It Can Happen Here

I love this article by Theodore Gray. I’ve written very similar things regarding surveillance and security. The whole article is very well stated.

America has always been at its best when we have been courageous, not when we have cowered in fear. And let’s make no mistake about it: When a country commits outrageous, population-wide violations of long-held rights and freedoms—in response to attacks by individuals and small armed groups that pose no threat to the nation as a whole—that country is acting out of blind fear.

It is beneath the dignity of the great country I live in to act this way. 

And this part is very important to remember during an election year.

And if you happen to like the party in power today, just remember, every tool you give them is inherited by the next guy. Think of the worst possible outcome of the next election, the worst new president, the worst new congress you can imagine (whichever one that might be for you). Do you want those people to have the power to look and listen to anyone they please, anytime, anywhere? To search at will through recordings of our most personal moments? To use a rubber stamp warrant to gather dirt on someone who insulted them? To review the browsing history of anyone who annoys them publicly enough? 

Fear is the tool of choice for bringing a free people under the yoke. Fear is the great equalizer between the unlimited power of the people to act in their own interest, and the pitiful weakness of a would-be despot.

I highly recommend reading the whole thing.