• The ACLU of PA is representing university professor Karen Piper in a suit against Pittsburgh police for allegedly damaging her hearing after blaring a crowd-dispersal weapon at protestors outside the 2009 G-20 meeting in that city. The weapon, called a "Long Range Acoustic Device," emits a sound that physically hurts people over long distances. Read more about so-called 'non-lethal' weapons.
• The FBI is deploying a new biometrics program nationwide, aiming to collect hundreds of millions of fingerprints via a mobile data collection system. The new program, RICS — for Repository for Individuals of Special Concern — allows state and local cops to capture prints right on the street, and submit to and check them against the FBI's massive new biometrics databank, Next Generation Identification. Read more about NGI here, here and here. In a likely related development, the Massachusetts Sheriff's Association was awarded a large grant to procure mobile biometrics technology for sheriffs and police agencies throughout the state. Has the federal government been giving these grants to agencies nationwide, preparing for the deployment of RISC? 
• The federal government thinks it should be able to secretly track you without a warrant, and then delete the evidence so that it can't be discovered in court. The practice uses what's called a "stingray" machine, enabling law enforcement to pin point your location by tracing your cell phone, even if you aren't using it. 
• The Dutch government has announced that it will exclude US based cloud providers from any government IT contracts due to fears that information stored online will not be safe from USA Patriot Act snooping. 
• For the real nerds out there, here's a round-up of CCTV related tech developments from ASIS 2011. 
• Hey Yahoo, quit reading everyone's email and deciding what should and shouldn't get through to inboxes. It's creepy and anti-democratic. Oh wait, that was a mistake?