Police State: If You Build It They Will Use It

[phantom power]

Mother Jones has published an investigative series on the FBI that is just mind-blowing.

The Informants
The FBI has built a massive network of spies to prevent another domestic attack. But are they busting terrorist plots—or leading them?-- Trevor Aaronson

Locked Up Abroad—for the FBI
How our government enlists foreign regimes to detain and interrogate American citizens. —Nick Baumann

Radical Leftist or Feds' BFF?
To many on the left, Brandon Darby was a hero. To federal agents consumed with busting anarchist terror cells, he was the perfect snitch. —Josh Harkinson

...

All the articles illustrate exactly how creeping authoritarianism overtakes a free nation. All it takes is a boogeyman and government sanction to build the institutions and create the processes that over time become the norm.

In all this discussion of budget cutting and "shared sacrifice", I've seen no talk of taking a look at the Homeland Security --- an entirely new bureaucracy that has had virtually no scrutiny -- and FBI budgets, swollen after 9/11 to previously unimaginable numbers. This has become another sacrosanct area that cannot be touched or questioned.

When all the slashing is done and we've Grand Bargained our way into a second world society, the security state will be left standing, looking for reasons to justify itself, finding excuses to validate its mission over and over again. Eventually it becomes self-protective, which means using fear to sustain itself.

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2011/08/if-you-build-it-they-wil-use-it-part.html

[FiveGoodMen]

1. Thanks for posting this

Don't know how so many fail to see the implications.

[villager]

3. Including, alas, those in the current administration, or in the Dem party in general

n/t

[phantom power]

6. Not long after the original patriot act was passed, I remember reading...

some blogger or other commenting: "Don't think this is going to just go away, even if Democrats get elected."

[dajoki]

2. K&R

[The2ndWheel]

4. Did you say build?

Creates jobs. Increases demand. Circulates money. Grows the economy. Build, build, build!

[Dragonfli]

5. Like when J. Edger Hoover kept files on everyone and used them to protect his position

So to will they use their now enormous power to spy on all of us to blackmail any pols that try to ratchet back their police state.
In short, it is here to stay and will only get worse.