The NYPD Spy Program and the US Surveillance State
The essential expression of the American Surveillance State: we can and will know everything about what you do, and you will know virtually nothing about what we do. In a healthy society, that formula would be reversed: the citizenry would know most everything about what their government does, while the government would know nothing about what citizens do in the absence of well-grounded suspicion that they have done something wrong. Yet here we have the NYPD wandering outside of its jurisdiction in order to spy on the innocuous activities of a religious minority, and the most disturbing part of it all is how common it now is.
The Growing 9/11 Drone Army
Never let it be said that the military industrial complex does not heavily rely on 9/11 to continue and thrive. From 54 drones in 2001 to the current 6,000 in-stock, within 10 years of 9/11 the US Army saw a net increase of their drone arsenal by 11,000%. And a new law signed by Obama last week, HR 658, is set to increase the amount of drones in the USA. The FAA projects that 30,000 drones could be in the nation’s skies by 2020.
The Ever-Expanding Bipartisan Surveillance State
Allowing government officials to shield their own conduct from transparency and even judicial review ensures that National Security State officials (public and private) can do whatever they want without any detection and (therefore) without limit or accountability. That is what the Surveillance State, at its core, is designed to achieve: the destruction of privacy for individual citizens and an impenetrable wall of secrecy for those with unlimited surveillance power.