In the current system, the government has the means to gather all the info it needs, to railroad anybody who displeases the powers that be. The Obama administration has also repeatedly demonstrated the willingness to use power to punish political opponents.
>>Police state? Yeh, I was thinking about that while I went through the security checkpoint on my way to the state re-education center to turn in my unapproved propaganda. Got a tinfoil hat on you? Mine’s blown off somewhere.
Your 20th century thinking is limiting your ability to see. In the 30’s, people had information on paper. They worked with real objects. Their prized material goods were...well...material.
Today, information is everything. It is our identity, our work, and for the younger generations, it is even their things of value.
A couple entries in a database and you can’t get car insurance, or the insurance you have no longer exists. Someone can hack your accounts and upload some child porn, and you become an instant pariah.
The NSA is the instrument of the 21st century police state and your tinfoil hat won’t protect you anymore because you carry the mind control device in your pocket.
Jesus H. Christ. ALL the revelations and you talk about TIN FOIL HATS??!?
Will you admit to being in a police state once you hear of many of the goons breaking doors down of people who might think differently than the State approves of?
Or will it require that they actually break YOUR door down?
And even then, will you admit it?
Look: Normally I would write "may your chains rest lightly upon you" but it looks like the chains will be on us all... so I will get scant Shaedenfreude from knowing you, too, suffer.