As of late American citizens have been more concerned with surveillance and privacy than ever before. Rightfully so, as we see an explosion of surveillance equipment being installed across the country.
For decades, liberty activists have diligently watched and warned of the slowly encroaching mission creep of domestic mass surveillance seeping its way into everyday American life. Opposition to such violations of fundamental liberty have been one of the few causes to transcend the false left / right paradigm, with instances such as leftists opposed to the surveillance of civil rights groups during the days of COINTELPRO and conservative opposition to the surveillance of Second Amendment activists.
Even today, amid rising concerns of the mass implementation of Flock cameras across the nation, these concerns are actively creating a bridge of solidarity among the polarized political chasm.
While surveillance of the American citizenry has existed in some way for more than a century, the persistent punitive pervasiveness of such violations of privacy have been perpetually on the rise since the passage of the Patriot Act following the false flag attack of September 11th, 2001.
Interestingly enough, the provisions of the Patriot Act with all of its violations of constitutional protections had already been cooked up well before the September 11th attacks but was projected not to pass a congressional vote until such attacks took place. Indeed, the Patriot Act simply served as an expansion of surveillance authority circumventing the Constitution implemented in the 1996 Antiterrorism Act, itself only justified following the Oklahoma City false flag attack just a year prior. Simply a coincidence, surely.
The conversation surrounding concerns about domestic mass surveillance reached mainstream dialog following the explosive revelations of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden in 2013, when leaked documents provided to journalist Glenn Greenwald revealed a sprawling network of illegal spying against American citizens through the National Security Agency’s PRISM program.
Despite Snowden’s revelations and warnings, and subsequent surveillance scandals in the years since, next to nothing has been done to curtail this campaign of illegal mass spying against the American people. In fact, it has only continued to worsen.
This brings us to today. Oftentimes in discussion of illegal mass surveillance, the cynical statist would posit a straw man argument to the likes of “What does it matter? If you’ve done nothing wrong you should have nothing to hide.” As if an all encompassing surveillance state simply exists in a vacuum. As if history has not demonstrated again and again the kind of atrocities enabled by repressive regimes who track, trace, and database their citizenry.
Mass surveillance does not simply exist to “keep an eye on people”, it serves as a tool of the state to suppress dissent, identify and silence dissidents, and centralize control over the populace.
Here at The Free Thought Project, we have warned for years about the dangers of integrating artificial intelligence with law enforcement.
Now, it appears the Trump administration is diving head first into a Minority Report style pre crime surveillance system powered by AI to throw a digital dragnet over the entirety of the American people.
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