No, it's worse than I describe because the average layperson has no clue just how powerful “information” can be. He is ignorant, and with arguments such as “I have nothing to hide” he goes along his daily life not realizing that the US today has created an intelligence apparatus which the former East block countries wouldn't ever have imagined possible. You see, the Iron curtain was crude, primitive and in your face, it was a state where people knew they were being watched, but here it's simply subtle and non-intrusive, most of the time. The power given to government is massive, and it is mere self restraint that prevents it's abuse. Do you think people are naturally good?
Privacy in America equates to sexual and reproductive issues (a legacy of the feminist and homosexual agenda that have largely twisted what privacy is really all about), and is towards friends, family and co-workers. This is the complete antithesis of what the Constitutionally inferred concept of privacy is really intended to protect you from, the government. Ironically, the government has given itself the authority for unlimited collection, without probable cause, with indefinite retention, based on some policies that are secret, that various attorneys within the government agencies doing the surveillance interpret, but that's not an issue?
Without disclosure of the accuser or even presentation of evidence against one (6th amendment), where you have secret courts without a defense and are not public (6th amendment again), where with “NSLs” information is collected and private entities are bullied into submission and threatened if they disclose they have been served a NSL (5th amendment), where a government has simply given itself the right to collect anything electronic without a warrant or probable cause (4th amendment)... In the DDR they would keep records when college students left and returned to the dorms, who was talking to whom, etc. What exactly is the difference between that and what we do, please do explain?
> In the DDR they would keep records when college students left and returned to the dorms, who was talking to whom, etc. What exactly is the difference between that and what we do, please do explain?
People were risking machine-gun fire to try to escape from the DDR. (The difference is in the aim of the information gathering. If people who may be Muslim terrorists are taking flight training in U.S. schools, I want the government to know about it.)
> ...once the power shifts in one direction, it tends to never really go back the other way...
The times we look back upon as “America, land of the brave and the free” were after the examples I gave (unless we are very old).