• Guys, gals and everyone else: cover your webcam when you aren't using it, pretty please? There are many creeps out there, and government spooks, who can use tricky software to hack into your webcam and look at you in your private zones. Just do it. A piece of post-it note cut up works just fine, as you can see:

• Among the FBI's many schemes to vacuum up criminal and non-criminal data from state and local police is N-Dex, the National Data Exchange program. It provides an easy method for submission of all local criminal data to the federal government, and grants local police access to criminal information submitted by other participating agencies nationwide. In other words, it federalizes local criminal information, including arrest reports. Minnesota is struggling with whether to participate; agencies all over California already do so.
• Fusion centers for all! Fusion centers for all! Now the head of Interpol wants a special, global fusion center to help track emails in advance of the Olympic games. In related news, Microsoft is developing a system that will alert law enforcement and "other partners" when they encounter "threats" on their networks.
• One of the arguments we privacy advocates make with regard to unchecked police databases is the potential for inside abuse of those systems. The possibilities are literally endless, but among the most likely scenarios are domestic violence and "help a buddy out" acts of corruption. In the UK, a recent study has shown that police violated database access rules at least 900 times in recent years. And those were only the people who got caught.
• Bloomberg news has a cool new feature about sales of surveillance technology equipment to repressive regimes, complete with an interactive map showing where the technologies are sold and where they are deployed. While the US government hasn't gotten as bad as that of Syria or Bahrain, there are ample examples of US domestic and foreign use of similar technologies to commit human rights abuses. But where's that story?
• Can you hear that? It's the sound of anti-freedom forces gearing up to pressure Twitter to do more to censor and monitor its users' speech. As often happens, the push towards censorship is occurring under the guise of "protecting children." Twitter says its current rules are good enough; good for them.
• In the department of HILARIOUS, The Register is reporting that the US military has switched its drone hardware to operate on Linux after a virus broke out on its Microsoft-run platform. Might that Linux system be harder to hack into?
• The US military will implement a thorough biometrics system to replace long, complicated passwords at computer terminals. The biometrics system will track a user for the entire duration of their computer use, unlike passwords which are only required at the beginning of a user's session. In related news, Argentina is developing a massive biometrics system replete with face recognition. How do you say Big Brother en Español?
• The US military is also in the process of developing a hair-brained scheme that will attempt to predict what the world — and us miserly humans in it — is thinking. They call the system "Social Radar," and the inputs into it will include the city-wide surveillance DHS is busily funding nationwide. Keeping it creepy, US military! Read the hair-brained report. Check out the "visualization" of the process below.

• The NYPost reports that the NYPD is nearly ready to deploy its own street-level X-ray. The Post says that the NYC police developed the system in consultation with the US military over the past few years. The system will be deployed in a van driven around the streets of NYC looking for people with concealed weapons. I smell a legal challenge. Is that you, @NYCLU?
• And finally, a report on more police militarization nationwide in advance of large political conventions and international summits.