Terrorists Everywhere!

Report anything out of the ordinary. Be watchful. Be thankful that the police, especially the TSA, insure that we board airplanes safely, no matter the indignity, and now it's protecting us on trains, buses, even highways.

Surliness with 'an officer' could get you arrested. Then, the Supreme Court says, you can be strip-searched, told to "spread 'em," but all in the name of safety, and to prevent terrorists from taking over--and imposing Shariah law on the rest of us. Whew! Thank God for the 'officers' protection.

Actually, the strip-search is for the officers' protection, as Justice Kennedy's brief makes clear, and the Solicitor General's, too. After listing the astonishing variety of drugs found hidden in suspects' rectums and vaginas, the SG's brief includes this: "inmate hospitalized after trying to smuggle a knife into jail inside his body" and "man arrested for selling bootlegged CD's was found concealing a nine-millimeter handgun between rolls of fat."

So, it's the war on drugs plus fear of terrorism plus prison security that persuaded the Supreme Court to allow strip-searches for anyone detained. What happened to the 4th Amendment? "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures?"

Traffic accidents easily outpace casualties from terror in the US, or Europe. Yet, governments are using the (manufactured) fear of terror to become police-states. The US leads the way.

Now, the NSA, or other government agency, or private corporation, knows all about you: don't believe those privacy statements guaranteeing privacy. First of all, have you read them completely? Maybe the lawyers who wrote them have. NSA, et al, now have the capability, and acquiescence or support/authorization to collect our email, Facebook posts, this blog, anything anyone ever puts on the Internet. Why? Since we're scared of the terrorists, it's easy to whip up political support for all the surveillance we can stand. However, we're really scared because the United States, with the most deadly and mobile military in the world, can't stop the terrorists, and are the terrorists in places like Afghanistan and Yemen.

Freudians call it projection.

Outside the US, America is perceived as brash, undisciplined and dangerous. Our political polarization and surge towards corporatocracy only reinforces that: our imperial bullying has driven many world-wide into seeing the US as the most dangerous nation on Earth.

The US has a penchant to 'fix' international problems through force. Increasingly, it is resorting to covert means: drones, special ops, mercenaries, spies, and in the US, domestic police are adapting the same techniques.

In the late Roman Empire, the less in control they were, the more vicious government agents became--military or police. We appear to be treading down the same slippery slope.