spook agency, getting a social media monitoring program up and running. Why? Why does the government insist on monitoring our public communications? And why does every agency need its own program? Redundancy much? Big brother meets big government waste. (h/t @jilliancyork)

• An appeals court has ruled that the police don't need a warrant in order to search your cellphone. Um.

• FBI: ZOMG terrorists and hackers are totally scary and policing them justifies any and all assaults on our most basic rights! Hacking is the new terrorism. Terrorists are hackers. Bad scary things. Etc.

• Local police are complaining that their relationship with DHS and the FBI isn't super reciprocal. They report that they aren't getting much in return for the copious amount of information they send to federal spook agencies about us. Consolidation of power at the top. What does that remind us of? The dangers are many and clear.