[185JHP]

To paraphrase Brandeis: "(Some of) the greatest dangers to liberty lie in the insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning, but without understanding."

[steve50]

"Single acts of tyranny may be ascribed to the accidental opinion of a day. But a series of oppressions begun at a distinguished period , and pursued unalterably through every change of ministers (administrations), too plainly proves a deliberate systematic plan of reducing us to slavery."
Thomas Jefferson

I would say it's been going on since at least 1913, many think 1860