General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: The Latest Snowden Leak Is Devastating to NSA Defenders [View all]DirkGently
(12,151 posts)Notice how your authoritarian types always have several, world-threatening sets of Bad People on hand, to explain why we must Stop At Nothing to maintain security.
Conservatives have bagfuls of these boogeymen. Immigrants, other religions, other ethnicities. Commies, hippies, radical college professors.
Two guys calling themselves the "New Black Panthers."
And yes, the nomenclature of "war" is the big red flag. The War on Drugs brought us no-knock searches and cops in military gear flash-banging the wrong house and maybe shooting a grandmother before realizing they had the wrong address.
Now the War on Terror is supposed to require further shredding the Bill of Rights, in exchange for a theoretically safer world that has never been shown to be available through these means.
People catch on a little, here and there, but fear is a powerful tool. "Let us have this, or your kids will be hurt," is the basic argument. As through drugs or bombs or war would go away if everyone was watched all the time.
Even if that tradeoff were possible, who would really want it?