"We don’t spy on Americans, just anti-government Americans"

"The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error." - John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

I am one of those that can easily be called "anti-government", much due to the fact that I believe morality and good ideas ought not be mandatory and that we should have the right to make our own mistakes and fail, and shoot ourselves in the foot and carve our own path.

It saddens me, though does not surprise me, to learn that my government spies on those that have views critical of the government.

A slew of questions fly to my mind: how did we let this happen? What gives them the right to decide that I'm such a liability? Why does criticism equate to criminal?

Really, I think the only answer is that this is simply a giant power struggle. The problem of being an incumbent in a position of power is that you only have two options: to hold power, or lose it. Others have those options, and the option of obtaining power.

I question where this will lead. Will this blog post simply be added to my dossier, because I fundamentally distrust those that spy on those that distrust them?

I question how we citizens can fight this. When someone has the ability to snoop on you without you detecting them, they have truly achieved a position of power and control over you; what sort of blackmail can they bring on their threats? Are they simply waiting for a threat to make a misstep so they may arrest them for a non-issue?

This is the darker side of technology, and the darkest side of ignorance. We are, as a whole, ignorant of how technology works and how our government treats us. There are a great many things wrong with the attitude of these fusion centers (if you aren't with us, you are against us, and if you are against us we will build a case on you) that need not even be discussed, and yet how would the average citizen even begin to understand this?

There is an inherent "us versus them" attitude that seems to be bred into us (or, at least, Edward Said compellingly argues in his book Orientalism), and I see that being used and abused here. To say you can spy on "anti-government Americans" because they're anti-government is no different than when we took communists and anarchists to court because they thought differently.

And if I have seen anything from government and history it is this: the anti-government folks, like the communists, like the anarchists, will be demonized and silenced, and the government will walk away a saint.

http://rt.com/usa/fusion-center-director-spying-070/