This week, Wired revealed what sounds like the opening scene of a Black Mirror episode but is instead an official accident report. During a military electronic warfare exercise near New Mexico, experimental GPS jamming apparently disabled the navigation systems of a civilian medical evacuation aircraft. Flying through poor visibility, the crew unknowingly flew directly into a mountain, killing all four people aboard. Aviation experts say it is the first known case of military GPS jamming contributing to the crash of a civilian aircraft in U.S. airspace. Even more encouraging, reported GPS interference events have exploded from 4 in 2020 to roughly 50 in 2024 and dozens more in 2025, suggesting the program is scaling nicely.
Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C., retired Army Captain Anna King, a Purple Heart recipient and Bronze Star veteran, was sitting on a bench outside her own home when National Guard troops entered her yard, forced her to the ground, and zip-tied her hands behind her back. According to a federal tort claim filed by the ACLU, King believes she was targeted after displaying anti-deployment signs outside her home criticizing the Guard’s presence in the capital. She is seeking $3 million in damages. Apparently “support the troops” now comes with an asterisk: unless you’re questioning why they’re standing in your front yard. (Source: NPR.) On the bright side, maintaining thousands of troops in Washington through 2029 will cost taxpayers only about $1.4 billion, according to Pentagon estimates provided to Congress, as reported in Aljazeera.
For those who escape military checkpoints and targeted radio jamming, the surveillance apparatus has another mechanism: perpetual biometrics harvesting.Internal documents uncovered by Wired reveal that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) collected DNA from nearly 1 million people over the last year alone—including young children.
Under expanding federal directives, hundreds of thousands of individuals who have never been convicted of any crimeare now permanently indexed in the FBI’s CODIS criminal database. Genetic material is taken upon mere contact, stripping away bodily autonomy and transforming millions of innocent people into lifelong suspects in a state-run genetic dragnet.
Finally, if you thought the dystopian future would at least offer polite service robots, think again.
As journalist Matt Bivens notes on Substack, the militarization of autonomous technology is accelerating at a terrifying pace. Quadrupedal “robot dogs”—such as those manufactured by China’s Unitree—can now sprint at speeds over 10 mph (a sub-six-minute mile) and perform synchronized tactical maneuvers. In places like Kazakhstan, these metal canines are already deployed to hunt down citizens flagged for unpaid alimony.
Experts continue to assure the public that all of these developments are unrelated.
They are simply occurring simultaneously.
On an entirely coincidental planet.
Please remain calm while your navigation system disconnects, your DNA is archived, your local neighborhood is permanently secured, and the robot politely requests that you stop resisting.
