There's a lot going on in the press today re: surveillance and spy technologies. Here's a breakdown:

• The head of the military CIA chief is rubbing his hands together excitedly, eagerly anticipating the day when his spook agency can more easily spy on you — through your household appliances. Petraeus is also thinking about how to construct fake online identities for his spies. After all, everyone has to be on Facebook, right?

• Canadian police are lobbying to pass a law that would force telecommunications companies to bill users for — wait for it — the cost of spying on them. They are calling it the "public safety tax." Not joking. (h/t @boingboing)

• The DOJ has asked a court to keep the NSA and Google's relationship secret from the public. Is this another "we do not concede or not concede" type of situation? Is this a wormhole?

• And finally, remember that Naomi Klein story about US companies selling surveillance tools to the Chinese government? (Refresh yourself here.) Turns out Bain Capital, the Romney hedge-fund, stands to profit immensely over that unseemly program. From the NYTimes:

In December, a Bain-run fund in which a Romney family blind trust has holdings purchased the video surveillance division of a Chinese company that claims to be the largest supplier to the government's Safe Cities program, a highly advanced monitoring system that allows the authorities to watch over university campuses, hospitals, mosques and movie theaters from centralized command posts.