Should American airports screen passengers to identify those who may have Ebola? Government officials and U.S. airlines are considering this, as public concern in the West grows after news of new cases affecting non-Africans. — Read the rest

Built on Firefox OS, the Matchstick is free software and open source hardware — anything in your Firefox browser-window can be "flinged" into your HDMI TV; it's an incredible $12 for one stick.

Courts have appreciated that even distributed denial of service attacks can be legitimate form of public protest. Molly Sauter on the insane U.S. law used to criminalize them and other forms of online activism.

The Inspectorate of Constabulary says that police now tell victims of property crimes to "solve the crimes themselves," directing them over the phone to review CCTV footage and canvas their neighbourhoods for witnesses.

Michael Daniel thinks "being too down in the weeds at the technical level could actually be a little bit of a distraction"; Ed Felten counters, "Imagine reaction if White House economic advisor bragged about lack of economics knowledge, or Attorney General bragged about lack of legal expertise."

Shannon Renee McNeal (right), a 42-year-old woman, has filed a lawsuit against St Louis police and court personnel after they falsely arrested her on felony drug possession charges that were meant for Shannon Raquel McNeal (left), who was 13 years younger. — Read the rest

One year

UK intel officials enter Guardian offices, destroy hard drives with Snowden docs: The Guardian's editor-in-chief, Alan Rusbridger, explains that he is now forced to work on stories about the US National Security Administration from New York City, because UK intelligence officials went into the Guardian's headquarters and destroyed hard drives that had copies of some of documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. — Read the rest

Photos, videos and messages from the St. Louis suburb where police killed unarmed teenager Mike Brown.

Catchy tune, Doraville SWAT.

Déjà vu, guys: "American warplanes struck Sunni militant positions in northern Iraq on Friday, the Pentagon and Kurdish officials said, confirming the first significant American military operation in the country since United States forces withdrew in 2011." — Read the rest

USIS, a major federal contractor that conducts background checks for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, disclosed today that it was the victim of a hack which likely involved the theft of federal employees' personal data.

Startling shots from Gaza, Israel, and elsewhere depict despair and outrage at a seemingly-intractable crisis.

"After years of cyberattacks on the networks of high-profile government targets like the Pentagon, Chinese hackers appear to have turned their attention to far more obscure federal agencies."

North Korea has filed a formal complaint to the United Nations over an upcoming American film about an attempted assassination of its leader.

The German government believes that one of its military personnel has been spying on the German state for the NSA.

Breaking smallpox news this afternoon: The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention just announced that National Institutes of Health staff have discovered vials containing smallpox "sitting in a laboratory storage room in Bethesda." The vials were labeled "variola," which is "the severe and most common form of smallpox" according to CDC. — Read the rest

On the evening of 6/30/14 we received an assistance request from the King County Sheriff for a hiker who had become cliffed out above Melakwa Lake near Snoqualmie Pass. The hiker was notified that ground teams from Seattle Mountain Rescue and King Co.

Under the world's most boring headline, the New York Times published a bizarre scoop by reporter James Risen this weekend. Did you read it? — Read the rest

China spends even more on internal "stability maintenance" and security than it does on its army. Some of that incredible budget goes to forced holidays for dissidents that get them out of the way during events like the 25th anniversary of Tienanmen Square. — Read the rest

The us military instructions say that "[Detainees use] media, lawyers and int’l organizations to spread a false message of: mental anguish, inhumane detention conditions, medical mistreatment, abuse."